The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states , with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in , though he did not gain full control of his government until In , he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I , who died childless. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known after him as the Jacobean era , until his death. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England the largest of the three realms from , returning to Scotland only once, in , and styled himself " King of Great Britain and Ireland ". He was a major advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland.
How the King James Bible came to be
Bringing the Bible directly to the people
Noted for its "majesty of style", the King James Version has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. In January , King James convened the Hampton Court Conference , where a new English version was conceived in response to the problems of the earlier translations perceived by the Puritans , [6] a faction of the Church of England. James gave the translators instructions intended to ensure that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology — and reflect the episcopal structure — of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy. In the Book of Common Prayer , the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible for Epistle and Gospel readings but not for the Psalter, which substantially retained Coverdale's Great Bible version , and as such was authorized by Act of Parliament. By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version had become effectively unchallenged as the English translation used in Anglican and English Protestant churches, except for the Psalms and some short passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of the 19th century, this version of the Bible became the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of extensively re-edited by Benjamin Blayney at Oxford , and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title "King James Version" usually indicates this Oxford standard text. The title page carries the words "Appointed to be read in Churches", [11] and F. For many years it was common not to give the translation any specific name.
Background
The translation had a marked influence on English literary style and was generally accepted as the standard English Bible from the midth to the early 20th century. The reign of Queen Elizabeth I — succeeded in imposing a high degree of uniformity upon the Church of England. Protestantism was reinstated as the official religion of England after the short reign of Mary I —58 , who had attempted to restore Roman Catholicism in the country. Never authorized by the crown, it was particularly popular among Puritans but not among many more-conservative clergymen. Given the perceived need for a new authorized translation, James was quick to appreciate the broader value of the proposal and at once made the project his own.
He acceded to the English throne upon the death of the heirless Queen Elizabeth I in James I was not a popular king. Although he had ruled as king of Scotland, he was unprepared for the challenges he faced upon assuming the English throne. A slew of politically ill-advised decisions—from imposing levies to attempting to forge an alliance with Spain—put him at odds with Parliament and the public and were partially to blame for his unpopularity. Other factors included his Scottish origins glaringly obvious from his thick accent , his cultivation of favourites often also of Scottish origins , and his widely recognized attraction to other men which may have led him to confer honours upon his favourites. Instead, James continued the Elizabethan program of Catholic suppression after a group of Catholics orchestrated the Gunpowder Plot to seize control of the government in James also attempted to weed out nonconformity among the Puritans by calling the Hampton Court Conference and prosecuted Protestants who refused to adhere to the revised canons. In short, James I was more apt to pursue his own absolutist policies than to side with any particular faith, and he suppressed all who tried to undermine his total authority. He did commission it, however.
