Problems James I faced 1603

• Courtiers and officials’ salaries were so low - relied on patronage

• Elizabeth: parsimonious to not run into debt - so high demand from unsatisfied courtiers

• James was a foreign king - need to reward supporters to keep them loyal

• James faced opposition too e.g. the Main Plot 1603

• Parliament: increasingly assertive and to protect its ‘privileges’

• However he was too generous - devalued gift and encouraged further demands

• a King in an age of royal extravagance has to look wealthy to royal competitors and peers - first grade king

• James inherited Eliz’s £400,000 debt (but can be payed off with subsidies)

• Political/financial system long overdue for reform

• Eliz didn’t have an heir so didn’t update of rents, assessments for subsidies and custom duties - by 1603, worst economy in Europe

• E.g. a 50 year lease on some crown property agreed at £68/yr but actually worth £1,071

• Eliz sold crown lands and offices - impoverished James and needed to employ more people to control them

• local elites (valued land) under-assessed themselves and neighbours - reduced subsidies, mid-16th cent= £130,000 fell to £55,000 by 1628

Wife and family - cost of royal household: £64,000 (1603) to £114,000  (1610)

• Catholics - hoped James would be more lenient

• Puritans - more troublesome and growing in numbers - hoped James coming from presbyterian Scotland would further Reformation and wanted to ‘purify’ Church of Catholic vestiges

• inherited a dragging war with Spain

• Alliance with Dutch (expensive) and strong connections with Denmark (wife was Danish) - angered Spanish

• German Protestant leaders too weak and eager for England - so under pressure and expected to play active role in leading

• ‘rex pacificus’ worked in Scotland but not in England because it was important

• this attitude soured relations with Parliament

• Ireland - serious tensions among native Catholic populations - suppressed rebellion in 1590s