ween Scotland and Spain might have proved
dangerous for England. But Elizabeth knew well the type of man with whom
she had to deal, and events proved that she was wise in her generation.
And James, on his part, had his reward. Elizabeth died in March, 1603,
and her successor was the King of Scots, who entered upon a heritage,
which had been bought, in the view of his Catholic subjects, by the
blood of his mother, and which was to claim as its next victim his
second son. Within eighty-five years of his accession, his House had
lost not only their new kingdom, but their ancestral throne as well. In
all James's references to the Union, it is clear that he regarded that
event from the point of view of the monarch; had it proved of as little
value to his subjects as to the Stuart line there would have been small
reason for remembering it to-day. The Union of England and Scotland was
one of the events most clearly fore-ordained by a benignant fate: but it
is difficult to feel much sympathy for the son who would not risk its
postponement, when, by the possible sacrifice of his personal ambition,
he might have saved the life of his mother.

There are certain aspects of James's life in Scotland that explain his
future policy, and they are, therefore, important for our purpose. In
the first place, he spent his days in one long struggle with the
theocratic Church system which had been brought to Scotland by Knox and
developed by his great successor, Andrew Melville. The Church Courts,
local and central, had maintained the old ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
and they dealt out justice with impartial hand. In all questions of
morality, religion, education, and marriage the Kirk Session or the
Presbytery or the General Assembly was all-powerful. The Church was by
far the most important factor in the national life. It interfered in
numberless ways with legislative and executive functions: on one
occasion King James consulted the Presbytery of Edinburgh about the
raising of a force to suppress a rebellion,[82] and, as late as 1596, he
approached the General Assembly with reference to a tax, and promised
that "his chamber doors sould be made patent to the meanest minister in
Scotland; there sould not be anie meane gentleman in Scotland more
subject to the good order and discipline of the Kirk than he would
be".[83] Andrew Melville had told him that "there is twa kings and twa
kingdomes in Scotland. Thair is Chryst Jesus the King and his Kin