James I Flashcards
Give four details about the situation in 1603.
1) Existing system of finance and government under considerable strain.
2) Elizabeth left a surplus of £90,000 in the treasury and a debt of £400,000 - the debt was covered by money owed by France and the Dutch and an uncollected subsidy that had been voted in 1603.
3) At war with Spain since 1588 - catholics seen as traitors.
4) Declining royal revenue and parliament were suspicious of the new king and his beliefs.
Give four details about the character of James I.
1) Disliked violence and war and desired to be seen as a peacemaker and mediator - seen as a tolerant man.
2) Reliance on favourites - overly generous to favourites. Once created 46 knights on a journey to Scotland before breakfast.
3) Debt of £816,000 within three years of his accession.
4) Strong believer in the Divine Right of Kings.
What expectations were there of Charles when he took the throne in 1603? (4)
1) Leniency towards Catholics - end to recusancy fines and granting of right to worship privately.
2) Puritans hoped for church reform with some advocating a Presbyterian system, plus more protestant churches.
3) European protestant leaders desired for James to play a more active role in the war against Spain.
4) Lower taxation after years of war and generosity towards unsatisfied courtiers.
What is ordinary revenue and what are the four components?
Ordinary revenue is the income that the monarch received each year.
1) Customs revenue - Second major source of income for the king, support for the king in the merchant community. However, parliament saw it as undermining their right to control tax.
2) Crown lands - Most important source of revenue, cheap form of patronage and diminished as successive Lord Chancellors saw the sale of land as a quick way to make money.
3) Purveyance - Right of court to buy provisions at fixed prices well below market prices, abused by corrupt courtiers.
4) Wardship - Estate managed after death of its owner until their heir came of age. - Useful for rewarding courtiers.
What infamous case took place in 1604 over customs revenue?
Bate’s Case
Bate refused to a pay a duty on currants because it hadn’t been sanctioned by parliament.
However the judges ruled in favour of the king on the basis that he had the right to regulate trade for the security of the realm.
Give four facts about James’ extravagance.
1) Caused outrage in parliament because much of the patronage was concentrated on Scottish favourites such as Lord Hay.
2) Annual spend of £400,000 per year in peacetime, peak of £522,000 in 1614. - Queen Elizabeth spent only £300,000.
3) The Book of Bounty in which Salisbury attempted to restrain the king by preventing him from giving away land, customs or impositions.
4) James began to give away cash instead - £36,000 in the last four months of 1610.
What were the five main financial disputes during the reign of James I?
1) Impositions
2) The Great Contract 1610
3) The Cockayne Project 1614
4) Monopolies
5) Reforms of Cranfield
What was the Great Contract?
Why was the Great Contract in 1610 a source of dispute between James and parliament? (3)
The Great Contract was a plan drawn up by the Lord Treasurer, The Earl of Salisbury, in which James would surrender some of the revenue he raised under his prerogative such as wardship and purveyance. In return, parliament would pay his debts, which amounted to £600,000 by 1610, and give him a yearly income of £200,000.
The reasons for the dispute:
1) Parliament was unwilling to pay off the king’s debts.
2) Parliament was unwilling to compensate officials who would lose their jobs from the court of wards.
3) Parliament were worried that much of the money they granted him would end up being spent on James’ favourites.
What was the Cockayne project of 1914, why did it fail?
This was an attempt by James, encouraged by Sir William Cockayne, a London merchant, to make a greater profit by exporting finished cloth instead of sending unfinished cloth to the Netherlands, where the process added much of the value to the product.
James revoked the right of the Merchant Adventurers who were responsible for the trade of the cloth and handed the trade over to Cockayne and his merchants.
However the scheme failed because Cockayne had no experience in finishing cloth and the Netherlands were able to import unfinished cloth from elsewhere.
This made the merchant classes who were already angered by impositions, even more hostile to James.
What were the most important aspects of James I’s foreign policy in the early years of his reign? (4)
1) Peace with Spain in 1604 - Mostly supported by politicians as the war with Spain was very costly.
2) Alliance with France - after Henry VI was assassinated, James avoided the controversial alliance with a Catholic monarch.
3) Peacemaking - James was instrument in ending disputes between Sweden and Denmark. He married his daughter, Elizabeth, to Frederick of the Palatinate, a leading German Protestant Prince which was very popular with parliament.
4) Potential Spanish match for Charles I provoked a hostile reaction from parliament.
What dilemma did James face with regard to the Thirty Years War? (3)
1) English public opinion was strongly supportive of Frederick and Elizabeth and wanted action to get the Palatinate back for them. - James did not have an army he could send to Germany.
2) MPs urged James to marry Charles to a protestant - but he thought that a Catholic match for Charles might help to get the Palatinate back as part of the negotiations.
3) MPs and anti-Spanish councillors wanted a naval war with Spain - but James knew this was unlikely to succeed without vast injections of money and MPs were not prepared to grant this in the parliament of 1621.
What problems over foreign policy existed at the end of James’ reign? (5)
1) James agreed only to a limited expedition to recover the palatinate, meanwhile having been humiliated at the Spanish court, Buckingham was determined on war with Spain.
2) James made a treaty with the Dutch in 1624.
3) James agreed that Charles should marry Henrietta Maria of France, since France was the enemy of Spain.
4) James faced problems in parliament in 1624 as MPs wanted war with Spain but granted limited funds for defence and the navy.
5) The expedition to Germany led by Lord Mansfield was a total failure as most of the troops died from the Plague within a few days of crossing the channel.
What pressures did James face from Puritans? (2)
1) The vast majority of Puritans wanted moderate Church reforms to cleanse the Church of the last remains of popish practice.
2) The Puritans issued James with the Millenary Petition in 1603.
What was the Hampton Court Conference of 1604?
What was the outcome of the Conference? (5)
James suggested a conference with the Puritans to discuss the Millenary Petition at Hampton Court in 1604.
1) Agreed that preaching ministers should be provided for all parishes and that priests should not have several parishes to look after.
2) Decided on a new version of the bible - the ‘King James Bible’ which was published in 1611.
3) Puritans pursued demands that were so moderate, because they feared being labelled extremists, that James dismissed their demands as trivial.
4) James treated Puritans with suspicion following the conference.
5) In 1610, James appointed the Puritan, George Abbott as Archbishop of Canterbury.
What pressures did James face and how did he deal with Catholics in the early part of his reign? (4)
1) Catholics were eager to see a reduction in recusancy fines and permission to worship freely.
2) At first James agreed not to persecute any that will be ‘quiet and give an outward obedience to the law’ and recusancy fines fell to 1/4 of their level before 1603.
3) However, James faced a backlash to his leniency towards Catholics, in 1604 all Jesuits were ordered out of the kingdom and recusancy fines were to be collected in full.
4) James hoped that if he was harsher on Catholics, parliament would be more willing to grant his dream of a union between England and Scotland.
