Popularity and Monarchy:The Hampton Court Conferenceand the Early Jacobean Church

Abstract

Building on recent reconsiderations of James I's Church policies, this article ties James's performance at the Hampton Court conference to his Scottish experiences, his texts on kingship and what he perceived in the Church of England upon arrival in his new realm. The linking thread is not theology but rather his fervent anti-popularity, bred in his reaction to the Scottish Reformation, rejection of Buchanan's limited monarchy theories and struggles to exert and expand his kingship in Scotland. In England, he found natural allies in a late Elizabethan tradition of anti-popularity. The puritan petitioning campaign for Church reform convinced him that nonconformity equated with popularity and that he had to crush it immediately (as intimated in Basilikon Doron), if he was to be a “free” monarch. At the conference, James made clear that he would have a strong episcopal church as a bulwark protecting his kingship against any popular challenge. The subsequent rigorous conformity campaign and purge of unyielding ministers indicate that far from seeking an irenic compromise, James sought to extirpate any challenge from below to his authority as Supreme Governor.