History of the Puritans under King James I Scots since the abdication of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1567 (when James was 1 year old). James had little contact with his mother and was raised by guardians in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. John Knox had led the Scottish Reformation, beginning in 1560, and the Church of Scotland looked broadly like the type of church that the Puritans wanted in England. In his 1599 book "Basilikon Doron", the king had had harsh words for Puritans, but his criticisms seemed directed at the most extreme of the Puritans and it seemed likely that the king would agree
The History of England (Hume) anti-Jacobite shibboleth that Hume wanted to refute held that absolute monarchy was an innovation brought to England by James I. When James was writing his Basilicon Doron expounding the divine right of kings, he was king of Scotland alone. He wanted to bring the authoritarian English model of kingship to his unruly northern kingdom. When he came to England, he inherited the oppressive Court of High Commission and the Court of the Star Chamber from the Tudors. He did not increase their powers. On the contrary, Hume found the rule of the first two Stuarts to have been milder than