*When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603 after a 44 ½ year reign, some were concerned that without a direct heir, England might collapse into turmoil.  However, Elizabeth and her advisers had foreseen such a possibility, and for the last two years of the Queen's life, officials in her court maintained a quiet correspondence with the King of Scotland, her nearest relative, thanks to the strategic marriages of her grandfather.

*In 1503, King Henry VII had not only arranged for his son to marry Princess Catherine of Aragon, but for his daughter Margaret to marry King James IV of Scotland.  In theory this was part of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace (which actually lasted nine years). 

*Despite differences between their families (Elizabeth did have his mother executed), James VI of Scotland, great-great-grandson of Henry VII, was the closest relative to Queen Elizabeth, and with the advice and assistance of her Council, he peacefully inherited England upon her death.  He remained King of Scotland, but in almost all respects, the two countries remained separate states, with their own laws, currencies, Parliaments, education systems, and established churches.  That would not change until the Acts of Union in 1707.

*As James VI of Scotland (and now James I of England) travelled south to London, he was received graciously by the nobility of England.  In London he was greeted by cheering crowds.  Throughout the nation, expectations were high for the Stuart dynasty.  He had been a successful king in Scotland for 36 years (counting from his accession at the age of one), had sons to succeed him, was educated, religious, and, for the moment, popular.  However, his concept of monarchy and his goals for his two kingdoms would soon change national opinion of him, both in England and in Scotland. Furthermore, although he was educated and intelligent, he could be lazy, slovenly, and ridiculous (he sometimes threw jelly at his courtiers).  Because of the many contradictions in James, he was sometimes described as the “wisest fool in Christendom.”

*King James believed in the Divine Right of Kings, describing it even before King Louis XIV was born.  He viewed parliaments as nuisances, to be called no more often than necessary.  This especially offended the English, but even irked the Scottish (as did James's failure to fulfil his promise to return to Edinburgh every three years).

*James also became unpopular as he tried to unite his two kingdoms into one Kingdom of Great Britain.  This was unpopular as both nations did not want to lose their national identity (and both had viewed the other as enemies for so long—the Scottish (and French) believed that Englishmen had tails, and the English viewed Scotsmen as barbarians and animals—in a later generation, Dr. Samuel Johnson would define oats as 'a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people').  The English feared that their government would be overrun with Scottish noblemen (and in places it was) whereas the Scottish feared that they would become a junior partner in a united kingdom as the smaller, poorer, less populous country would be dominated by the larger.  Although James did create a Union Flag upon which later Union Flags would be based, it would not be popular for decades and not fully official for a century.

*James did have one area where he could successfully unite the English and Scottish as British subjects:  in the process of subjugating Ireland.  Beginning in 1607, he established the Plantation of Ulster, where Scottish and English settlers (mostly from the Border Country) were encouraged to move and drive out or conquer the Irish.  There, at least, protestant British would view themselves as united in overcoming the Irish and have an identity of their own that was not Irish or Catholic.  As many of these Scottish people spent generations in Ireland, they came to be known as Scots-Irish.

*King James also encouraged settlement in the New World.  The Virginia Company returned to Virginia and settled at Jamestown.  Later settlers would go to Plymouth, Massachusetts-Bay, and (under his successors) elsewhere in British North America.

*In other foreign policy, James was less successful.  Like previous monarchs, James viewed managing foreign policy as a royal prerogative.  However, many of his decisions were unpopular:  he wanted peace with Spain at a time when Spain was at war with Protestants in the German Palatinate.  He even wanted to arrange marriages between his younger son Charles and the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain.  Although this fell through, Charles did later marry the French Catholic Princess Maria (with the understanding that Catholics would one day have freedom of worship in England).

*There were reasons the English did not trust Catholics.  In 1605, some Catholic members of the gentry, feeling that they would never receive religious freedom under the current government, decided to change the government by blowing it up.  The Gunpowder Plot intended to blow up Parliament (including most of the Protestant nobility) on opening day when the King was there.  Afterwards, James's young daughter Elizabeth would be placed on the throne under a Catholic regency.

*Some of the plotters were concerned that a few of their Catholic friends might attend the opening of Parliament, and warned them of the plot.  Eventually royal officials found out and, upon a search of the Parliament buildings on November 5th, found Guy Fawkes with a torch and barrels of gunpowder.  He admitted his plan to blow up the King and the Parliament.  Fawkes and some of his co-conspirators were eventually tried, hanged, drawn, and quartered (although Fawkes jumped off the scaffold so that he broke his own neck and could not merely be hanged until half dead).  November 5th is still celebrated in the UK with fireworks, and the basement of Parliament is searched every opening day.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

*The Gunpowder plot would increase English distrust of Catholics and set back their struggle for their rights for two centuries.  English Protestants were also disgusted and frightened by foreign affairs such as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the Spanish Inquisition.

*There were also disagreements among Protestants.  The Church of Scotland was Calvinist, and the Church of England was not.  Furthermore, the Church of England was split between those who preferred traditional, conservative, nearly-Catholic rituals, vestments, hierarchy, and traditions (and who believed in Free Will a part of Salvation)—known as Arminians—and those who wanted to purify the Church of such things and allow greater local control (and who also believed in Calvinist Predestination)—known as Puritans.

*James was known to favour the Arminians, but to try to bring unity to the Church, he sponsored (and as a noted scholar, assisted with) the creation of a new English translation of the Bible, begun in 1604 and published in 1611, commonly known as the King James Bible.  Although it used language that even for 1611 was somewhat archaic, it was eventually required reading in all Anglican churches, and further helped unify the English language.  However, some Puritans did not approve, because some passages in the Bible translated the original texts in such a way that seemed to support a divinely sanctioned king and a hierarchical church.

*Eventually the most radical of the dissenters fled to the Netherlands and then to the Plymouth Plantation (arriving in 1620), while less radical Puritans eventually went to Massachusetts-Bay in 1630 to establish a godly City on a Hill.

*James had other problems.  He had inherited a large debt from Elizabeth, he in turn spent lavishly, and he tried to raise funds in unconventional (and often unwise) ways.

*Under the advice of his close friend George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the King sold monopolies on many products, and the letters patent granting them were often resold and resold.  Eventually some of the monopolies had to be revoked when their holders abused them.  He sold titles of nobility, principally the minor title of Baronet, as well as offices and privileges.  This was seen as offensive to the old nobility.  He also tried to bypass Parliament to create new taxes, and bypassed the regular court system by summoning his enemies to the Star Chamber.

*Despite the problems during his rule, James remained reasonably popular with most people during most of his reign.  Society was fairly orderly, times were fairly peaceful, taxes were relatively low, and literature and drama flourished (Shakespeare continued his career—Macbeth was partly a tribute to the Stuarts, as one of James's distant ancestors is a hero in it).  However, underlying problems would come to the fore during the reign of James's second son Charles I (crowned in 1625).

*Charles I was an Arminian in a time when the Puritans were gaining support.  To demonstrate royal power, Charles I appointed William Laud, a leading Arminian, Archbishop of Canterbury.  This angered the Puritans, many of whom were prosperous members of the middle class—and members of the House of Commons, where the Divine Right of Kings was both politically and religiously unpopular.

*Charles spent a lot of money, which Parliament did not approve of and would not support.  In the first year of his reign he even forced landowners to loan him money (due within three months) and imprisoned those who would not (without Parliament's permission). 

*Charles called Parliament three times in the first four years of his reign (in one case to save the Duke of Buckingham from impeachment proceedings following a failed military expedition).  However, none of these Parliaments would grant him the funds he wanted, so he dissolved them.  The last of these, in 1628, promulgated the Petition of Rights which demanded no taxation without consent of Parliament and no arbitrary arrests.  In 1629 Charles dissolved Parliament and, for eleven years, ruled without it.

*To bypass the courts, Charles I used the Star Chamber against his enemies far more than previous kings had. 

*Charles had to raise money, and, although he avoided selling titles and privileges, he found ways to do it. He also charged fines to anyone with moderate wealth who did not attend his coronation (under a nearly-forgotten 1279 law).  He revived the ancient prerogative of ship money, originally levied on some coastal towns at some times to pay for the ships that defended England.  Charles I began to levy it on all his subjects.  It was not popular, and eventually some people managed to avoid paying it, but it was still a financial success for Charles. 

*Personal rule would come to an end because of Charles's efforts to bring religious unity to his kingdoms.  In 1637 King Charles I and Archbishop William Laud attempted to require the Church of Scotland to use the English Book of Common Prayer.  This was unacceptable in Calvinist Scotland, and war broke out.  Inconveniently, an uprising also began in Ireland about the same time.  What followed was sometimes called the Bishops' Wars or the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

*War is expensive, and although personal rule had worked during the peaceful 1630s, by 1639 King Charles I needed money, and was forced to call Parliament.  In return for loans from the City of London, Charles agreed to let Parliament sit for a reasonable length of time, but when it would not give him what he wanted, he dissolved it anyway—so that it is now known as the Short Parliament.

*Without funds, Charles was forced into a humiliating peace with Scotland in which he agreed to pay a large indemnity, which meant that he really needed money.  In 1640 he called Parliament again, and this one would refuse to dissolve—and came to be known as the Long Parliament.

*The Long Parliament attacked the power of Archbishop Laud.  It demanded an end to the Star Chamber and similar court, to unauthorized taxes, and the absolute monarch as a whole.  Furthermore, it demanded regular meetings of Parliament.  However, in 1642 Parliament divided when some Puritan members went further, and demanded the abolition of the Book of Common Prayer and the complete transfer of power from King to Parliament. 

*This would be too much for King Charles, and in 1642 Charles, with 400 soldiers, went to Parliament to arrest five dissenters.  When he arrived, William Lenthall, the Speaker of Parliament said "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." In other words, the Speaker proclaimed himself a servant of Parliament, rather than of the King. 

*After this embarrassment, Charles began to fear for the safety of himself, his family, and his court, and fled to Oxford.  Throughout the summer, different cities and towns expressed loyalty to either the King or Parliament until fighting broke out in late summer.  This was the beginning of the English Civil War.