James I of England

"The state of Monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods."

"No bishop, no king."

"If you aim at a Scottish presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy, as God and the devil. … No bishop, no King!"

"I will make them conform themselves, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse."

"A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."

"Herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God's gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke."

"I acknowledge the Roman Church to be our mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions...Let [the Papists] assure themselves, that, as I am a friend of their persons, if they be good subjects, so am I a vowed enemy, and do denounce mortal war to their errors."

"The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth: for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. There be three principal similitudes that illustrate the state of monarchy: One taken out of the word of God; and two other out of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the divine power. Kings are also compared to fathers of families: for a king is truly Parens patriae, the politic father of his people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man."

"I commend unto your special care, as some of you of late have done very well, to blunt the sharp edge and vain popular humour of some lawyers at the bar, that think they are not eloquent and bold spirited enough, except they meddle with the king's prerogative: But do not you suffer this; for certainly if this liberty be suffered, the king's prerogative, the Crown, and I, shall be as much wounded by their pleading, as if you resolved what they disputed: That which concerns the mystery of the king's power, is not lawful to be disputed; for that is to wade into the weakness of princes, and to take away the mystical reverence, that belongs unto them that sit in the throne of God."

"Keep you therefore all in your own bounds, and for my part, I desire you to give me no more right in my private prerogative, then you give to any subject; and therein I will be acquiescent: As for the absolute prerogative of the Crown, that is no subject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is lawful to be disputed. It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do: good Christians content themselves with his will revealed in his word. So, it is presumption and high contempt in the subject, to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this, or that; but rest in that which is the king's revealed will in his law."

"The House of Commons is a body without a head. The Members give their opinions in a disorderly manner. At their meetings nothing is heard but cries, shouts, and confusion. I am surprised that my ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution to come into existence. I am a stranger and found it here when I arrived, so that I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get rid of."

"James's reputation, both during his life and after his death, has been largely influenced by comparisons between him and his predecessor. Elizabeth and James are unusual among English monarchs in their intellectual abilities and tastes. Both were able linguists. Elizabeth was probably the abler, as she was in the arts of oratory where her eloquence was the more effective for being sparingly employed. James spoke too often and his speeches, though learned and sometimes not unimpressive, were frequently prolix and verbose and delivered in a hectoring, schoolmasterly tone unwelcome to his parliamentary audiences. Verbosity extended from his speech to his writings, for James was a prolific writer – the author of devotional treatises, some pleasing if undistinguished verse, political treatises (among them assertions of kingly authority and refutations of papal authority) and tracts on subjects ranging from demonology to the harmful effects of tobacco."

"Another incident that occurred whilst the king was in Newark does not speak so well for him. It was an act of despotism, if not of cruelty, and set an example of disregard for the law which no king should exhibit before his subjects. A pickpocket was detected attempting to rob one of the spectators at the royal pageant, and he was brought before his Majesty, who immediately ordered him to be hanged. It was urged that the man ought to have a fair and proper trial according to the laws of the country, but James was inexorable. The sentence was carried out, and the man lost his life without the opportunity of making a defence."

"Beware in making your sporters your councellors, and delight not to keepe ordinarily in your companie comedians or balladines."

"Unfortunately for his image, both then and later, the new king did not look, sound or act, to contemporary eyes and ears, very much like a surrogate for the Supreme Being. It is not James' fault that he was a rather odd-looking man: skinny legs supported an ungainly body, crowned by a somewhat ponderous head. That head housed a tongue that was too large for its mouth, causing a pronounced lisp. The lisp exacerbated a stutter and what to English hearing was a thick Scots accent. In our politically correct age all of this might be overlooked or even celebrated in the name of diversity. But contemporaries used to the regal bearing of the Tudors and bound by their own prejudices could not help but draw unflattering conclusions. In particular, James' Scottish descent was difficult to stomach for English men and women who had long seen their northern neighbors as rude, impoverished brigands. Some charged that the king had swept down from his poor northern kingdom accompanied by "the hungry Scots": Scottish courtiers who saw England as a vast treasure house to plunder."

"The new king's manner also contrasted sharply with that of his Tudor predecessors, sometimes to his disadvantage. Once again, some of his personal traits were far more damaging then than they would be today. For a king, he could be remarkably informal, even affable. He was not a stickler for ceremony and was good at putting people at ease. This was, in some ways, an advantage, for it meant that, early in the reign, at least, his court was welcoming to men and women of all political and religious persuasions. This openness meant that the king always had a pretty good idea of what various sides in a debate were thinking, while each might hope that their view would prevail. On the other hand, the Tudors' success had stemmed, in part, from their ability to keep people off balance and inspire loyalty, awe, and fear. The new king's personality and reputation worked against these feelings in several ways. For example, there were rumors of excessive drinking, made worse by a poor ability to tolerate its effects. More seriously, and unlike his Tudor predecessors, the new king hated crowds and rarely showed himself to his people outside London."

"James's foreign policy perhaps met the needs of the age for peace, but often clashed with its temper. When he came to the throne England was still technically at war with Spain. With Cecil's support hostilities were concluded and diplomatic relations renewed. In all the circumstances this may be deemed to have been a wise and prudent step. The main struggle had already shifted from the high seas to Europe. The house of Hapsburg, at the head of the Holy Roman Empire, still dominated the Continent from Vienna. The territories of the Emperor and of his cousin the King of Spain now stretched from Portugal to Poland, and their power was backed by the proselytising fervour of the Jesuits. The Commons and the country remained vehemently hostile to Spain, and viewed with alarm and anxiety the march of the Counter-Reformation. But James was unmoved. He regarded the Dutch as rebels against the Divine Right of Kings. The Spanish Ambassador, Count Gondomar, financed a pro-Spanish party at the new Court; learning nothing from Tudor experience, James proposed not merely an alliance with Spain, but a Spanish match for his son."

"A controversy of land between parties was heard by the King, and sentence given, which was repealed for this, that it did belong to the common law: then the King said, that he thought the law was founded upon reason, and that he and others had reason, as well as the Judges: to which it was answered by me, that true it was, that God had endowed his Majesty with excellent science, and great endowments of nature; but His Majesty was not learned in the laws of his realm of England, and causes which concern the life, or inheritance, or goods, or fortunes of his subjects, are not to be decided by natural reason but by the artificial reason and judgment of law, which law is an act which requires long study and experience, before that a man can attain to the cognizance of it: and that the law was the golden met-wand and measure to try the causes of the subjects; and which protected his Majesty in safety and peace: with which the King was greatly offended, and said, that then he should be under the law, which was treason to affirm, as he said; to which I said, that Bracton saith, quod Rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege [that the King should not be under man, but under God and the law]."

"James had too great confidence in his own powers, and too little sympathetic insight into the views of others, to make a successful ruler, and his inability to control those whom he trusted with blind confidence made his court a centre of corruption. He was, however, far-sighted in his ideas, setting himself against extreme parties, and eager to reconcile rather than divide. In Scotland he, on the whole, succeeded, because the work of reconciliation was in accordance with the tendencies of the age. In England he failed, because his Scottish birth and experience made him stand too much aloof from English parties, and left him incapable of understanding the national feeling with regard to Spain; while his feeble efforts to reconcile the continental powers, at a time when the spirit of division was in the ascendant, exposed him to the contemptuous scorn of his own subjects."

"[I]t is certain, James's chief care, after his accession, was to maintain the prerogative royal in its utmost extent, nay, to carry it higher than any of his predecessors. He must, at the time I am now speaking of, have conceived a larger notion than had been hitherto formed, of the power of an English king, since when he came to Newark [21 April 1603], he ordered a cut-purse to be hanged by his sole warrant, and without tryal. It cannot be denied, that this was beyond the lawful power of a king of England, and directly contrary to the privileges of the English nation. Probably, care was taken to warn him of the ill effects such illegal acts might produce among the people, since he refrained from them ever after."

"On the morning of 15 May 1607 a hundred and forty-three men (there were no women in this expedition) disembarked from having been crowded aboard Captain Christopher Newport's three ships during the past four months of their tedious sea passage. They found themselves on an island near the north bank of a tidal river, where they then set about establishing the first permanent English settlement in North America. With their exuberant native patriotism having bounded with them onto the shore of this largely-unknown continent, these alien settlers immediately named both the sparkling river and their little fortress settlement for their young sovereign of the Stuart dynasty, James I of England (also known as James VI of Scotland). Whenever King James was living in Scotland he dutifully worshipped with the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland- a group he did not especially like- and whenever he was living in England he rather disdainfully worshiped in the Anglican Church- a group which overwhelmingly distrusted him... and vice versa."

"The British Isles were frequently torn with religious dissension throughout most of the 1600s. In fact, it had been in a rather desperate effort to produce at least some degree of unity and loyalty among the fractious Christian groups found in his new realm, that King James had summoned a group of fifty-four scholars who were charged to produce the first officially authorized English translation of the complete Bible, naively assuming that surely the many varieties of Christians represented among his religious subjects could at least agree on this one unifying force for their common faith. The translators began their famous task shortly before the three shiploads of intrepid Jamestown adventurers left their Mother Country for the New World. The king's scholars continued laboring toward the completion of their magnificent finished product- the King James Version of Holy Scripture- which was finally published in 1611 (four years after Jamestown had been founded). While this Bible did indeed become a principle religious building block for all the English-speaking Christians who followed in the wake of those first colonists, nevertheless over the next two centuries that would be about the only thing that Virginia's Christians would passionately hold in common."

"James I was much more sympathetic to Calvinist doctrine than his predecessor Elizabeth, and to that extent those Puritan nonconformists were correct who hoped for better things on the queen's death in 1603. The proof of the king's Calvinist affinities was conveniently published as a pamphlet in 1626, by Frances Rous, who was the step-brother of John Pym and an outspoken parliamentary critic of Arminianism. Two examples of this royal Calvinism must suffice. In 1604 James was officially quoted as saying that "predestination and election dependeth not upon any qualities, actions or works of man, which be mutable, but upon God his eternal and immutable decree and purpose." Similarly in 1619 he wrote that "God draws by his effectual grace, out of that attainted and corrupt mass [mankind], whom he pleaseth for the work of his mercy, leaving the rest to their own ways which all lead to perdition.""

"[O]ne is faced with the problem of his celebrated outbursts against Puritans – as for instance when he described them in March 1604 as a "sect unable to be suffered in any well-governed commonwealth", and the deprivations for nonconformity which occurred during his first years on the throne. The explanation, however, would seem to lie in raison d’état, as that was interpreted by the King. His exposure in Scotland at an early age to Calvinist theology had left him favourably disposed towards its teachings, yet his experience there of religious rebellion had also made him politically suspicious of anything remotely akin to presbyterianism."

"He was so crafty and cunning in petty things, as the circumventing of any great man, the change of a Favourite, &c. insomuch as a very wise man was wont to say that he believed him the wisest fool in Christendom, meaning him wise in small things, but a fool in weighty affairs."

"James Stuart, the only son of Elizabeth's old nemesis, Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, long had a bad press among English historians. This was, in part, because he possessed an unconventional personality for a king, especially after the forthright authoritarianism of the Tudors. For example, unlike the last two Henries, he was not a military man: in fact, a military salute on the Isle of Wight once frightened him. Rather, he fancied himself a Rex Pacificus (peaceful king) who would bring peace and concord not only to the three kingdoms, but, as a moderator among his fellow monarchs, to all Europe. In this, he was ahead of his time. He was also a relatively tolerant man, preferring, like Elizabeth, to let Catholics and Puritans live in peace if they maintained their political loyalty to him. His failure to engage in military adventures against the Catholic powers or to enforce the penal laws against Catholics at home would be controversial with his subjects. In fact, his decision to end the war with Spain in 1604 was precisely what the English economy needed, while his flexibility over religion promoted sectarian peace for 20 years."

"God gives not kings the style of gods in vain, For on His Throne His sceptre do they sway; And as their subjects ought them to obey, So kings should fear and serve their God again. If then ye would enjoy a happy reign, Observe the statutes of your Heavenly King, And from His Law make all your laws to spring, Since His lieutenant here ye should remain: Reward the just; be steadfast, true, and plain; Repress the proud, maintaining aye the right; Walk always so as ever in His sight, Who guards the godly, plaguing the profane, And so ye shall in princely virtues shine, Resembling right your mighty king divine."