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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 110 James I:
May 2, 2005:
James I (1566 -1625) was the first to call himself the king of Great Britain. Even though he was the King of Scotland when he became the King of England, the claim was a bit premature. The official Second Act of Union did not come about until 1707. It was in this Second Act of Union that Scotland was truly merged with England creating the nation we now call Great Britain. Wales had been assimilated in the First Act of Union way back in 1536.
James was the son of the ill fated Mary Queen of Scots and he ascended to the Scottish throne when his mom was booted out. He was just a kid at the time and Scotland was really ruled by regents until he reached the age of consent. He actually took over Scotland in 1583 and went solidly with the Protestant factions. He made an alliance with Lizzy and hardly batted an eye when his mom lost her head. It worked out well for him, because he took over England when Lizzy died in 1603, becoming the first Stuart King.
James was an absolutist at a time when Parliament was feeling its oats and trying to increase its power. James managed to muddle through, but his successor son, Charles I was not to be so lucky. Luckily for James, England, thanks to Lizzy and the Parliament, was doing well when he took over. Hence the conflict between his absolute views of royal prerogatives and the Parliament were not game breakers. In addition, he brought a hasty end to the war with Spain in 1604 which helped him. Still, he never really worked out a good way to deal with the Parliament. The tough part was, those guys were in charge of taxes. That meant he had to get their permission to restore the crown's treasure. It had been pretty much used up in the war with Spain.
One mistake he made was to not have members of the House of Commons in his privy council or vice versa. He had no influence on the inside where it mattered. In addition, he had a big mouth and found pleasure in lecturing both houses about his royal prerogatives. We can guess they took offense to that. In fact they made a rather official answer to his nonsense called the Apology of the Commons.
James was a bit of a spender and Parliament kept a tight purse limiting his income. The result was, in just four years, he managed to double the royal debt that Liz had accrued as a result of the Spanish war. The rest was inevitable. James, in a power play, went over their heads and placed new customs duties on England's merchants without Parliamentary consent. Then he bullied the courts into declaring his acts of taxation as law. This set the pot to boiling as Parliament dug in its heels.
Even with his extra tax, things were becoming desperate for James. His chief minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, in a last ditch effort to bail out the king tried to persuade Parliament to trade the king's feudal revenues for a fixed sum to be granted by Parliament. They were unable to agree on that and it came to nothing. In 1611 James decided to dissolve the Parliament. A year later the chief minister died and James was high and dry with no competent help.
From 1611 on, James blunder along with inept ministers and repressive government playing favorites everywhere. In 1614 he did call one Parliament called the Addled Parliament. Of course, it came to nothing. the kings's judgement was going downhill as was the country's morale. In fact, anger against the king and his ministers was building in the land.
James' mind was in a downward spiral when he called a third Parliament in 1621. His goal was to raise money for an alliance with Spain, if you can believe it. This Parliament did not like his idea at all and told him so very bluntly. His response was to destroy the record of their complaints and dissolve the Parliament once again. For James, the end was in sight. In the last few months of his rule, his son, Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham ruled the country in an alliance from behind the scenes.
That is when the young Prince and Buckingham decided to take a trip to Madrid. They were seeking a marriage alliance with Spain. The prince, while there, convinced himself he was in love with the object of the negotiations, the daughter of King Philip III. The Spaniards used that to jerk him around. While Buckingham got arrogant about the whole mess, Charles got angry. As a result they came back to England and persuaded James to call a final Parliament. They were only too happy to declare war on Spain. With James pretty much out of it, they also passed a bunch of other legislation. James died in 1625 and Charles ascended the throne, inheriting one big heap of problems.
Considering what was coming down at the time, we might wonder
how democracy could ever evolve out of this insanity. Perhaps
the most important events that occurred under James I were not
even much notice at the time. This was the beginning of the colonization
of America. Virginia was founded in 1607 by the London Company.
In 1613 the Dutch settled in New York. In 1620, Plymouth was settled
by separatists. Then Maine and New Hampshire were founded in 1623.
Unknown at the time, this was the beginning of a new and powerful
nation. Out of this beginning came the first true representative
democracy.
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