" From this
time forth he insisted on conformity, and deprived many clergymen of
their offices for refusing to subscribe to the regulations framed in
1604.
[Sidenote: Hatred of the Puritans for James I]
The hard rule of this monarch who claimed to govern by the will of God
was rendered even more abhorrent to the stern Puritan moralists by
reports of "drunken orgies" and horrible vices which made the royal
court appear to be a veritable den of Satan. But worst of all was his
suspected leaning towards "popery." The Puritans had a passionate
hatred for anything that even remotely suggested Roman
Catholicism. Consequently it was not with extreme pleasure that they
welcomed a king whose mother had been a Catholic, whose wife was
suspected of harboring a priest, a ruler who at times openly exerted
himself to obtain greater toleration for Roman Catholics and to
maintain the Anglican ritual against Puritan modification. With growing
alarm and resentment they learned that Catholic conspirators had
plotted to blow up the houses of Parliament, and that in his foreign
policy James was decidedly friendly to Catholic princes.
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