Quarrel of James with his First Parliament (1603–1610)

James, at the very beginning, had come into conflict with parliament over the question of the treatment of the Roman Catholics, and during his entire reign he was constantly quarrelling with it. No serious outbreak, however, occurred. On June 20, 1604, the House of Commons took occasion, in a strongly worded apology, to state the rights and liberties of English subjects and to enumerate the fundamental privileges of the House. To understand this document, says Gardiner, is to understand the causes of the success of the English Revolution . This apology had been called out by an attempted interference of the king with the right of the House to decide in cases of disputed elections.

During the next few years other difficulties arose. Of these the most famous was the Bate case in 1606. For James, as for Elizabeth, the income of the sovereign was insufficient, and in the case of the former, court extravagances made the matter worse. Parliament, out of touch with the king, was not particularly liberal. James retained a duty, imposed by his predecessor, on currants imported into England. The way of it was this: the Levant Company had paid Elizabeth £4000 for the monopoly of the currant trade, and for the privilege of taxing all merchants trading in currants who were not of the company. When the company dissolved in 1601, the crown, in order not to lose the £4000, continued the tax that the company had levied. One John Bate refused to pay this on the ground that it was illegal, but the judges of the Court of Exchequer decided in favor of the king. This particular case, which was decided on its merits, would not have led to trouble had it not been that the king claimed the entire right to impose new duties, and in 1608 issued a commission to his treasurer, Robert Cecil, stating this claim . In 1609 James raised money by levying a feudal aid when his son Henry was knighted. The outcry against this act was so great that parliament, after long negotiation, agreed to buy the king's feudal rights for £100,000. But the bargain fell through, and it was not until 1661 that the old rights were finally abolished.

Policy of Peace Abroad

The hostility of parliament toward the Roman Catholics and its suspicion of King James were increased at the beginning of the reign by Cecil's determination to revive his father's policy and to bring to an end the war with Spain. On August 19, 1604, a treaty between England and Spain was signed in London. This treaty was very unpopular, partly because of the prevailing hatred of Spain, and partly because in signing it the English government seemed to be deserting the Dutch, who were still struggling with Spain. "God help our good neighbors in Holland and Zealand!" was the cry of the English people on hearing of this treaty; and it is said that on the day the peace was proclaimed, prayers were offered in the pulpits of London for the success of the Dutch. But in 1608 a truce was effected between Philip III and the Dutch, which brought the long war to an end and prepared the way for the complete independence of Holland.

Until his death, in 1612, Cecil controlled the policy of the king, which was consistently one of peace. In 1610 he entered into an alliance with Henry IV of France. In reality, this was an alliance of England, France, the Netherlands, the German Protestants, Venice, and Savoy against the house of Hapsburg and the Emperor Rudolf, for the purpose of separating Spain from Germany, and of destroying the dominance of the house of Hapsburg in Europe. Two years later, James entered into a treaty with the German Protestants, promising aid against the emperor and the Catholic party in Germany in case of need. This agreement was followed in 1613 by the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to the son of Frederick IV, elector of the Palatinate and the head of the Protestant Union in Germany. Thus James seemed to stand in close relations with the Protestants in Germany and Holland, and with the Catholic powers, Spain and France. This anomalous position led to serious complications at a later time.

Commerce and Colonization

But the greatest interest of the period, so far as affairs outside of England were concerned, lay not in treaties with European states, but in the expansion of commerce and the beginnings of settlement in America. Companies which, at the close of the preceding century, had been organized for the promotion of commerce had taken the place of private individuals, who in the older days had traded on their own account. The oldest of these companies was that of the Merchant Adventurers, which had been incorporated in 1564 and the trade of which had now become limited to the Netherlands and countries adjoining. But new companies entered the field, and were duly chartered by the crown. Among others were the Muscovy Company, trading with Russia; the Levant Company, trading with Turkey, Syria, and Asia Minor; the Prussian or Eastland Company, trading with the lands along the Baltic; and, most important of all, the East India Company, trading with India, Persia, Arabia, and the Spice Islands. Other companies also were chartered after 1600.

Such companies as these, having a monopoly of trade, were looked upon at this time as public benefits, inasmuch as they not merely made money for themselves, but also promoted the welfare of the state by taking out manufactured goods and bringing back coin or raw materials to the kingdoms. Each company had a charter, and was organized with a governor, a deputy governor, a council, and a general court of all the members of the company. By means of these companies of merchants, trade with all parts of the world increased, and became a matter of so much interest to King James that he extended the privileges of the companies and appointed committees at home to look after trade and commerce.

But not only for trade were companies organized. In 1606 two companies, the London Company and the Plymouth Company, were organized for purposes of colonization. Their charters authorized them to make settlements in North America, and the London Company started a settlement at once at Jamestown in Virginia. After many struggles, the Jamestown colonists began to prosper, and to them is due the credit of having founded the first permanent English settlement in the New World. For the first seventeen years of its career the colony was threatened with interference from Spain, who considered its establishment below latitude 41° an invasion upon her territory. Not until 1624, when King James took Virginia under his protection and reversed his policy toward Spain, was the safety of the colony secured. The East India Company began the founding of a colonial empire for England in the East; the London Company began the establishment of a colonial empire in the West; and to both James I contributed all that he could.

By a new policy of settling English and Scotch colonists in Ulster in Ireland, James transformed that country into a prosperous Protestant district. But the remainder of the land still continued to be tribal, hostile, and strongly Roman Catholic, and the problem of how to manage Ireland was as far from a solution as ever.

The Spanish Policy of King James

After 1612 a change took place in the character and policy of the king. In that year Cecil died, and also the king's eldest and ablest son, Prince Henry. James, always susceptible to the influence of favorites, now took new advisers, whose methods added nothing to the popularity of the king or of his court. The first of these inert, Robert Carr, not only encouraged the extravagance of the king and involved him in new financial troubles, but also was connected with serious scandals at court. Carr's immoral conduct brought down upon him the disfavor of the rigid Puritans, and eventually led to his downfall in 1616. The second favorite, George Villiers, later duke of Buckingham, took the place of Carr, and was the trusted adviser, not only of King James, but afterward of his son, Charles I.

Behind Carr and Villiers was working a powerful pro-Spanish party, the leaders of which were the Spanish ministers. James came very much under the influence of the most shrewd and sagacious of these men, Gondomar, who, like others of his party, had given up all idea of conquering England by force, and were working persistently to restore the influence of Spain in England by intrigue. Gondomar believed that Protestantism was not deeply rooted in England and might gradually be got rid of, especially if he could separate James from the Protestants on the Continent. At first he was successful; for James, angry with the Dutch because they were getting control of the whale fishery and the spice trade in the East, was willing to affront them, and agreed to a marriage between his son Charles and the Spanish Infanta.

Just at this time Ralegh, who had been in prison for twelve years, experimenting in chemistry and writing a history of the world, proposed to lead an expedition to Guiana to find a mine of gold, of which he had heard in a former expedition. James let him go, on the express condition that he should avoid all conflict with the Spaniards. Unfortunately, Ralegh not only failed to find the mine and returned without gold, but during his absence he fought with the Spaniards and burned a Spanish town. Gondomar demanded that he be given to Spain for punishment, and though James would not consent to this plan, he had Ralegh executed under the old sentence of 1606. Thus Ralegh fell a victim to Spanish vengeance and to King James's short-sighted policy of maintaining at all costs the alliance with Spain.