2 - Call for an ecumenical council

Summary

When James VI of Scotland came to the English throne as James I in 1603, he looked upon this event as one of enormous significance and promise, both for himself and for his two kingdoms. In his proclamation of October 1604, in which he declared his title to be king of Great Britain, he called attention to “the blessed Union, or rather Reuniting of these two mightie, famous, and ancient Kingdomes of England and Scotland, under one Imperiall Crowne.” The two kingdoms, he observed, shared an island which “within it selfe hath almost none but imaginarie bounds of separation … making the whole a little world within it selfe.” Its inhabitants shared “A communitie of Language, the principall meanes of Civil societie, An unitie of Religion, the chiefest band of heartie Union, and the surest knot of lasting Peace.” Even the ancient laws of the two kingdoms were marked by “a greater affinitie and concurrence” than existed between those “of any other two Nations.” This union, brought about not by conquest but by James's descent from the ancient royal lines of both kingdoms, would join the energies and talents of two “mightie Nations” that had been “ever from their first separation continually in blood against each other.” James intended the result to be the perpetuation of the era of peace existing between England and Scotland, peace which had begun with his own reign in the north and was a decisive step towards a complete political and constitutional union.