J.P.Sommerville

 

 

The government of James I


Philip Herbert
 Earl of Pembroke


Robert Cecil
Earl of Salisbury


Robert Carr
Earl of Somerset

 

Finance

bulletThe enormous expense of England's wars in Ireland and with Spain meant that James inherited a crown with debts of about £400,000. The advent of peace increased trade and customs revenues, and the cautious management of Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset also increased royal revenue.
bulletBut James I's extravagance meant that expenditure exceeded income by about £80,000 p.a. (By 1605, his wife - Anne of Denmark - had also run up debts of over £40,000 just on clothes and similar fripperies).
 
 

bullet Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury resorted to selling royal land (as he had done under Elizabeth) to meet the shortfall, but this expedient simply increased the problem in the long term.
bullet Salisbury tried to create a new source of revenue by imposing additional taxes on imports and exports. The judges agreed in Bates Case (1606) that these impositions were legal, and the crown extended them to many commodities. But legality did not mean that the impositions were acceptable to English public opinion.
bullet Parliament feared that the king would cease to summon it, if he could obtain enough revenue from impositions as to make parliamentary subsidies unnecessary.
bullet Impositions markedly increased the tension between James and Parliament. An attempt to settle royal finances was suggested in 1610. The Great Contract proposed that - in exchange for James giving up wardship, purveyance and other feudal income - Parliament should vote £200,000 p.a. in perpetuity. But the reciprocal distrust created by impositions and parliamentary opposition to them was not easily stilled, and the proposal collapsed amidst mutual recrimination.
 

England and Scotland

A significant factor in James relations with his new English subjects was the resentment they felt at James' attachment to Scottish favorites and his repeated attempts to create a "perfect union between England and Scotland.
Robert Carr (1590-1645), the son of a minor Scottish noble family, was James I's greatest favorite from 1607 to 1615. James created him Earl of Somerset in 1613. Carr fell from favor with his involvement in the Overbury scandal.
Another Scottish favorite was James Hay (1580-1636). Outrageously extravagant, Hay's family motto was "Spare naught" while his personal adage was "Spend and God will send". Hay's confidence was well-placed so far as James was concerned:  He lavished about £40,000 on this favorite and created him earl of Carlisle in 1622.
James I did not simply promote Scots favorites. He also tried to persuade the English parliament to establish a complete union between Scotland and England. Fearful of "beggarly Scots" flooding across the border, Parliament resisted all attempts to create common institutions. It even refused to recognize the title "King of Great Britain" that James assumed.
Anti-Scottish feeling was common in England and occasionally found extreme expression. Guy Fawkes stated that the Gunpowder Plot was aimed at blowing James and his Scottish followers back to their northern mountains. In the Parliament of 1614, one MP (John Hoskins) threatened genocidal massacres if the Scotsmen were not sent home.
Other English politicians were less opposed to Union with Scotland. Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham (1536-1624) sat on a commission to consider the details of union. He doodled some possible designs for a common flag - the last was his favorite.

 

James and Parliament

Parliament

Sessions
1604 19 March - 7 July 1604
5 November 1605 - 27 May 1606
18 November 1606 - 4 July 1607
9 February - 23 July 1610
16 October - 6 December 1610
1614 5 April - 7 June 1614
1621 30 January - 4 June 1621
20 November - 18 December 1621
1624 12 February - 29 May 1624
 

bullet The first session of the 1604 Parliament immediately ran into problems because of the Commons' deep suspicion of the proposals for legal and administrative union with Scotland drawn up by Robert Cecil.
A disputed election in Buckinghamshire - where both Goodwin and Fortescue claimed they had been chosen - caused some conflict. The question of whether the king or parliament itself should decide disputed elections was decided in the Commons' favor. Angered by James' intervention, the parliamentary committee involved drew up an Apology justifying its own conduct and complaining of James I's.
bullet

The second session - following as it did hard on the heels of the Gunpowder Plotters' attempt to murder everyone present - displayed remarkable harmony in passing legislation against the Catholic threat.

 


Sir Robert Bruce Cotton
(1571-1631)

 The session of 1610 was dominated by conflict over financial matters - especially the Great Contract and impositions. Sir Robert Bruce Cotton - a renowned historian - tried to convince the Commons that history showed taxation should be voted before grievances were redressed, but with little success.

"I think the king cannot by the Common Law of the land impose. The reason is:  the Common Law of the land hath given a propriety to every man of his own goods and the king cannot charge or have any interest therein but by the grant of the party either in person, or by representation in parliament wherein all men are parties."

[Speech in Parliament of Sir William Jones]

 The problem of impositions arose again in 1614. Opposition to James was so intense that the king dissolved parliament before it had passed any legislation or voted any taxation. Thereafter it was known as the "Addled Parliament".
 

Carr, Howard and Overbury

bulletRobert Carr - James I's young favorite - was not just a pretty face. During the 1600s, his influence over James in political matters steadily increased. After the death of Robert Cecil and his elevation to the Privy Council in 1612, Carr was the man all factions courted.
bulletThe woman that Carr wooed during 1612 was Frances Howard - the very discontented wife of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. In 1613, Frances asked for - and (with James I's backing) obtained - an annulment of her marriage on the grounds of her husband's impotence. In December, Carr married Frances.
bulletIn September 1613 Carr's one-time ally, Thomas Overbury, had died in the Tower of London, and during 1615 the evidence began to mount that Carr and Frances had co-operated in poisoning him.
bulletA number of Carr's and Frances' servants were executed for their part in Overbury's murder, and it seemed for a time that they would meet the same fate. After imprisonment in the Tower for some years, the couple were released and allowed to live in retirement.
 

 
bulletOther members of the Howard family managed to hang onto power, despite Frances' disgrace. Henry Howard, who had become Earl of Northampton in 1604 allied initially with Robert Cecil, but moved into Carr's camp, and was exercising considerable power by the time of his death in 1614.
 

The father of Frances, Thomas Howard (1561-1626) was created Earl of Suffolk in 1603. He had been Lord Chancellor since 1601 and became Lord Treasurer in 1614.

 

Another Thomas Howard (1585-1646), Earl of Arundel from 1604, was admitted to the Privy Council after abandoning Catholicism for the Church of England in 1616. Arundel's lasting fame rests less on his political power than on the staggering collection of art treasures he amassed - including paintings by Holbein, Titian, Dürer and Raphael.