A history of England

by Charles Oman

James of Scotland, the old queen's legitimate heir, was a man of thirty-seven when the throne fell to him. He had lived an unhappy life in his northern realm, buffeted to and fro by unruly nobles and domineering ministers of the Scottish Kirk. But most of his troubles had been the results of his own failings. Of all the kings who ever ruled these realms, he is almost the only one of whom it can be said that he was a coward. From this vice sprang his other defects. Like all cowards, he was suspicious, capable of any cruelty against those whom he dreaded, prone always to lean on some stronger man, who would bear his responsibility for him. He chose these favourites with the rankest folly: Arran and Lennox, who were the minions of his youth while yet he reigned in Scotland alone, and Rochester and Buckingham, who ruled his riper age, were—all four—arrogant, vicious, scheming adventurers. They had nothing to recommend them save a handsome person and a fluent and flattering tongue. Each in his turn domineered over his doting master, and made himself a byword for insolence and self-seeking.

James was unfortunate in his outer man. He was ill-made, corpulent, and weak-kneed; though his face was not unpleasing, his speech was marred by a tongue too large for his mouth. But he was grossly and ridiculously vain and conceited. He possessed a certain cleverness of a limited kind, and he was well versed in book-learning. But he imagined that learning was wisdom, and loved to pose as the wisest of mankind—the British Solomon, as his favourites were wont to call him.

This stuttering, shambling pedant now mounted the throne of the politic Elizabeth, and in a reign of twenty-two years contrived to wreck the strong position which the royal power held in England, and to make a revolution inevitable. The crash would have come in his own day, but for one thing—James, as we have said before, was a coward, and had not the courage to fight when affairs came to a crisis.

Doctrine of the dispensing power.

James based his preposterous claims to override the nation's will and the rights of Parliament on two theories, which represented to him the true foundations of all royal power. The first was his "prerogative," or power to dispense with ordinary laws and customs at his good pleasure. He saw that the Tudors had often gone beyond the letter of the mediaeval constitution, and thought that their action gave him a full precedent for similar encroachment. He forgot two things: first, that Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had lived in times of storm and stress, when firm governance was all-important, and much would be forgiven to a strong ruler; and secondly, that the two great Tudors had always taken the people into their confidence, and been careful to get popular support for their doings. He himself tried to impose an unpopular policy on an unwilling people, and never condescended to explain his motives.

The "Divine Right" of kings.

The second pillar of the king's policy was the theory of "divine hereditary kingship"—a notion entirely opposed to the old English idea that the crown was elective. James chose to ignore such precedents as the elections of Henry IV. or Henry VII., where the natural heir had been passed over, and wished his subjects to believe that strict hereditary succession was the only title to the throne, and that nothing could justify or legalize any divergence from it. He claimed that kings derived their right to rule from Heaven, not from any choice by their subjects; hence it was impious as well as disloyal to criticize or disobey the king's commands. James found many of the clergy who were ready to accept this theory, partly because they thought they could justify it from the Scriptures, partly because they felt that the orderly governance of the Anglican Church was bound up with the royal supremacy. In Elizabeth's time it had been the queen's guiding and restraining hand which had prevented the nation from lapsing into the anarchical misgovernment which characterized Continental Protestantism.

Hopes of the three religious parties.

When the new king crossed the Tweed in April, 1603, he was well received in England, where his weaknesses were as yet little known. Every one was glad to see the succession question settled without a war, and every party hoped to gain his favour. The Puritans trusted that a prince reared in the Calvinism of the Scotch Kirk would do much for them. The Romanists dreamed that the son of Mary of Scotland would tolerate his mother's faith. The supporters of the Anglican establishment thought that the king must needs become a good Churchman when he realized the position that awaited him as Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the spiritual hierarchy that embraced nine-tenths of the nation.

James supports the Established Church.