Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England, episode

339, a scandal in Bohemia. It is said by the wise and noble that James's

reign can sort of be divided into two. To be honest, if you are going to divvy up the

cake that is James's six and first into two parts, there are a number of ways you might

do it. In Scotland, you might argue that James left the land of the free a successful monarch

in 1603, but died in 1625, leaving significant problems for his lad to inherit, particularly

in concerns over becoming a province of England and in the five articles of Perth and the

religious direction. If we are talking about James the first, you might think about a different

division. Up to 1618ish give a take, James had done a pretty good job really. The church

had his tensions as churches frequently do, you know, the early modern equivalent of who's

doing the flowers this week. But there was very little separatism, and James had maintained

a nice balance between the opposing wings of Puritanism on the one hand and our Mininism

on the other. He had his barnes with Parliament but was holding the line. Finances were bad,

it's true, but Cranfield was already having an impact, and most importantly of all, the

land was at peace. So, James could pat himself on the back, that things were going okay,

and after all being King was, you know, a reasonably high-powered job. But after 1618,

things start going awry. Finances begin to get seriously out of whack. A gap appears between

the views and policies of the King and those of his people, and for once this matters,

as much more of a public forum in which to discuss this stuff which formally have been

completely out of the Ken of ordinary folk, except when they were, you know, asked to

die for it periodically, but they generally did happily enough.

Obviously, the reason for heading parades are many and various, and for not gentleistner,

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