LAUSR

At the beginning of James I's reign, a petition campaign, the Hampton Court conference, numerous tracts, and considerable effort in Parliament all failed to overcome the king's adamant defense of the forms and practices of his episcopal church. In a milieu of deprivations and perception of declension, Henry Jacob, one of the organizers of the petitioning, denounced the illegitimacy and dangers of prelatical church government in several tracts between 1604 and 1609, advocated congregationalism, and outlined the basis for a second conference to bring continuing religious disputes to a close. In 1609, having achieved no success, Jacob turned away from scriptural arguments for reform and instead boldly adopted the novel reason-of-state political language to request “toleration” for politically loyal nonconforming Protestants. Jacob relied on “axioms of pollicie” and recent examples to demonstrate that necessity sometimes determined that toleration, while unpalatable, was the most prudent political course (as the new language had it). James's handwritten marginalia on this tract reveal his continuing antipathy toward any reform he believed derogated from his monarchical “interest.” The variety of arguments Jacob employed illustrates both the difficulties facing early Jacobean reformers and the often-unrecognized degree of flexibility and development in their thought and tactics. In asking for toleration as a royal favor, Jacob also illustrates the seventeenth-century nonconformist dilemma of achieving desired ends through doubtful means.