Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

INTRODUCTION.
H E accession of King James was accepted loyally
and tranquilly in the inns of court, as elsewhere. The
legal and judicial officers were continued, and the
king's leisurely progress through his new kingdom,
suggested a sense of security, and gave no indication
of the troubles which the future had in store for
himself and his descendants. The period covered by the entries in
this volume, from the death of Elizabeth in 1603 to the restoration
of royalty in 166o, comprises one of the most momentous epochs
of our history. It must, however, be borne in mind that our society
has never been specially identified with any political party. It is,
and has always been, a home or a college for lawyers and students
and for young gentlemen seeking a liberal education to qualify them
for various employments in the state. So many members of our
fellowship, indeed, played important parts in the struggles of the
period, that it may have been thought prudent that nothing should
appear in our journals to indicate that the templars, as a body, were
interested in political or ecclesiastical affairs. High churchmen and
puritans met together amicably under the same roof and, except
in so far as the commons and the king caused a temporary
separation, cavaliers and roundheads lived together in harmony and
joined in conducting the business of the inn. The occasional appearance
of royal letters and proclamations shewed how the stream
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JAMES I.