James regarded the Conference as a success.  He had refuted the Puritans, as he believed, with much Latin and some Greek.  He ended by declaiming against them with such unction that one enthusiastic bishop declared that his Majesty must be specially inspired by the Holy Ghost!

He closed the meeting by imprisoning the ten persons who had presented the petition, on the ground that it tended to sedition and rebellion.  Henceforth, the King’s attitude toward the Puritans (S378) was unmistakable.  “I will make them conform,” said he, “or I will harry them out of the land” (S422).

Accordingly, a law was enacted which required every curate to accept the Thirty-Nine Articles (S381) and the Prayer Book of the Church of England (S381) without reservation.  This act drove several hundred clergymen from the Established Church.

419.  The Divine Right of Kings, 1604; the Protest of the Commons; “Favorites.”

As if with the desire of further alienating his people, James now constantly proclaimed the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.  This theory, which was unknown to the English constitution, declared that the King derived his power and right to rule directly from God, and in no way from the people.[1] “It is atheism and blasphemy,” he said, “to dispute what God can do, ... so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do.”

[1] James’s favorite saying was, “A Deo rex, a rege lex” (God makes the king, the king makes the law).  He boasted that kings might, as he declared, “make what liked them law and gospel.”

In making these utterances James seems to have entirely forgotten that he owed his throne to that act of the English Parliament which accepted him as Elizabeth’s successor (S415).  In his exalted position as head of the nation, he boasted of his power much like the dwarf in the story, who, perched on the giant’s shoulders, cries out, “See how big I am!”

Acting on this assumption, James levied customs duties on goods without asking the consent of Parliament; violated the privileges of the House of Commons; rejected members who had been legally elected; and imprisoned those who dared to criticize his course.  The contest was kept up with bitterness during the whole reign.

Toward its close James truckled meanly to the power of Spain, hoping thereby to marry his son Charles to a Spanish princess.  Later, he made a feeble and futile effort to help the Protestant party in the great Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which had begun between the Catholics and Protestants in Germany.  The House of Commons implored the King not to humiliate himself and the nation at the feet of Spain.  The King replied by warning the House not to meddle with matters which did not concern them, and denied their right to freedom of speech.  The Commons solemnly protested, and James seized their official journal, and with his own hands tore out the record of the protest (1621).