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
History of the Puritans under King James I years following the death of theologian Jacobus Arminius in 1609, James supported the Calvinist Gomarists against the Arminian Remonstrants. James handpicked British delegates sent to the 1618 Synod of Dort and concurred in the outcome of the Synod. But James was increasingly faced with Puritan opposition (over the "Book of Sports", the Five Articles of Perth, the Spanish Match, etc.), he began to seek out clerics who would be more supportive of his ecumenical ecclesiastical plans. Since the reign of Elizabeth, England had contained a number of theologians who opposed the extreme predestinarian views in the high Calvinism propounded by