James VI and I and religious issues
James VI and I, King of Scotland, King of England and King of Ireland, faced many complicated religious challenges during his reigns in Scotland and England.
In Scotland, he inherited a reformed church, the Kirk, which was attempting to rid the country of bishops, dioceses, and parishes and establish a fully Presbyterian system, run by ministers and elders. However, James saw the bishops as the natural allies of the monarchy and frequently came into conflict with the Kirk in his sustained effort to reintroduce an episcopal polity to Scotland.
On his succession to the English throne in 1603, James was impressed by the church system he found there, which still adhered to an episcopate and supported the monarch's position as the head of the church. On the other hand, there were many more Roman Catholics in England than in Scotland, and James inherited a set of penal laws which he was constantly exhorted to enforce against them. Before ascending the English throne, James had assured the Earl of Northumberland that he would not persecute "any that will be quiet and give but an outward obedience to the law," but he soon reinforced strict penalties against Catholics. Partly triggered by Catholics' disillusionment with the new king, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 led to a new wave of anti-Catholicism and even harsher legislation. In 1606, an oath of allegiance was introduced, though its enforcement later slackened. His policy of seeking a Spanish Match for his son, Charles, Prince of Wales, produced widespread opposition, particularly in the Commons, where members feared a revival of Catholic power in the country and a threat to the Protestant monarchy and state.
Puritans and other Dissenters
James had been raised in a Calvinist environment and in 1590 while in Scotland he had criticised the Communion service in the Book of Common Prayer as an "evil said masse in English".On James's arrival in London, the Puritan clergy presented him with the Millenary Petition, allegedly signed by a thousand English clergy, requesting reforms in the church, particularly the abolition of confirmation, wedding rings, and the term "priest", and that the wearing of cap and surplice, which they regarded as "outward badges of Popish errours", be made optional. James, however, equated English Puritans with Scottish Presbyterians and, after banning religious petitions, told the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 that he preferred the status quo, with the monarch ruling the church through the bishops. He therefore resolved to enforce conformity among the clergy, a decision which led in the short term to about ninety ejections or suspensions from livings and in the longer term to a sense of persecution among English Puritans. A notable success of the Hampton Court Conference was the commissioning of a new translation of the Bible, completed in 1611, which became known as the King James Bible, considered a masterpiece of Jacobean prose. However, the same conference resulted in the 1604 Book of Common Prayer that, despite making some concessions to Puritans, was poorly received by Dissenters.
James, who took an interest in the scholarly decisions of the translators, often participated in theological debate. In 1612, for example, he wrote a tract against the unorthodox Dutch theologian Conrad Vorstius, a follower of Jacobus Arminius. A year before, he had imprisoned a dissenter called Bartholomew Legate, with whom he had frequent audience during the protracted court proceedings. According to a court official, on hearing that Legate had not prayed to Christ in seven years, the king in choler spurn'd at him with his foot; Away, base fellow, it shall never be said that one stayeth in my presence, that hath never prayed to our Saviour for seven years together.' In 1612, Legate was convicted of blasphemous heresy and was burned at the stake, along with Edward Wightman. Another dissenter, the General Baptist leader Thomas Helwys, appealed to James for liberty of conscience, only to be sent to prison, where he died by 1616.