The paper argues that Robert Parsons's tractThe Conferenceabout the next succession provides the immediate polemical and political context in which James VI wrote hisTrue Law of Free Monarchies. The argument is not that that tract is a simple reply to Parsons but rather a response to the position occupied both by Parsons and Buchanan, which in fact were very similar. James's pamphlet was occasioned, however, by Parsons's book and the concerns raised therein about the succession to the English throne and forms part of a concerted campaign to defend James's rights in that regard and to assert his view of kingship against the monarchomach theories of both Protestants and Catholics.