James I and Puritansim 1603 to 1611

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the importance of the Hampton Court Conference that took place in 1604. In particular, the paper explores its importance with regard to James I's response to the problems posed by Puritanism in the years 1603 to 1611.

From the Paper:

"Although the use of the word "Puritan" later expanded, with the outbreak of full-scale conflict in Europe, to include all anti-Catholics, the oases of Puritanism in the desert of Calvinism across England posed a problem by their very nature, Puritanism being, as defined by Collinson, "a hotter sort of protestant[ism]", and thus fairly fundamentalist. Puritans, however, were largely not prepared to act on their occasionally more extreme views; the Millenary Petition, for instance, was presented to James in 1603 before he had even been crowned, showing that the Millenarians (or those claiming to represent them - the supposed signatures of a thousand ministers were largely orchestrated by twelve men) were keen to establish that they were definitely not as extreme as the Presbyterians with whom James had dealt in Scotland. While the Presbyterians wished for the complete separation of church and state (thus threatening both by removing the King from his position as Supreme Governor), the Millenarian Puritans stated their aims in a petition, thus appealing to his authority, and specified that they had no desire for the "dissolution of state ecclesiastical". Their requests were largely on ceremonial matters, in an attempt to establish a working relationship, and had little significance with regards to the theology central to James's beliefs, such as his rule by "Divine Right", which encapsulated his control of both church and state. With their belief that Armageddon could be near, the Millenarians thereby demonstrated that they took little significant issue with the current state of power being around when judgement came, and that they were more concerned in preparing themselves in more individual ways, therefore requiring only a moderate response from James in 1604."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Patrick Collinson (ed.), The Sixteenth Century: 1485-1603 (Short Oxford History of the British Isles) (OUP, 2001).
• Pauline Croft, King James (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
• Christopher Durston, James I (Routledge, 1993).
• S.J. Houston, James I (Seminar Studies In History) (Longman, 1995).
• Roger Lockyer, The Early Stuarts: A Political History of England, 1603-42 (Longman, 1998).

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