While James would not imperil his Eng lish claims for the sake of his mother's life, his impatience with Elizabeth's longevity led him to take grave risks by intrigues with the enemies of England. In 1589 he aroused suspicion by his lenient treatment of two Roman Catholic earls, Huntly and Errol, whom Elizabeth's ministers had detected in correspondence with Spain, and in 1592, the English Government came into pos session of the "Spanish Blanks," a series of papers bearing only the signatures of Huntly, Errol and Angus. Letters from these earls which accompanied the blank forms showed that the "Blanks" were intended to contain a treaty with Spain for the invasion of England, and it was proved that James was aware of the project. His views on what could be said for and against it are preserved in a document in the Hatfield Papers, vol. iv., p. 214. It was only because Cecil regarded James as the least of the possible evils from among which England would have to choose on Elizabeth's death, that action was not taken to in capacitate him from succeeding her. Elizabeth meanwhile re torted by intrigues with James's Protestant opponents in Scot land, and it was not till the last year of her life that the relations between the two sovereigns were really friendly.
Meanwhile, James had been pur suing his quarrel with the Church. After the execution of Gowrie in 1584, he took vengeance on the earl's Presbyterian supporters by persuading parliament to pass the "Black Acts," which asserted a royal headship over the church and empowered the sovereign to appoint bishops and to decide when assemblies should meet.
He tried to meet the challenge to the civil power which was in volved in the authority claimed and exercised by the assembly, by means of an increase in the prestige of parliament, and in 1587 an act was passed instituting a representative system for the smaller barons in the counties. But the parliament was, at the same time, brought so completely under royal control that it never rivalled the influence of the assembly. The Spanish in trigues of the Catholic earls strengthened the Presbyterian Party and James in 1592 had to permit parliament to pass the "Golden Act" which gave a legal status to the church courts and repealed the legislation of 1584 in so far as it interfered with the freedom of the Church. Two years later he was compelled to suppress the Catholic earls, but a quarrel with the Church in the end of 1596, in which the ministers adopted an untenable position, gave him what proved to be a permanent victory. He acquired a large measure of control over the general assembly, and he obtained its sanction for the appointment of titular bishops, to whom he gave seats in parliament.
Up to the year 1603 James con ducted his administration of Scotland under serious difficulties. The revenues of the Crown were insufficient to meet the expenses of Government, and, though, in 1596, a commission of eight lead ing Scottish statesmen, known as the Octavians, brought the royal finances into something like order, the king's political action and his personal expenditure were under the restraint of an impover ished exchequer. In 1587 pecuniary necessities led him to pass an act annexing ecclesiastical property to the Crown, an expedient which he soon found to be inconsistent with his ambition of re storing episcopacy in the Church. Like his predecessors, he had to be on guard against conspiracies. The raid of Ruthven was
the only successful plot in the reign, but the outrages of Francis, earl of Bothwell (a nephew of Queen Mary's third husband), caused James some alarm, and, as late as 1600, the Gowrie con spiracy, if the king's very doubtful statements about it can be credited, was an attempt by the sons of the 1st earl of Gowrie to repeat the raid of Ruthven. It is to James's credit that he suc ceeded in introducing something like order into the Borders and the Highlands, even if the methods which he employed to attain this end were cruel and unscrupulous.
The accession of James to the English throne in March 1603 entirely altered his position in Scotland. Intrigues with the sovereign of England were no longer possible either for rebellious Scottish barons or for discontented Scottish preachers. The absence of English support rendered rebellion a dangerous expedient, popular opinion, absorbed in re ligious controversy, did not respond to the appeal of the tra ditional family feuds, and the nobles were more interested in the distribution of Church lands than in bands and conspiracies. The king was strong enough to punish private quarrels which led to disorder and bloodshed, and to dragoon the Highlands into some thing like obedience to the law. James, in governing Scotland, relied upon the Privy Council, but it was no part of his plan to establish a powerful bureaucracy, and it was the king's personal policy that the council carried out. But the experiences of his youth made him conscious of the limits of national acquiescence in a despotic rule.
That limit was most likely to be reached in ecclesiastical affairs. James was resolved upon transforming the titular episcopacy which he had established into an episcopate possessed of Anglican consecration and exer cising real control over the clergy. His desire for episcopacy was purely political. He looked upon the form of church government as being, in itself, a "thing indifferent," but he held that church government in any State ought to harmonize with the civil gov ernment, and episcopacy agreed best with monarchy. His oppo nents, led by Andrew Melville, regarded episcopacy as unscriptural and therefore unlawful in a Christian Church, and believed Pres bytery to be of divine institution. There was, therefore, no pos sibility of compromise, and, by a series of clever and unscrupulous tricks, James defeated the Presbyterian Party in the Church it self and secured complete control over the General Assembly. Parliament, which was always a facile instrument in his hands, passed in 16o6 an act to acknowledge the sovereign authority of the Crown over all estates, persons and causes, ecclesiastical as well as secular, and repealed an act of 1587 which had an nexed diocesan revenues to the Crown, thereby indirectly "abolish ing the estate of bishops." In 16io a General Assembly approved of an episcopal constitution of the Church, provided that the new bishops should be subject to the assembly. In the same year, James appointed bishops with Anglican consecration, and in
parliament ratified the Acts of the Assembly of 161o, without reference to the authority of the assembly over the bishops. Such authority was, indeed, inconsistent with the powers enjoyed by the bishops both individually and in a court of high commission which James instituted on the English model.