Conclusion

Abstract

Too often James VI and I has been viewed as merely a King of England with some appendages. Until recently, this gross Anglocentrism contributed to a lack of interest in the real dimensions of his multiple monarchy and distorted historical understanding of both his problems and his achievements. A similarly Anglocentric approach ignored, or at best underestimated, the crucial differences between England and the other kingdoms over which James ruled. The boundaries of the English state were fixed before the Norman Conquest and under the Tudors, the control exercised by central government was highly effective by sixteenth-century standards. Under Henry VIII, Wales was brought under the English system of parliamentary representation and the co-operation of the Welsh elite thereafter ensured the success of the protestant Reformation. By contrast, large areas of Scotland and Ireland were only just emerging from a more fluid period of devolved governance, in which the centre wielded far less influence over the outlying regions. In both these kingdoms the Jacobean monarchy was still battling to assert a degree of effective control that the Tudors could take for granted in England.KeywordsEnglish StateFluid PeriodReligious MajorityParliamentary RepresentationNorman ConquestThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.