JAMES I, King of England. - Sixth king of Scotland, b. at Edinburgh on 19 June 1566, d. at Theobalds on 27 March 1625. Only son of Mary Stuart and her second husband, Lord Darnley.
His teacher was George Buchanan, whom J. esteemed, even though he later rejected his doctrines. Buchanan aimed to make of him a constitutional sovereign, subject to the control of what he called the people, but this was not a role suited to the temperament of J. I, nor did the times permit it.
Scotland was controlled by a powerful group of nobles, who exercised and sought to consolidate their ancient feudal rights and dominated Parliament. The only organization of a popular character was the Presbyterian Church, which gathered its adherents from the middle and lower strata of the population and was led by a clergy hostile both to the nobles and to the papacy. A firm central authority, which alone could pacify internal strife, Morton tried to impose during his regency; but he made enemies of both factions and was driven out in 1578, the year in which J. I nominally assumed power. Morton, pro-English, was succeeded by the duke of Lennox, a protégé of the Guises, who aimed to bring Scotland back into the French alliance. But in 1582 the Protestant party seized the king, forcing Lennox to take refuge in Paris. In 1583 J. I, having regained his freedom, resumed Morton's policy and worked to subject both the nobles and the Protestant clergy to royal authority. In twenty years of reign he succeeded in mastering the anarchy of the barons, creating a strong central government to which he also subordinated the religious authorities. This he achieved through a policy of cunning rather than of force between the opposing factions, taking advantage of their conflicts. Having to take sides in the struggle between his mother and Elizabeth, who represented the two great forces into which all Europe was divided, he preferred to make common cause with Elizabeth and Protestantism, always because of his aspirations to the English throne, rather than to ally himself with the Catholic powers that supported Mary Stuart.
On the death of Elizabeth (1603) J., by the will of Henry VIII, was proclaimed king of England. His policy in the new kingdom encountered great hostility. While in Scotland he had been able to give an absolutist direction to his policy, in England the monarchy had already reached its maximum power and the tendency was to limit its prerogatives. By insisting on the divine right of the sovereign, J. I could not well be acceptable to his people, even if such insistence was motivated by the need to proclaim the independence of the monarchy in the face of both the papacy and Calvinism. On the religious plane, moreover, his policy was as contradictory as could be: while Catholics were disappointed in their hopes for greater tolerance, the Puritans reproached him for excessive benevolence toward Catholicism. The fact is that attempts to find a modus vivendi between the two faiths were followed by abrupt anti-Catholic demonstrations as soon as Catholics seemed to gain ground. A vast plot known by the name of the "Gunpowder Plot," aimed at a Catholic restoration (1605), was crushed with the condemnation to death of all the conspirators. Motivated by aspirations for religious peace in Europe, his foreign policy too oscillated continually between various unpopular approaches toward the Catholic powers and interventions in support of the Dutch Protestants.
Learned, fond of letters, of ecclesiastical controversies and of magic, rather than of the conduct of public affairs, he gave to the press numerous writings, among which especially well known are certain treatises in defense of his religious policy and particularly of the spiritual supremacy of the king and queen, which Catholics were required to swear to recognize. Among his opponents, Cardinal R. Bellarmine, Fr. R. Persons, and Fr. F. Suárez deserve to be mentioned. His royal absolutism brought, as a consequence, persecution against Catholics, many of whom suffered death in prison or on the scaffold, guilty only of not admitting the spiritual supremacy that J. arrogated to himself.
Bibliography4 works
Gabriele Musatti