The severe, though popular government of Elizabeth had confined this rising spirit within very narrow bounds; but when a new and a foreign family succeeded to the throne, and a prince less dreaded and less beloved, symptoms immediately appeared of a more free and independent genius in the nation.
Happily, this prince possessed neither sufficient capacity to perceive the alteration, nor sufficient art and vigor to check it in its early advances.

Jealous of regal, because conscious of little personal authority, he had established within his own mind a speculative system of absolute government, which few of his subjects, he believed, and none but traitors and rebels, would make any scruple to admit.

On whichever side he cast his eye, every thing concurred to encourage his prejudices.
When he compared himself with the other hereditary sovereigns of Europe, he imagined that, as he bore the same rank, he was entitled to equal prerogatives; not considering the innovations lately introduced by them, and the military force by which their authority was supported.
In England, that power, almost unlimited, which had been exercised for above a century, especially during the late reign, he ascribed solely to royal birth and title; not to the prudence and spirit of the monarchs, nor to the conjunctures of the times.

Even the opposition which he had struggled with in Scotland, encouraged him still further in his favorite notions; while he there saw, that the same resistance which opposed regal authority, violated all law and order, and made way either for the ravages of a barbarous nobility, or for the more intolerable insolence of seditious preachers.

In his own person, therefore, he thought all legal power to be centred, by an hereditary and a divine right: and this opinion might have proved dangerous, if not fatal to liberty, had not the firmness of the persuasion, and its seeming evidence, induced him to trust solely to his right, without making the smallest provision, either of force or politics, in order to support it.
Such were the opposite dispositions of parliament and prince at the commencement of the Scottish line; dispositions just beginning to exist and to appear in the parliament,[*] [46] but thoroughly established and openly avowed on the part of the prince.
* See note TT, at the end of the volume.
The spirit and judgment of the house of commons appeared, not only in defence of their own privileges, but also in their endeavor, though at this time in vain, to free trade from those shackles which the high exerted prerogative, and even, in this respect, the ill-judged tyranny of Elizabeth, had imposed upon it.
James had already, of his own accord, called in and annulled all the numerous patents for monopolies which had been granted by his predecessor, and which extremely fettered every species of domestic industry: but the exclusive companies still remained; another species of monopoly, by which almost all foreign trade, except that to France, was brought into the hands of a few rapacious engrossers, and all prospect of future improvement in commerce was forever sacrificed to a little temporary advantage of the sovereign.