The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies and the Ecclesiastical Politics of Jacobean Anti-Catholicism, 1622–1625

Theologically and ecclesiologically James I of England was a “Gentleman of Wide Swallow.” Although he did not possess the type of skepticism that later emerged in post-Restoration latitudinarianism, he did endorse as orthodox only those essential doctrines which Christians had agreed upon in the early centuries of the church, which were grounded in the “expresse word of God” and given their most basic formulation in the creeds. The king viewed himself as an irenic monarch, one who could bring peace to Christendom by promoting an accommodation to these essentials and compromise between conflicting parties. This was an ecumenical approach to religion for his day, and he believed he could help disagreeing Christians “meet in the middest which is the center and perfection of all things.”