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ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, an
eminent nobleman, statesman, and poet of the reign of James VI. and Charles
I. The original rank of this personage was that of a small landed proprietor
or laird; but he was elevated, by dint of his various accomplishments, and
through the favour of the two sovereigns above-mentioned, to the rank of an
earl. His family, which possessed the small estate of Menstrie, near
Stirling, is said to have derived the name Alexander from the prenomen of
their ancestor, Alexander Macdonald, a highlander, who had been settled in
this property by the Earl of Argyle, whose residence of Castle Campbell is
in the neighbourhood. William Alexander is supposed to have first seen the
light in 1580. Nature having obviously marked him for a higher destiny than
that to which he was born, he received from his friends the best education
which the time and place could afford, and, at a very early age, he
accompanied the young Earl of Argyle upon his foreign travels, in the
capacity of tutor. Previous to this period, when only fifteen years of age,
he had been smit with the charms of some country beauty, "the cynosure
of neighbouring eyes;" on his return from the continent, his passion
was found to have suffered no abatement. He spent some time in rural
retirement, and wrote no fewer than a hundred sonnets, as a ventilation to
the fervours of his breast; but all his poetry was in vain, so far as the
lady was concerned. She thought of matrimony, while he thought of love; and
accordingly, on being solicited by a more aged suitor, in other respects
eligible, did not scruple to accept his hand. The poet took a more sensible
way of consoling himself for this disappointment than might have been
expected; he married another lady, the daughter and heiress of Sir William
Erskine.
His century of sonnets was
published in London in 1604, under the title of "Aurora, containing the
First Fancies of the Author's Youth, by W. Alexander, of Menstrie."
From the situation of Alexander's estate, near the residence of the king at
Stirling, and in a vale which his majesty frequented for the pleasure of
hawking, he had early been introduced to royal notice; and, accordingly, it
appears that, when James removed to London, in 1603, the poet did not remain
long behind, but soon became a dependent upon the English court. It is
honourable to Alexander that in this situation he did not, like most court
poets of that age, employ his pen in the adulation of majesty; his works
breathe a very different strain. Having studied deeply the ancient
philosophers and poets, he descanted on the vanity of grandeur, the value of
truth, the abuse of power, and the burthen of riches. His moralizings
assumed the strange shape of tragedies - compositions not at all designed
for the stage, but intended simply to embody the sentiments which arose in
his mind upon such subjects as those we have mentioned. His first tragedy
was grounded upon the story of Darius, and appeared at Edinburgh in 1603. He
afterwards republished it at London, in 1607, along with similar
compositions upon the stories of Alexander, Croesus, and Caesar, under the
title of "Monarchick Tragedies, by William Alexander, gentleman of the
Princes' Privy Chamber." It would thus appear that he had now obtained
a place in the household of Prince Henry; to whom he had previously
addressed a poem or paraenesis, designed to show how the happiness of a
sovereign depends upon his choosing such councillors as can throw off
private grudges, regard public concerns, and will not, to betray their
seats, become pensioners. This poem, of which no copy of the original
edition is known to exist, except one in the University library at
Edinburgh, was, after the death of Henry, addressed to Prince Charles, who
then became heir-apparent; an economy in poetical, not to speak of court
business, which cannot be sufficiently admired. He was, in 1613, appointed
one of the gentlemen ushers of the presence to this unfortunate prince. King
James is said to have been a warm admirer of the poems of Alexander, to have
honoured him with his conversation, and called him "my philosophical
poet. " He was now aspiring to the still more honourable
character of a divine poet, for in 1614, appeared at Edinburgh, his largest
and perhaps his most meritorious production, entitled, "Doomsday, or
the Great Day of Judgment," which has been several times reprinted.
Hitherto the career of
Alexander had been chiefly that of a poet: it was henceforth entirely that
of a courtier. Advanced to the age of thirty-five, the pure and amiable
temperament of the poet gave way before the calculating and mercenary views
of the politician; and the future years of his life are therefore less
agreeable in recital than those which are past. In 1614, he was knighted by
king James, and appointed to the situation of master of requests. In 1621,
the king gave him a grant by his royal deed of the province of Nova Scotia,
which as yet had not been colonized. Alexander designed at first to
establish settlers upon this new country, and, as an inducement to the
purchase of land, it was proposed that the king should confer, upon all who
paid a hundred and fifty pounds for six thousand acres, the honour of a
knight baronetcy. Owing to the perplexed politics of the last years of king
James, he did not get this scheme carried into effect, but Charles had no
sooner acceded than he resolved upon giving it his support.
Alexander, in 1625, published
a pamphlet, entitled, "An Encouragement to Colonies," the object
of which was to state the progress already made, to recommend the scheme to
the nation, and to invite adventurers. It is also supposed that he had a
hand in "A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New
England, and of sundry accidents therein occurring from the year 1607 to
this present 1622: together with the state thereof as it now standeth, the
general form of government intended, and the division of the whole territory
into counties, baronies, &c." King Charles, who probably considered
the scheme in a two-fold light, as a means of establishing a new colony, and
of remunerating an old servant at the expense of others, conferred upon Sir
William Alexander the rank of Lieutenant of New Scotland, and founded the
necessary order of knights baronets of the same territory. The number of
these baronets was not to exceed a hundred and fifty, and it was ordained
that the title should be hereditary - that they should take precedence of
all ordinary knights and lairds, and of all other gentlemen, except Sir
William Alexander, and that they should have place in all his majesty's and
his successors' armies, near and about the royal standard for the defence
thereof with other honourable distinctions of precedency, to them, their
wives, and heirs. The ceremony of infeftment or seasine was decreed to take
place on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, the earth and stone of which were
held, by a fiction, to represent the component particles of certain baronies
and lordships on the other side of the Atlantic.
For the amusement of the
reader, we shall give an account of the equivocal mode of procedure adopted
in this scheme, and of its shameful conclusion, from the fantastic pen of
Sir Thomas Urquhart. "It did not satisfy him," says Sir Thomas, in
reference to Alexander, (Discovery of a most Exquisite Jewel, &c., 8Vo,
1652,) "to have a laurel from the Muses, and be esteemed a king among
poets, but he must also be king of some new-found land; and, like another
Alexander, indeed, searching after new worlds, have the sovereignty of Nova
Scotia! He was born a poet, and aimed to be a king; therefore he would have
his royal title from king James, who was born a king, and aimed to be a
poet. Had he stopped there, it had been well; but the flame of his honour
must have some oil wherewith to nourish it; like another Arthur he must have
his knights, though nothing limited to so small a number; for how many
soever, who could have looked but for one day like gentlemen, and given him
but one hundred and fifty pounds sterling (without any need of a key for
opening the gate to enter through the temple of virtue, which, in former
times, was the only way to honour,) they had a scale from him whereby to
ascend unto the platforms of virtue; which they treading under their feet,
did slight the ordinary passages, and to take the more sudden possession of
the temple of honour, went upon obscure by-paths of their own, towards some
secret angiports and dark postern doors, which were so narrow that few of
them could get in, until they had left all their gallantry behind them: Yet
such being their resolution, that in they would and be worshipful upon any
terms; they misregarded all formerly used steps of promotion, accounting
them but unnecessary; and most rudely pushing into the very sanctuary, they
immediately hung out the orange colours, "the colour of the ribbon by
which the order was suspended," to testify their conquest of the honour
of knight baronet. Their king nevertheless, not to stain his royal dignity,
or to seem to merit the imputation of selling honour to his subjects, did,
for their money, give them land, and that in so ample a measure, that every
one of his knight baronets had, for his hundred and fifty pounds sterling,
heritably disposed to him six thousand good and sufficient acres of Nova
Scotia ground; which being at the rate of but sixpence an acre, and not to
be thought very dear; considering how prettily, in the respective parchments
of disposition, they were bounded and designed; fruitful cornfields, watered
with pleasant rivers, running along most excellent and spacious meadows; nor
did there want abundance of oaken groves, in the midst of very fertile
plains, or if it wanted anything it was the scrivener's or writer's fault,
for he "[Alexander ]" gave orders, as soon as he received the
three thousand Scots marks, that there should be no defect of quantity, or
quality, in measure or goodness of land, and here and there most delicious
gardens and orchards; with whatever else could, in matter of delightful
ground, best content their fancies; as if they had made purchase among them
of the Elysian fields or Mahomet's paradise; and although there should have
happened a thousand acres more to be put into the charter, or writing of
disposition, than was agreed upon at first, he cared not; half a piece to
the clerk was able to make him dispense with that. But at last when he had
enrolled three hundred knights, who for their hundred and fifty pieces each
had purchased among them several millions of New Caledonian acres, confirmed
to them and theirs for ever, under the great seal, the affixing whereof was
to cost each of them but thirty pieces more; finding that the society was
not likely to become any more numerous, and that the ancient gentry of
Scotland esteemed such a whimsical dignity to be a disparagement, rather
than any addition to their former honour; he bethought himself of a course
more profitable to himself and the future establishment of his own state; in
prosecuting whereof without the advice of his knights, who represented both
houses of parliament, clergy and all, like an absolute king indeed, he
disposed heritably to the French for a matter of five or six thousand pounds
English money, both the dominion and property of the whole country of that
kingdom of Nova Scotia; leaving the new baronets to search for land amongst
the Seleites in the moon, or turn knights of the sun; so dearly have they
bought their orange ribband, which, all things considered, is, and will be,
more honourable to them, or their posterity, than it is or hath been
profitable to either." It thus appears that Alexander's Nova Scotian
scheme, whatever might have been originally contemplated, degenerated at
last into a mere means of raising money by the sale of titles; a system too
much practised in the English reign of James VI., and which gained, as it
deserved, the contempt of all honourable minds. The territory of Nova Scotia
afterwards fell into the hands of the French, who affected to believe that
they had acquired a right to it by a treaty entered into with the king of
Great Britain, in 1632, in which the country of Acadia was ceded to them. In
the treaty of peace transacted between the two countries, in 1763, it was
successfully asserted by the British government that Nova Scotia was totally
distinct from Acadia, and accordingly the territory reverted to Britain,
along with Canada. The country, however, having become the property of other
individuals during the usurpation of the French, it appears that the Nova
Scotia baronets have very slight prospects of ever regaining the lands to
which their titles were originally attached.
In 1626, Sir William
Alexander, was, by the favour of Charles I., made secretary of state for
Scotland; an office to which the salary of £100 a-year, being that of a
good mercantile clerk in the present day, was then attached. In 1630, by the
further favour of his sovereign, he was raised to the peerage under the
title of viscount Stirling; and in 1633, at the coronation of king Charles
in Holyrood chapel, he was promoted to the rank of an earl under the same
title. He held the office of secretary during fifteen years, and gained the
credit of being a moderate statesman in the midst of many violent political
scenes. It does not appear, however, that he was a popular character. Such
esteem as he might have gained by his poetry, seems to have been lost in
consequence of the arts by which his sovereign endeavoured to give him
riches. A permission which he acquired, probably in his character of
lieutenant of Nova Scotia, to coin base money, became a grievance to the
community, and procured him much obloquy. He had erected a splendid mansion
at Stirling out of his ill-acquired gains, and affixed upon its front his
armorial bearings, with the motto "Per Mare, per Terras." This was
parodied, as we are informed by the sarcastic Scott of Scotstarvet, into
"Per metre, per turners," in allusion to the sources of his
wealth, the people believing that the royal favour had a reference to his
lordship's poetry, while turners, or black farthings, as they
were otherwise called, had been one of the shapes in which this favour was
expressed. The house still remains, a monument of the taste of the poet.
The earl of Stirling, in
1637, published a complete edition of his poetical works, under the general
title of "Recreations with the Muses." The work contained his four
"Monarchick Tragedies," his "Doomsday," the "Paraenesis
to Prince Henry," and "Jonathan, an Heroick Poem Intended, the
first book," the whole revised and very much improved by the author. He
died in 1640, leaving three sons and two daughters, whose posterity was
supposed to have been completely extinct, till a claimant appeared in 1830,
as descended from one of the younger branches of the family, and who has
assumed the titles of Stirling and Devon. Considered as a poet, Alexander is
intitled to considerable praise. "His style is certainly neither pure
nor correct, which may perhaps be attributed to his long familiarity with
the Scottish language; but his versification is in general much superior to
that of his contemporaries, and approaches nearer to the elegance of modern
times than could have been expected from one who wrote so much. There are
innumerable beauties scattered over the whole of his works, but particularly
in his songs and sonnets; the former are a species of irregular odes, in
which the sentiment, occasionally partaking of the quaintness of his age, is
more frequently new and forcibly expressed. The powers of mind displayed in
his Doomsday and Paraenesis are very considerable, although we are
frequently able to trace the allusions and imagery to the language of holy
writ; and he appears to have been less inspired by the sublimity than by the
awful importance of his subject to rational beings. A habit of moralizing
pervades all his writings; but in the ‘Doomsday’ he appears deeply
impressed with his subject, and more anxious to persuade the heart than to
delight the imagination." - Johnson and Chalmers’' English Poets, edit.
1810, vol. v.
The Earl of Stirling was
employed in his latter years in the task of revising the version of the
Psalms prepared by king James, which duty was imposed upon him by the royal
paraphrast himself. In a letter to his friend, Drummond of Hawthornden, 28th
of April, 1620, Alexander says, "Brother, I received your last letter,
with the psalm you sent, which I think very well done: I had done the same
long before it came; but he [king James) prefers his own to all else; I
though, perchance when you see it, you will think it the worst of the
three. No man must meddle with that subject, and therefore I advise you
to take no more pains therein." In consideration of the pains which the
Earl had bestowed upon this subject, Charles I, on the 28th of December,
1627, granted a license to his lordship, to print the late king's version of
the Psalms exclusively for thirty-one years. The first edition appeared at
Oxford, in 1631. The king endeavoured to enforce the use of his father's
version alone throughout his dominions; and, if he had been successful, the
privilege would have been a source of immense profit to the Earl of
Stirling. But the royal wishes were resisted by the Scottish church, and
were not very respectfully obeyed any where else; and the breaking out of
the civil war soon after rendered the privilege entirely useless.*
*The corpse of the Earl of
Stirling was deposited in a leaden coffin in the family-aisle in the church
of Stirling, above ground, and remained entire for upwards of a hundred
years. – Paragraph from an old
newspaper. |
