FINAL: King James I

  • King James wasn’t English- he was Scottish and their was a differ in ideology and politics that distanced him from his subjects

Relations with Spain

  • James and English subjected differed on England’s relationship with Spain

  • The Spainard were enemies- they were catholic, they created a empire in the Americas

  • Theological in the terms of politics their was no grey area- no room for compromise

  • For England the true religion was the Protestant religion.

  • After the pope, the next best representation for catholistism was the King of Spain (Philip III)

  • Philip III sent troops to Ireland to aid Hue O’Neil (which failed under Elizabeth I)

Treaty of London 1604

  • James made peace with Spain

    • It was in the best interest for both England and Spain

  • It angered the House of Commons- they felt betrayed by the treaty → Apologizes of The Commons; betrayal of English Protestant Religion, politically not inviting the House of Commons to express their opinion on the treaty

James III might have been mislead into thinking that Kings of England could govern as they wished (it wasn’t)

The King relation with the House of Commons is off to a bad but not catescoptic event

Another problem facing the crown (a problem faced by Elizabeth and Henry VIII) was revenue- having enough money

  • incomes from land (bases of the Crowns revenue) was static and declining

    • Chronic inflation

    • Commercial sector class was getting richer and richer; the crown was getting poorer.

Richard Hakluyt

Those holding the puritans views were a dominant force in the House of Commons. The lower court controlled the money.

  • James wanted to establish policies (some pro-spain) but he needed money; but the anti-Spain and the anti-French house of commons were not willing/going to give up the money

James was appaled by the religious turmoil in Europe. He had a vision that Catholics and Protestants must be brought together to find some kid of middle ground. James believed that the Church of England represneted a middle point between protesitaism and catholitism to bring them together idoelogical and politcal around Europe— it was undoable

  • James imagined the marriages of his children

  • He wanted his son Charles to marriage a princess in the catholic, spanish hasburg family

  • His daugher was married to a protestant prince

1612- Henry died

James believed that foregin policies belonged solely to the crown and thought the house of commons interest in foreign policies dangerous

Because of Mary I → people thought Catholicism as persecution

James was permently short of money. The House of Commons didn’t trust James to go for policies they would approve

  • James had a overestimate of England’s wealth

    • Scotland was poor country to becoming king of england- england was a land of promise

  • James and his court gained a apperance of curosness and drunkiness. Putting a poor light on the monarchy something that Elizabeth tried so hard to avoid

There was very little common ground

  • James had little humility to understand English

  • He believed that his understanding of Scotish would be aplical to England (it wasn’t)

Late 1605- Gunpowder Plot

  • raied the king’s standing

  • Plot was to blow up parliment and kill the king and parliment members

  • The exposure to the plot brought sympathy to the king and briefly brought him and the parliment closer together (not for long)

Parliments in early England were well aware that one of their biggest power was their control of the money and that had been their politcal tatic of choice

James inheirted a significant debt from Elizabeth (422K pounds)

  • The debt almost doubled in the three years

Benevolence— a forced loan; tax masked as a voluntary gift, extorted by monarchs from wealthy subjects without Parliament's consent

Great Contract- a great contract of the crown giving up prevelence for a fixed income (this didn’t work)

  • dissolved his first parliament in 1611

Provalence — right of the crown to purchase good below market price

There was scheme to conquor the lands in northern ireland (the irish rebels gave up in surrender)— the lands must be settled (plant) with protestants

  • plant formal rebel land with good seeds

The wars in ireland was the main reason for the debt James inherited which stretched english reosurces thin

  • The plan is to settle the north of ireland

The dominant reason why the provience of Ireland was so difficult to manage and not bring in revenue to the crown was because it was filled with catholics/catholism. They thought that filling it with protestants would bring Ireland under rule.

  • this is a project that perectly alligns protestants with the ideology or powerful English men

1630s- protestant were minority in the population but dominainated the irish parliment