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King James I’s call for an ecumenical council

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

W. B. Patterson*
Affiliation:
Davidson College, North Carolina

Extract

King James I was not, in the commonly accepted view, a reconciler of religious differences. Yet there is considerable evidence from the first years of his reign in England—the very period of the Hampton Court Conference, which established for him a reputation of intolerance—that James was actively interested in reconciling religious differences. Surviving documents reveal, moreover, that he had a plan for attaining this objective, the essential feature of which was a proposal that an ecumenical council be convened, representing both Rome and the major Reformation traditions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1971

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References

Page No 267 Note 1 Scattered references to this plan may be found in Samuel Gardiner, R., History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603-1642, 1, London 1883, 202-3, 220-1Google Scholar; Ludwig, , von Pastor, Freiherr, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, xxiv, St Louis 1952, 78 Google Scholar; and Willson, D. Harris, King fames VI and I, London 1956, 219-20Google Scholar.

Page No 267 Note 2 Mcllwain, Charles H., ed., The Political Works of James I, Cambridge, Mass. 1918, 270 Google Scholar.

Page No 267 Note 3 Political Works of James I, 271-3.

Page No 268 Note 1 Political Works of James I, 275-6.

Page No 268 Note 2 Brown, Horatio F., ed., Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Relating to English Affairs, Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy, x, 1603-1607, London 1900, 21 Google Scholar.

Page No 268 Note 3 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, x, 21-2Google Scholar.

Page No 268 Note 4 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, x, 22 Google Scholar.

Page No 269 Note 1 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, x, 22 Google Scholar.

Page No 269 Note 2 See Meyer, Arnold Oskar, ‘Clemens VIII, und Jakob I. von England’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, vii, 2 (1904), 268306 Google Scholar.

Page No 269 Note 3 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, x, 22 Google Scholar.

Page No 270 Note 1 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, x, 98 Google Scholar.

Page No 270 Note 2 Meyer, ‘Clemens VIII, und Jakob I.’, 279-80, 301-3.

Page No 270 Note 3 Meyer, ‘Clemens VIII, und Jakob L’, 282-3, 304-5. See also Gardiner, , History of England, 1, 97-8Google Scholar.

Page No 270 Note 4 For the date and an English version of the letter, see Giuseppi, M. S., ed., Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. The Marquess of Salisbury, Preserved at Hatfietd House, Hertfordshire, Part xv, London 1930, 299302 Google Scholar.

Page No 270 Note 5 See the Latin version of the letter in Tierney, M. A., ed., Dodd’s Church History of England from the Commencement of the Sixteenth Century to the Revolution in 1688, London 1841, iv, lxx Google Scholar.

Page No 271 Note 1 Dodd’s Church History, iv, lxxi.

Page No 271 Note 2 Ibid.

Page No 271 Note 3 Ibid.

Page No 271 Note 1 PRO, MS 31/9/88 (Roman Transcripts), pp. 1-4. See also Lee, Sidney, ‘Henry Constable (1562-1613)’, in DNB, iv, London (reprint of) 1937-8, 959-60Google Scholar.

Page No 272 Note 2 PRO, MS 31/9/88, p. 2.

Page No 272 Note 3 PRO, MS 31/9/88, pp. 2-3.

Page No 272 Note 4 PRO, MS 31/9/88, p. 3.

Page No 273 Note 1 PRO, MS 31/9/88, p. 5. The letter is undated.

Page No 273 Note 2 PRO, MS 31/9/88, p. 121. The embassy from the Duke of Lorraine is mentioned in a communication from Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, from London, 27 August 1604. See Green, Mary A. E., ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I, 1603-1610, London 1857,1, 146 Google Scholar.

Page No 273 Note 3 PRO, MS 31/9/88, pp. 121-2.

Page No 273 Note 4 PRO, MS 31/9/88, p. 122.

Page No 273 Note 5 Ibid.

Page No 274 Note 1 PRO, MS 31/9/88, p. 122.

Page No 274 Note 2 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, x, 360 Google Scholar.

Page No 274 Note 3 Pastor, , History of the Popes, xxiv, 7980 Google Scholar; Gardiner, , History of England, 1, 203, 2224, 227-30Google Scholar.

Page No 274 Note 4 Gardiner, , History of England, 1, 234-64Google Scholar. For comments on the participants in the plot, see Mathew, David, James I, London 1967, 141-50Google Scholar.