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James VI and I (James Stuart) (June 19, 1566 – March 27, 1625), King of Scots, King of England, and King of Ireland, faced many complicated religious challenges during his reigns in Scotland and England. In Scotland, he inherited a developing reformed church, the kirk, which was attempting to rid the country of bishops, dioceses, and parishes and establish a fully Presbyterian system, run by ministers and elders. However, James saw the bishops as the natural allies of the monarchy and frequently came into conflict with the kirk in his sustained effort to reintroduce an episcopal polity to Scotland. On his succession to the English throne, James was impressed by the church system he found there, which still adhered to an episcopate and supported the monarch's position as the head of the church. On the other hand, there were many more Roman Catholics in England than in Scotland, and James inherited a set of penal laws which he was constantly exhorted to enforce against them. Before ascending the English throne, James had assured him he would not persecute "any that will be quiet and give but an outward obedience to the law" but he soon reinforced strict penalties against Catholics. Partly triggered by Catholics' disillusionment with the new king, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 led to a new wave of anti-Catholicism and even harsher legislation. In 1606, an oath of allegiance was introduced, though its enforcement later slackened.〔Krugler, p. 20–24.〕 His policy of seeking a Spanish Match for his son, Charles, Prince of Wales, produced widespread opposition, particularly in the Commons, where members feared a revival of Catholic power in the country and a threat to the Protestant monarchy and state. ==Puritans== On James's arrival in London, the Puritan clergy presented him with the Millenary Petition, allegedly signed by a thousand English clergy, requesting reforms in the church, particularly the abolition of confirmation, wedding rings, and the term "priest", and that the wearing of cap and surplice, which they regarded as "outward badges of Popish errours", be made optional.〔Croft, p 156; Willson, p. 201.〕 James, however, equated English Puritans with Scottish Presbyterians and, after banning religious petitions, told the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 that he preferred the status quo,〔When Puritans spoke against ceremonies because they had been used when England was Catholic, James said shoes had been worn when England was Catholic, so why didn’t Puritans go barefoot? Willson, p 200. When an unmarried Puritan speaker objected to the phrase "With my body I thee worship" from the marriage service, James replied: "Many a man speaks of Robin Hood who never shot his bow". Stewart, p 197.〕 with the monarch ruling the church through the bishops.〔If bishops were put out of power, “I know what would become of my supremacy,” James objected. ”No bishop, no King. When I mean to live under a presbyteryland again.“ Willson, p. 198, p. 207.〕 He therefore resolved to enforce conformity among the clergy, a decision which led in the short term to about ninety ejections or suspensions from livings and in the longer term to a sense of persecution among English Puritans.〔“In things indifferent,” James wrote in a new edition of ''Basilikon Doron'', "they are seditious which obey not the magistrates". Willson, p 201, p 209; Croft, p 156; "In seeking conformity, James gave a name and a purpose to nonconformity." Stewart, p 205.〕 A notable success of the Hampton Court Conference was the commissioning of a new translation of the Bible, completed in 1611, which became known as the King James Bible, considered a masterpiece of Jacobean prose.〔Willson, pp 213–215; Croft, p 157.〕 James, who took an interest in the scholarly decisions of the translators, often participated in theological debate. In 1612, for example, he wrote a tract against the unorthodox Dutch theologian Conrad Vorstius, a follower of Jacobus Arminius.〔Willson, p 240.〕 At about the same time, he interviewed a dissenter called Bartholomew Legate, who told him he had not prayed for seven years: James was so appalled that, with the collusion of Lancelot Andrewes and other bishops, he had Legate burned at the stake, along with Edward Wightman.〔Willson, pp 240–241. "Both men emerge as the victims of a complex series of events: the king's desire to be seen as orthodox in the light of the Vorstius affair; the in-fighting for control of the ecclesiastical establishment on the elevation of George Abbot to the archbishopric of Canterbury; and the campaign of the emerging anti-Calvinist group around Bishop Richard Neile against puritans". Atherton and Como, pp. 1215–1250.〕 Another dissenter, the General Baptist leader Thomas Helwys, appealed to James for liberty of conscience, only to be sent to prison, where he died by 1616.〔In ''A Short Declaration on the Mystery of Iniquity'', Helwys declared that "men's religion...is betwixt God and themselves," and the king cannot judge "between God and man...Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them." Watts, p 49; Solt pp 145–7〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James VI and I and religious issues」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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