Conceited, vain, pedantic, headstrong, he set to work with the
confidence of ignorance to carry out his undigested views upon all
subjects, reversing at almost every point the policy of his great
predecessor. Where she with supreme tact had loosened the screws so
that the great authority vested in her might not press too heavily upon
the nation, he tightened them. Where she bowed her imperious will to
that of the Commons, this puny tyrant insolently defied it, and
swelling with sense of his own {98} greatness, claimed "Divine right"
for Kingship and demanded that his people should say "the King can do
no wrong," "to question his authority is to question that of God." If
he ardently supported the Church of England, it was because he was its
head. The Catholic who would have turned the Church authority over
again to the Pope, and the "Puritans" who resisted the "Popish
practices" of the Reformed Church of England, were equally hateful to
him, for one and the same reason; they were each aiming to diminish his
authority.

When the Puritans brought to him a petition signed by 800 clergymen,
praying that they be not compelled to wear the surplice, nor make the
sign of the cross at baptism--he said they were "vipers," and if they
did not submit to the authority of the Bishops in such matters "they
should be harried out of the land." In the persecution implied by this
threat, a large body of Puritans escaped to Holland with their
families, and thence came that band of heroic men and women on the
"Mayflower," landing at a point on the American Coast which they {99}
called "Plymouth" (1620). A few Englishmen had in 1607 settled in
Jamestown, Virginia. These two colonies contained the germ of the
future "United States of America."

The persecution of the Catholics led to a plot to blow up Parliament
House at a time when the King was present, thinking thus at one stroke
to get rid of a usurping tyrant, and of a House of Commons which was
daily becoming more and more infected with Puritanism. The discovery
of this "Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot," prevented its consummation, and
immensely strengthened Puritan sentiment.

The keynote of Elizabeth's foreign policy had been hostility to Spain,
that Catholic stronghold, and an unwavering adherence to Protestant
Europe. James saw in that great and despotic government the most
suitable friend for such a great King as himself. He proposed a
marriage between his son Charles and th