Jacobean Puritans, 1603–25

Abstract

The accession in March 1603 of James I, a Scots Calvinist, seemed to hold out a new promise for the puritans — here was another godly ruler like Edward VI who would give them the impartial hearing they sought. The puritan brotherhood swung into action to bombard the king with petitions. The first and most famous of these, the Millenary Petition, was presented to James on his way south. The petitioners presented themselves ‘neither as factious men affecting a popular parity in the church, nor as schismatics aiming at the dissolution of the state ecclesiastical’, but faithful ministers ‘all groaning as under a common burden of human rites and ceremonies’. They sought the reformation of worship, the improvement of ministers, the enhancement of their incomes, and the administration of discipline and excommunication ‘according to Christ’s own institution; or, at the least, that enormities may be redressed’.¹ In conscious imitation of the tactics of the 1580s, puritan petitions were hawked around the counties for signatures and while some of these skirted around the issue of church government, others were explicitly Presbyterian, asking for church government according to the bible and the example of other reformed churches. The new king took exception to the menacing tone of some petitions, but he seemed happy enough to call a clerical conference.