What is King James I of England best known for and why are some of the interesting facts about him.
The first Stuart king of England from 1603 to 1625 was James I.
Before he became king of England and Scotland, James I was King of Scotland.The heirless Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603.James spent lavishly, summoned Parliament only once between 1612 and 1622, and imposed an unpopular tax on imports and exports without the consent of Parliament.
James wasn't a popular king.He was not prepared for the challenges he faced when he assumed the English throne.He was partly to blame for his unpopularity because of a number of politically ill-advised decisions, such as imposing levies and attempting to forge an alliance with Spain.His Scottish origins, his cultivation of favorites, and his widely recognized attraction to other men were other factors.
King James I had close friends and courtiers.The influence they had in James's court earned them the ire of many other members of the nobility and political establishment.The king's openhandedness with them regarding court appointments, noble titles, and revenue did not help their unpopularity.After his rise to power near the end of James's reign, George Villiers used his position to elevate those closest to him.James's choice of favorites was thought to be motivated by political reasons and also by his attraction to other men.
English Catholics hoped that James would act tolerantly toward them, given his mother's religious beliefs, even though he publicly professed his support for Puritanism while sitting on the Scottish throne.James continued the Elizabethan program of Catholic suppression after the Gunpowder Plot to seize control of the government in 1605.James tried to get the Puritans to follow the revised canons by prosecuting Protestants who refused to do so.James I was more likely to pursue his own policies than to side with any particular faith, and he suppressed all who tried to undermine his total authority.
The King James Bible was not written by me.He did commission it.After Puritans requested that a new translation of the Bible be made, James made his own.Forty-seven scholars were enlisted to help, with the archbishop of Canterbury at their helm.The first edition was published in 1611.The King James Version was highly regarded for its scholarliness and literary beauty.It was adopted by many denominations and is still the translation of choice today.
Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stewart, had a son named James.His house was destroyed by an explosion eight months after James was born.Mary abdicated the throne after her third marriage to James Hepburn, the 4th earl of Bothwell.On July 24, 1567, James became king of Scotland.On May 16, 1568, Mary left the kingdom and never saw her son again.James was surrounded by a small group of Scottish lords, from whom four regents emerged.The great gulf between rulers and ruled that separated the Tudors and their subjects in England did not exist in Scotland.For nine generations the Stuarts had been merely the ruling family among many equals, and James retained a feeling for those of the great Scottish lords who gained his confidence.
The young king was isolated and given a good education until he was 14.He used a library of classical and religious writings assembled for him by George Buchanan and Peter Young.James was a pedant because of his education, which aroused his literary ambitions.
When the earl of Morton was driven from the regency in 1578, James took the government into his own hands.James was a puppet for several years.James was kidnapped by William Ruthven, 1st earl of Gowrie, after falling under the influence of the duke of Lennox, a Roman Catholic who was scheming to win back Scotland for the imprisoned Queen Mary.After escaping from his Protestant captivity, James began to pursue his own policies as king.His main goal was to escape from Scottish subservience and to establish his claim to succeed Elizabeth I on the throne of England.Realizing that more was to be gained by cultivating Elizabeth's goodwill than by allying himself with her enemies, James concluded an alliance with England.Even Elizabeth's execution of her mother in 1587 drew from him only formal protests, as he remained true to this policy.
Prince Henry was the first child of James and Anne, who were married in 1589.James had a successful rule of Scotland.He was able to rule Scotland almost as well as Elizabeth I did in England by playing off the Protestant and Roman Catholic groups.In 1584, the king secured a number of acts that made him the head of the Presbyterian church in Scotland, with the power to appoint the church's bishops.
When James succeeded to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth I, he was already an old and experienced king and one with a clearly defined theory of royal government.His experience and theory did not equip him to solve the new problems he was facing.James came into conflict with the English Parliament because he didn't understand its rights or temper.He didn't have a lot of contact with the English middle classes.His reign over England was to be just as bad for the Stuart dynasty as his years before 1603 had been.
The opening years of his reign as king of Great Britain were a time of prosperity for both England and Scotland.He established peace by ending England's war with Spain in 1604.The true test of his statesmanship was his handling of Parliament, which claimed ever-wider rights to criticize and shape public policy.The long war with Spain undermined the crown's finances and made it necessary for Parliament to grant taxes.The subtler art of managing an English Parliament was never mastered by James.Independent members in the House of Commons were allowed to seize the initiative because he kept few councillors.His lavish creations of new peers and his subservience to recently ennobled favorites loosened his hold on the House of Lords.The Apology of the Commons was created because of his lecturing to both houses of Parliament about his royal prerogatives.To parliamentary statesmen, James was ill-fitting his claims to power and privilege.