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JAMES VI AND I, THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, AND BRITISH ECCLESIASTICAL CONVERGENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2006

ALAN R. MACDONALD
Affiliation:
University of Dundee

Abstract

Recent historiography has argued that the British ecclesiastical policies of James VI and I sought ‘congruity’ between the different churches in Scotland, England, and Ireland, rather than British ecclesiastical union or the anglicanization of all the churches. It is argued here that the asymmetry of the changes he sought in Scotland and England has been underplayed and that this has masked his choice of a fundamentally Anglican model for the British churches. Through allowing the archbishop of Canterbury to interfere in Scottish ecclesiastical affairs, undermining the presbyterian system, promoting episcopal power and liturgical reform, anglicanization of the Church of Scotland was the goal of James VI and I, and one which he pursued until his death. The motivation for King James's persistent desire for the fulfilment of this policy is to be found in his rapid assimilation to the Church of England after 1603 and, moreover, in his goal of the reunification of Christendom as a whole, on the Anglican model.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I am grateful to members of the Religion in the British Isles 1400–1700 seminar at the University of Oxford and the Scottish History seminar at the University of Edinburgh, and to Keith Brown for their comments on earlier versions of this article.