Civi séance 7

A mixed welcome

April-May 1603: James created 300 knights on his journey to London

James Stuart = a foreigner (Scot) from an antagonistic country

3 kingdoms (Scotland, England and Ireland) and 3 religions (Presbyterian, Anglican and Catholic)

Bye Plot: Catholics intended to abduct the King to obtain religious toleration

Main Plot: Courtiers intended to replace the King with Arbella Stuart

James issued a proclamation ordering all Catholic clergy("Jesuits, Seminaries

and other Priests")to leave his kingdom by 19 March 1604

But also wanted to reduce the rate of recusancy fines to appease loyal Catholics

(generated a revenue of £8,000 a year by 1614)

The Gunpowder Plot, 5 November 1605

1606: Popish Recusants Act: No Catholics allowed near London; could not practise the law or hold public offices.

1616: Royal proclamation: penalty of death for priests who stayed.

(124 missionary priests executed under Elizabeth, 19 under James.)

The Hampton Court Conference

April 1603: Millenary Petition:

- end of pluralism and non-residence

- establishment of a preaching ministry

- suppression of remaining ‘popish’ ceremonies

January 1604: Hampton Court Conference

What the Puritans wanted:

- suppression of vestments

- generalization of exercises (=prophesyings)

- no working or playing on Sunday (Sabbatarianism)

- presbyterian Church

James accepted to deal with pluralism but rejected the presbyterian option

=> “No bishop, no king”

presbyterianism and monarchy were incompatible

Another concession to puritans: a new translation of the Bible.

‘Authorised Version’ or the ‘King James Bible’ completed in 1611

Richard Bancroft (1544–1610)

succeeded Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1604

hostile towards puritans

Canons published in September 1604 (codifying Church law)

limited toleration for presbyterian ministers who agreed to work under episcopacy = ‘Church Puritans’.

George Abbot (1562–1633)

succeeded Bancroft as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1610

strongly anti-catholic, evangelical Calvinist

distanced himself from puritan claims

helped revive episcopacy in Scotland

March-April 1612: two Anabaptists (Bartholomew Legate & Edward Wightman) burnt for heresy

To counter the application of the doctrine of Sabbatarianism, James issued a declaration listing the lawful recreations to be enjoyed on Sundays after service

James tolerated a certain degree of diversity. Most separatist Puritans stayed in England, despite being marginalized.

The rise of Anti-Calvinists

At the time, called Arminians (because of similarities with Jacobus Arminius ideas)

They defended a strong episcopalian church and thought reformation had gone too far.

They would find a leader in William Laud, who became bishop of St David’s in 1621.

Ministers complained of people sleepingduring their sermons

More blasphemous statements were found in the court records of the period

authorities flooded the market with cheap prints like moralising ballads (c.4m sold) or catechisms

by the 1620s there( 1wmer)e very few priests who were not graduates new national holidays celebrated protestant events (accession of Elizabeth, defeat of the Spanish Armada, or Gunpowder Plot) festivals like May Days remained

The question of Absolutism

As Church and State are inseparable, there can only be one religion

metaphor of the body politic (commonweal // body)

The king used the Church to coerce the subjects into obedience

disobedience in the kingdom // disease in the body

=> amputation // execution

=> bleeding // exile or exclusion

Roman Catholics or Puritans, who did not agree with the official religion, were marginalised or repressed

The monarch not the only link between State and Church=> archbishops and bishops

The boundaries between religious dissent and political opposition were often blurred

James VI had ruled a country that had adopted Roman law, a system that

emphasised the authority of the king # common law based on jurisprudential precedents

Absolutism /absolute monarchy: a view of monarchy as independent from the laws and the subjects.

The king must respect the general principles of right, but he cannot be called to answer in front of any court.

Divine right of kings: belief that monarchs receive their power directly from God and that they are only responsible to Him, not to any human institution, or the will of people. Questioning this power is a sin.

Patriarchalism: belief in unquestionable obedience of wives to husbands, of children to fathers, of tenants to landlords, of apprentices to employers and of subjects to kings.

The monarch had the right to veto or dissolve Parliament, but he could not force Parliament’s decisions

The Privy Council shrank under Mary and Elizabeth, and was further reduced under James => more personal rule

Acts of Parliament deemed more legitimate than Royal Proclamations

The monarch needed Parliament to raise taxes

the Blessed Parliament His first Parliament in 1604, rejected the union of Scotland and England

Since Magna Carta (1215), the monarch could not levy a new tax without the consent of Parliament

James I was spendthrift and too generous with his favourites

He sought additional sources of income:

- patents of monopoly

- sale of honours (= nobility titles)

- impositions (= customs duties)

Parliamentary opposition focused on:

• taxation,

• religion,

• the liberties of Parliament against

the prerogative of the king

Prominent favourites

Robert Carr (1587–1645)

1610: advised James to dissolve Parliament

1612: after the death of Salisbury (R. Cecil), Carr became James’s main counsellor

1613: married Frances Howard

joining the crypto-catholic Howard clan:

Henry Howard, Thomas Howard, Charles Howard

George Villiers (1592–1628) Duke of Buckingham

1615: Carr’s scandal and fall

rise of George Villiers supported by

Abbot’s protestant faction

1616: earl > 1618: marquess > 1623: duke

also close to Prince Charles

International politics

James was a peace-maker (rex pacificus) and tried to avoid war

1604: signed a peace treaty with Spain

1613: successfully married his daughter Elizabeth to the Calvinist Frederick V of the Rhenish Palatinate

James had also been leading marriage negotiations between the Spanish Infanta and his son Henry (until his death in 1612), then Charles (from 1617)(a dowry of £600,000 was demanded)

The Bohemian Crisis

1618: outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War when the catholic Ferdinand II was deposed in Bohemia and Frederick V was elected king in 1619

1619: Ferdinand II became Holy Roman Emperor and chased Frederick James refused to send troops in support of his son-in-law

1621-1622: Parliament presented James with grievances about monopolies and

a petition that Charles be married to a protestant => dissolution

1623: Prince Charles and Buckingham made an incognito journey to Madrid

1624: failure of the Spanish match, Buckingham rallied the anti-Spanish camp calling for war against Philip IV

1624: Parliament voted subsidies for the war against Spain

1625: marriage negotiations with the catholic princess Henrietta-Maria, sister of Louis XIII

Assessment of James’s reign

James was criticised for his drunkenness, his affection for minions and a general reputation of decadence and corruption.

Extravagance: he granted money and lands to his favourites, often Scots.

Parliament saw James as a threat to common law and a risk of absolutism, a defiance exacerbated by his attempts to find revenues without Parliament.

James’s marriage negotiations met with distrust and alienated the country.

but

James displayed a combination of idealism and realism often able to change his mind.

He managed to keep a religious settlement without open conflicts, convinced the presbyterian Kirk to accept bishops and achieved a successful colonisation of Ulster.

His foreign peace-making policy was also realistically dictated by the poor finances of the Crown, while his generosity to courtiers ensured him their political support necessary to rule the country, avoiding major crises.