excepting for the bride and her household. On 29 May parliament was prorogued, on the understanding that in the course of the summer James was to ascertain what allies he could find, and to hold a session in the autumn to lay his plans before parliament and ask for the necessary supplies. That this undertaking was not carried out was owing to James's incapacity to resist the combination between Charles and Buckingham. When it appeared that Richelieu insisted on a secret article in the French marriage treaty, in which religious liberty should be assured to the English catholics, James would have refused his assent, but gave way before the insistence of his favourite and his son. On these terms the marriage treaty was actually signed on 10 Nov. 1624, and it was therefore impossible to hold a session of parliament, because the houses would at once have denounced the leniency shown to the catholics.
Without a parliamentary grant it was in vain to hope for the regaining of the Palatinate. Yet, in combination with France, James prepared to send an expedition with that object under Mansfeld. Soon, however, disputes with France arose. The French king wanted to divert the expedition to the relief of the Dutch fortress of Breda, then besieged by the Spanish general Spinola. James refused to come to an open breach with Spain, and Mansfeld's English troops sailed on 31 Jan. 1625, with orders to make for the Palatinate, and to leave Breda alone. The whole expedition, however, soon collapsed for want of money and supplies. James's efforts to stir up allies for the recovery of the Palatinate were scarcely more successful. Each of the continental powers who were likely to join him had objects in view more important than the recovery of the Palatinate; while James wanted them to make the replacement of his daughter and her husband at Heidelberg the main object of their policy.
On 5 March 1625 James was attacked by a tertian ague. Buckingham's mother attempted to doctor him, and thus brought upon her son, and even upon Charles, the ridiculous accusation of combining to poison him. James's condition varied from day to day, but on 27 March he died at Theobalds. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 5 May.
James had too great confidence in his own powers, and too little sympathetic insight into the views of others, to make a successful ruler, and his inability to control those whom he trusted with blind confidence made his court a centre of corruption. He was, however, far-sighted in his ideas, setting himself against extreme parties, and eager to reconcile rather than divide. In Scotland he, on the whole, succeeded, because the work of reconciliation was in accordance with the tendencies of the age. In England he failed, because his Scottish birth and experience made him stand too much aloof from English parties, and left him incapable of understanding the national feeling with regard to Spain; while his feeble efforts to reconcile the continental powers, at a time when the spirit of division was in the ascendant, exposed him to the contemptuous scorn of his own subjects.
During his reign in Scotland, and for some time after his arrival in England, James was doctrinally Calvinistic, and he took up a position of strong antagonism against Arminius. In later life his views were affected by the loyalty and the moderate spirit of the English church. In 1622 he issued an order to the vice-chancellor of the university of Oxford, which had a great influence on the rising generation of students, that those who designed to make divinity their profession should chiefly apply themselves to the study of the holy scriptures of the councils and fathers and the ancient schoolmen; but as for the moderns, whether jesuits or puritans, they should wholly decline reading their works. Yet it was the pliable Williams, not the unrelenting Laud, who was his favourite prelate.
For a list of James's children, see Anne of Denmark, except that the name of the youngest, Sophia, is there omitted. She only lived for one day, and was buried on 23 June 1607 in Westminster Abbey.
James was the author of: 1. ‘Essays of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poetry,’ 1584. 2. ‘A Fruitful Meditation, containing a Plain … Exposition of the 7, 8, 9, and 10 verses of the xx. chap. Revelation,’ 1588. 3. ‘A Meditation upon the xxv–xxix. verses of the First Book of the Chronicles,’ 1589. 4. ‘Poetical Exercises,’ 1591. 5. ‘Demonology,’ 1597. 6. ‘Basilikon Doron,’ 1599. 7. ‘The True Law of Free Monarchies,’ 1603. 8. ‘A Counterblast to Tobacco,’ 1604. 9. ‘Triplici Nodo Triplex Cuneus; or, an Apology for the Oath of Allegiance,’ 1607. 10. ‘Declaration du Roy Jacques I … pour le droit des Rois,’ 1615. His collected works were published by Bishop Montague in 1616, with the addition of earlier speeches and state papers. After that date appeared ‘A Meditation upon the Lord's Prayer,’ 1619, and ‘A Meditation upon the 27, 28, 29 verses of the xxvii. chapter of St. Matthew,’ 1620.
Numerous portraits of James I are extant. Four are in the National Portrait Gallery, one at the age of eight by Zucchero, and another at the age of fifty-five by Paul van Somer. Van Somer and Marc Gheeraerts the younger [q. v.] were liberally patronised
