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generalis librorum prohibitorum a Ponteficiis,' 12mo, Oxford, 1627.
James is said to have been the 'Catholike Divine' who edited, with preface and notes in English, the text entitled 'Fiscus Papalis; sive, Catalogus Indulgentiarum & Reliquiarum septem principalium Ecclesiarum urbis Romae ex Vetusto Manuscripto Codice descriptus,' 4to, London, 1617; another edition, 1621, was accompanied by the English version of William Crashaw, In 1608 James edited Wyfliffe's 'Two short Treatises against the Orders of the Begging Friars.' Four of his manuscripts are in the Lambeth Library:
- 'Brevis Admonitio ad Theologos Protestantes de Libria Pontificorum caute, pie, ac sobrie habendis, legendis,emendis,'&c.
- 'Enchiridion Theologicam, seu Chronologia Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum, ordine alphabetico,' &c.
- 'Suspicionum et Conjecturarum liber primus, in quo ducenia ad minus loca SS. Patrunt in dubium vocata, dubitandi Rationes, Rationum Summae perspicue continentur.'
- 'Breviarium Episcoporum totius Angliae, seu nomina, successio, et chronologia eorundem ad sua usque tempora.
In the Bodleian Library (Bodl. MS. 662) is his 'Tomua primus Animadversionum in Patres, Latinaeque Ecclesiae Doctores primarios.' Two letters from James to Sir Robert Cotton dated 1625 and 1628, are preserved in Cotton MS. Julius C. iii.. ff. 159, 183. Bodley's letters to James are in 'Reliquiae Bodleianae,' published by Hearne, from Bodleian MS. 699, in 1703.
[Wood's Antiquities of Oxford (Gutch); Wood's Colleges and Halls (Gutch); Wood’s Athenae Oxoin. (Bliss), li. 464-70; Macray's Annals of Bodleian Library; Camden’s Brittania (1607), 'Monmouthshire;' Parr's Life of Ussher, 1685. pp. 307, 320; Todd's Cat.of Lambeth MSS.: Reg. of Univ. of Oxf. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), vol. ii.]
JAMES, THOMAS (1593?–1635?), navigator, a kinsman, it is believed, of Thomas James (d. 1619), alderman and twice mayor of Bristol, was born about 1593 (James, Strange Voyage, portrait prefixed). Thomas Nash, of the Inner Temple, addressed him as ‘my fellow templar,’ but there is no other proof of James's connection with the law (ib. pref.) He was very probably a companion of Button in his voyage into Hudson's Bay in 1612 [see Button, Sir Thomas]; but the first certain mention of him is on 16 July 1628, when he was granted letters of marque for the Dragon of Bristol, of which he was owner and captain (Cal. State Papers, Dom.). In 1631 he was appointed by the merchants of Bristol, with the approval of the king, to command an expedition for ‘the discovery of the north-west passage into the South Sea, and so to proceed to Japan and round the world to the westward.’ Guided, he says, ‘by former experience,’ he decided that one well-conditioned ship of not more than 70 tons would be best for his purpose. His crew of twenty-two men, all told, he carefully selected as ‘unmarried, approved able and healthy seamen, privately recommended for their ability and faithfulness;’ but he refused all who ‘had used the northerly icy seas’ or ‘had been in the like voyage, for some private reasons,’ in all probability referring to the fate of Henry Hudson (d. 1611) [q. v.] On 3 May 1631 he sailed from Bristol in the Henrietta Maria, and on 4 June made the coast of Greenland. The next day they were beset with ice. After rounding Cape Farewell, and making Cape Desolation, they steered a westerly course for Resolution Island, and so into Hudson's Strait. Cold, fog, storm, and adverse winds delayed their passage; it was not till 5 July that they sighted Salisbury Island. The ice forced them to the southward and into Hudson's Bay. After touching at Mansfield Island, they struggled westward, against much fog, north-westerly wind, and biting cold, and on 11 Aug. made the west coast of the bay at ‘a place which was formerly called Hubbert's Hope, but now it is hopeless,’ about lat. 60° N. Keeping then to the southward, on the 17th they were off Port Nelson, and on the 20th sighted the land, low and flat, which they named ‘the new principality of South Wales.’ On the 29th they met Luke Fox [q. v.], who dined on board the Henrietta Maria on the 30th. After parting from Fox, James continued his way towards the south-east; on 3 Sept. he named Cape Henrietta Maria, and so into James's Bay.
They beat to the southward, through storms and cold, till on 6 Oct. they reached an island, which they called Charleton, where they were compelled to remain. The ship could not come within three miles of the shore; the weather was tempestuous, and the ice made approach difficult. They built a hut on shore, and on 29 Nov. ran the ship aground and bored holes in her bottom, to keep her from bumping. After a miserable winter they dug the ice out of the ship in May, and got her afloat again in sound condition, contrary to all expectations, and after further examination, in better weather, of James's Bay and the south coast of Hudson's Bay, sailed for England. They arrived at Bristol on 22 Oct. 1632, after a bad voyage, with the ship so injured ‘that it was miraculous how she could bring us home.’ Fox wrote slightingly about the Henrietta Maria as a ship too small for the voyage, and of James
