A history of England

by Charles Oman

James himself had no doubt as to his future behaviour. There was nothing that pleased him better than the idea of becoming the head of the English Church. In Scotland he had learnt to hate the dictatorial manners of the presbyters of the Kirk, and their constant interference in politics. The well-ordered and obedient organization which he found south of the Tweed, where every cleric, from the archbishop to the curate, looked for guidance to the sovereign, filled him with joy and admiration. He soon became the zealous patron of the Establishment; he looked upon it as the bulwark of the throne, the best defence against disloyalty and anarchy. "No bishop, no king," was his answer to the Puritans, who strove to persuade him into abolishing episcopacy, and establishing a Presbyterian form of Church government.

The Hampton Court Conference.

Before James had been for a year on the English throne, he had shown his intentions in the matter of Church government. On his first arrival the Puritan party, both the Dissenters and the Conformists within the National Church, presented him with the "Millenary Petition," [35] in which they complained that they were "overburdened with human rites and ceremonies" prescribed in the Prayer-book, and besought him to abolish episcopacy and purify the land from the remnants of Popish superstition. James invited representative Puritan ministers to meet him at the Hampton Court Conference (January, 1604), where they were to dispute with some of his bishops. But the Conference was a mere farce; the king browbeat and hectored the ministers, and declared himself wholly convinced by the arguments of the Anglican clergy. He announced his full approval of the existing Church system, and that he would have "one doctrine, one discipline, one religion in substance and ceremony." The Puritans went away in sore displeasure, and from that moment the large number of them who had hitherto continued in the body of the National Church, began to desert it and to form various schismatic sects. We find it hard to-day to realize the fanatical scruples which made them see snares in a ring or a surplice, or deem that Episcopacy was a Romish invention; but we can understand that the real bent of their minds was directed against dictation in matters of conscience, and the denial of the right of private judgment. With their theory we may sympathize, but the actual points on which they chose to secede from the ancient Church of the land were miserably inadequate to justify schism. It is fair to add, however, that there was much to repel men of conscience and piety in the condition of the National Church. The bishops showed an unworthy subservience to the throne, which seemed peculiarly disgusting when the crown was worn by such a self-satisfied pedant as King James. A glance at the fulsome praises heaped upon him in the preface to the Authorized Version of the Bible will sufficiently serve to make this plain.

Administration of the younger Cecil.

Almost the only sign of sagacity which the new king showed was that he kept in office, as his chief minister, Robert, the younger Cecil, son of the great Lord Burleigh. James made him Earl of Salisbury, and, first as Secretary of State and afterwards as Lord Treasurer, Cecil kept a firm hand on the reins of power, and restrained many of his master's follies. It was not till he died, in 1612, that the king was able to display his own unwisdom in its full development.

Cobham's Plot.

Hence it comes that the nine years 1602-1611 are comparatively uneventful, and show little of the king's worst foibles. A few incidents only deserve mention in this period. Cobham's Plot, which followed almost immediately on the king's accession, was a most mysterious business. It was said that Lord Cobham, Lord Grey, Sir Walter Raleigh the explorer, and certain others, all enemies of Robert Cecil, had formed a plot to kidnap the king, and force him to dismiss his minister—perhaps, even to depose him in favour of his cousin, Arabella Stuart, the child of his father's brother. [36] The whole matter is so dark that it is hard to make out what the conspirators desired, or even whether they conspired at all. Both extreme Puritans and fanatical Roman Catholics are said to have been engaged in the plot, and the wildest aims were ascribed to them. It is only certain that James and Cecil used the affair as a means for crushing those whom they feared. The unfortunate Arabella Stuart was put in confinement for the rest of her life; Raleigh languished twelve years in the Tower; and Grey and Cobham also suffered long imprisonment.

The Gunpowder Plot.

A clearer but not less strange matter was the famous Gunpowder Treason of 1605. A band of fanatical Catholics, disgusted that the king refused to grant the toleration they had expected, or to repeal the Recusancy laws, formed a diabolical scheme for murdering, not only James himself, but his sons and all the chief men of the realm. Their chiefs were Thomas Percy, a relative of the Earl of Northumberland, Catesby, Guy Fawkes, and Sir Everard Digby. Their plan was to hire a cellar which lay under the Houses of Parliament, fill it with barrels of gunpowder, and fire the train when the king was opening Parliament on the 5th of November. Lords, Commons, princes, and king would thus perish in a common disaster, while a Catholic rising and a Spanish invasion were to follow. Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits, was informed of the scheme by the conspirators, and kept it secret.