James I, the first king to reign in both England and Scotland, faced many difficulties with the Parliament of England. Though recent studies have shown that the Parliament of Scotland may have been more of a thorn in his side than was previously believed, James developed his political philosophy of the relationship between monarch and parliament in Scotland and reconciled himself to the independent stance of the English Parliament and its unwillingness to bow readily to his policies.

Overview The source of concern was that the King and Parliament adhered to two mutually, extended exclusive views about the nature of their relationship. James I believed that he owed his authority to God-given right, that the law(s) of, and in, "His" Kingdom were only an extension of his royal prerogative, and that Parliament was in essence a lower Court to him, its laws and opinions always subject to his oversight and review; and that he was free to revise or overrule them completely whenever he wished. In the areas Royal administration and governmental policy (i.e., how the government did its business and what directions it took in the affairs of the country), the King saw no role for Parliament or to be informally bound by its opinions at all.

Parliament on the other hand, particularly the Commons, first of all saw the relationship as a partnership. Parliament believed the king ruled by contract (an unwritten one, yet fully binding). Parliament believed that its own rights to exist and to function in the ongoing work of the government of the country were as sacrosanct as those of the King and, in that sense, Parliament's rights were equal to those of the King. Furthermore, Parliament believed that in return for grants of subsidies to the Crown, the king should take its views on policy formulation and execution into account.

The result of this fundamental disagreement was a series of difficult parliaments, two of which James dissolved in frustration. Many historians, from the mid-seventeenth century to the present, have traced the problems with Parliament faced by James's son, Charles I, to those experienced by James, though others have questioned the inevitability of Charles's fatal clashes with Parliament.

Theory of monarchy In 1597–1598, James wrote two works, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies and Basilikon Doron (Royal Gift), in which he established an ideological base for monarchy. In the Trew Law, he sets out the divine right of kings, explaining that for Biblical reasons kings are higher beings than other men, though "the highest bench is the sliddriest to sit upon"."Kings are called gods by the prophetical King David because they sit upon God His throne in earth and have the count of their administration to give unto Him." Quoted by Willson, p 131. The document proposes an absolutist theory of monarchy, by which a king may impose new laws by royal prerogative but must also pay heed to tradition and to God, who would "stirre up such scourges as pleaseth him, for punishment of wicked kings".Croft, pp 131–133. Basilikon Doron, written as a book of instruction for the four-year-old Prince Henry, provides a more practical guide to kingship.Willson, p 133. Despite banalities and sanctimonious advice,A king, James advised, should not look like "a deboshed waster" (Croft, p135) and should avoid the company of women, "which are no other thing else but irritamenta libidinis" (Willson, p 135). the work is well written, perhaps the best example of James's prose."The Basilikon Doron is the best prose James ever wrote." Willson, p 132; "James wrote well, scattering engaging asides throughout the text." Croft, pp 134–135. James's advice concerning parliaments, which he understood as merely the king's "head court", foreshadows his difficulties with the English Commons: "Hold no Parliaments," he tells Henry, "but for the necesitie of new Lawes, which would be but seldome".Croft, p 133. In the True Law James states that the king owns his realm as a feudal lord owns his fief, because:

"[Kings arose] before any estates or ranks of men, before any parliaments were holden, or laws made, and by them was the land distributed, which at first was wholly theirs. And so it follows of necessity that kings were the authors and makers of the laws, and not the laws of the kings."Quoted by Willson, p 132.James was ambitious to build on the personal union of the crowns of Scotland and England (the Union of the Crowns) to establish a complete and permanent union of the two realms under one monarch, one parliament and one law, a plan which met opposition in both countries.Croft, pp 52–54. "Hath He not made us all in one island," James told the English parliament, "compassed with one sea and of itself by nature indivisible?" In April 1604, however, the Commons refused on legal grounds his request to be titled "King of Great Britain".English and Scot, James insisted, should "join and coalesce together in a sincere and perfect union, as two twins bred in one belly, to love one another as no more two but one estate". Willson, p 250. A disappointed James retorted: "I am not ashamed of my project, neither have I deferred it (I be to deal plainly) out of a liking of the judges' reasons or uses". In October 1604, he assumed the title "King of Great Britain" by proclamation rather than statute, though Sir Francis Bacon told him he could not use the style in "any legal proceeding, instrument or assurance".Willson, pp 249–52. The decision was a sign that where he lacked the consent of the Commons for his policies, James intended, unlike his predecessor, to resort to the royal prerogative.

King and Parliament

James's difficulties with his first parliament in 1604 ended the initial euphoria of his succession.Croft, p 62. On 7 July, he prorogued the parliament, having achieved his aims neither for the full union nor for the obtaining of funds. "I will not thank where I feel no thanks due," he remarked in his closing speech. "...I am not of such a stock as to praise fools...You see how many things you did not well...I wish you would make use of your liberty with more modesty in time to come".Quoted by Croft, p 62. The parliament of 1604 may be seen as shaping the attitudes of both sides for the rest of the reign, though the difficulties owed more to mutual incomprehension than conscious enmity.Croft, p 63. On the eve of the state opening of the next parliamentary session on 5 November 1605, a soldier called Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of the parliament buildings guarding a pile of slaves, not far from about twenty barrels of gunpowder with which he intended to blow up Parliament House the following day and cause the destruction, as James put it, "not only...of my person, nor of my wife and posterity also, but of the whole body of the State in general".Stewart, p 219. A Catholic conspiracy led by a disaffected gentleman called Robert Catesby, the Gunpowder Plot, as it quickly became known, had in fact been discovered in advance of Fawkes's arrest and deliberately allowed to mature in order to catch the culprits red-handed and the plotters unawares.The plot had been exposed after one of the conspirators, Francis Tresham, warned his brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, on October 26, with the note: "They shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. The danger is past as soon as you have burned the letter". Monteagle had the note read aloud, possibly to warn the plotters the secret was out, and promptly handed it over to Cecil. Willson, p 224.

James's difficulties with the Commons and his waning public popularity notwithstanding,For example, Archbishop Matthew Hutton of York informed James in December 1604 of widespread criticism of his extravagance and his devotion to hunting. Croft, p 63. the sensational discovery of the Gunpowder Plot aroused a potent wave of national relief at the delivery of the king and his sons and inspired in the ensuing parliament a mood of loyalty and goodwill which Salisbury astutely exploited to extract higher subsidies for the king than any but one granted in Elizabeth's reign.Croft, p 64. In his speech to both houses on 9 November, James expounded on two emerging preoccupations of his monarchy: the divine right of kings and the Catholic question. He insisted that the plot had been the work of a few Catholics and not of the English Catholics as a whole.James said it did not follow "that all professing that Romish religion were guilty of the same". Quoted by Stewart, p 225. And he reminded the assembly to rejoice at his survival, since kings were gods and he owed his escape to a miracle.Willson, p 226.

The "Goodwin Case" drew a dispute in the early portion of James's reign. Sir Francis Goodwin, a known outlaw, was elected to parliament as MP for the constituency of Buckinghamshire. The election of outlaws had been prohibited by royal proclamation and James demanded that the commons exclude Goodwin from its membership. However, the commons claimed it should be the judge of its own election results and James, after some dispute, pragmatically backed down. This event did, however, create animosity between crown and parliament.

"The Great Contract"