James I’s Intolerance of the Catholic Faith Essay

Do you agree with the view that the main cause of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was James I’s intolerance of the catholic faith? It was the lack of tolerance in which James showed toward the Catholic faith, but also the large amounts of tolerance to the Protestants in the mean time. James was, almost, too pleasant towards the Protestants and therefore angered the Catholics as he did so, leaving the Catholic’s wanting to display that the intolerance shown towards them was unacceptable. Therefore, historians are able to infer that it was due to James’ attitudes towards the catholic faith that the Gunpowder Plot took place. Source 2 and 3 both agree that the gunpowder plot was due to James dealing with the Catholic faith with a very harsh attitude, also pushing the Catholics into taking measures such as ‘massacres, rebellions and desperate attempts against the King and State’ due to the King driving them to. James ‘dealt severely [..] he took a lot of money’ which he, evidently, didn’t implicate amongst the puritans. James shows a lot of hatred towards the Catholics and their faith through the way he dealt with them. Source 4 supports evidence shown through both source 2 and 3 in the way that it is expressing the ‘utter detestation’ he had of Catholicism and how he was happy to show his ‘hostility against the Catholics in order to satisfy the Puritans’. James states how he couldn’t comply with all the needs of the Catholics which they present to them, however he made no effort to even think about contemplating those needs of the Protestants. The kings hatred towards the Catholics, however, may also have been due to the influence of his inherited chief minister, Robert Cecil, who from Source 3 we can understand himself didn’t enjoy having the Catholic faith around, being warned that if the harshness shown towards them wasn’t to stop then the king would have to intervene in ‘massacres, rebellions and desperate attempts against the king and state’. However, Robert Cecil, down to his own despise of the faith manipulated the situation, applying a larger amount of pressure upon James to continue to treat the Catholics with a harsh manner, shown in source 5, ‘Cecil used every opportunity to infer to James that the popes were rivals to his authority [†¦] something James could not tolerate’ . Source 5, unlike source 3, states how Cecil was a ‘staunch protestant’ seeing the Catholics as being ‘tantamount to traitors’ due to their beliefs opposing the king by referring back to the pope, although they both show that Robert Cecil is using his own viewpoint to affect the way in which the King undertake the ‘issue’ of the Catholic faith, just in diverse ways, and therefore a possible cause of the gunpowder plot, which many historians would argue, was due to James’ ministers themselves, influencing the kings beliefs and ideals. Robert Cecil through his influence over the king shown in source 5 can also be supported in source 1 with him stating that the King has been too tolerable of the Catholics and how the king should be harsher towards them and how ‘the King’s excessive kindness’ has resulted to ‘priests preach that Catholics much kill the Kings to help their religion’, and therefore wasn’t James’ intolerance of the Catholics that caused the Gunpowder plot but the tolerance he showed them instead. Many Catholics would say that due to James’ deliberately publicly announcing his ‘utter detestation’ of their faith that James deserved the plot to be against him due to the harshness shown towards their faith and beliefs, which we are able to infer via source 4 telling historians that ‘all priests [†¦] had been expelled and recusancy fines introduced’. Overall through the sources historians are able to infer that James showed a large intolerance towards the Catholic faith, whether it be through him own ideals or influenced by other, which then pushed them into believing that performing the Gunpowder plot upon the Houses of Parliament was for the greater good of their religion, and therefore the main cause of the gunpowder plot of 1604 was King James’ intolerance for the Catholic faith. Amy Poole.