James I and VI

(1566–1625)

   Monarch.

   James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and her second husband Lord Darnley. He inherited the throne of Scotland from his mother and the throne of England from his cousin Queen Elizabeth I. A man of considerable theological learning and a believer in the doctrine of the divine right of kings, he was the author of the Trew Law of Free Monarchies and Basilikon Doron on the subject. Against the Presbyterians, he made arrangements to impose an episcopal structure on the Scottish Church. Once he was proclaimed King of Great Britain in 1603, the English Puritans presented him with the Millenary Petition, in response to which James convened the Hampton Court Conference. He determined, however, to support the Bishops (famously declaring ‘No Bishop, no King!’) but he did authorise a new translation of the Bible (the Authorised, or King James, version of 1611). He also raised the hopes of his Roman Catholic subjects, but subsquently disappointed them – this leading to the famous gunpowder plot of Guy fawkes. Among his other theological books was a work on demonology and a meditation on the Lord’s Prayer.

   K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor: The Episcopate of James I (1990);

   M. Lee, Great Britain’s Solomon: James VI and I and his Three Kingdoms (1990);

   D.H. Willson, James VI and I (1959).