James I (of England)

King of England from 1603 and Scotland (as James VI) from 1567. The son of Mary Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley, he succeeded to the Scottish throne on the enforced abdication of his mother and assumed power in 1583. He established a strong centralized authority, and in 1589 married Anne of Denmark (1574–1619).

As successor to Elizabeth I in England, he alienated the Puritans by his High Church views and Parliament by his assertion of divine right, and was generally unpopular because of his favourites, such as Buckingham, and his schemes for an alliance with Spain. He was succeeded by his son Charles I.

As king of Scotland, he curbed the power of the nobility, although his attempts to limit the authority of the Kirk (Church of Scotland) were less successful.

Upon his accession to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth I, James acted mainly upon the advice of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, but on the latter's death all restraint vanished.

His religious policy consisted of asserting the supreme authority of the crown and suppressing both Puritans and Catholics who objected. The preparation of the Authorized Version of the Bible in English, published in 1611, was ordered by James.

Led by Robert Catesby, a group of Catholic gentry planned to blow up James at the opening of Parliament in 1605, but the plot was discovered. The anti-Catholic reaction to the gunpowder plot gave James a temporary popularity, which soon dissipated. It was during his reign that the Puritan Pilgrims (or ‘Pilgrim Fathers’) sailed to the New World to escape persecution in England. His foreign policy, aimed primarily at achieving closer relations with Spain, was also disliked.