I'm not sure that James didn't want to try recatholicise England but I'm going off what Baron Macaulay says about him in his History of England. He'd already, amongst other things, imprisoned Archbishop Sancroft as well as a number of other Bishops who'd defied him before he was deposed. I would have liked more detail on his intellectual relationship to Henry Tudor. Like Henry (and unlike his brother Charles ii) he appears to have been a person of high religious principal. He was probably therefore confused that Henry appeared to act on such pragmatic, even self indulgent, motives. Of course Henry had a knack for believing he always acted from the purest of motives, even when deep down he wasn't. James was more perhaps honest with himself. It was said at Versailles once he'd gone into exile "when you hear him talk, you can understand why he's here." He should have paid less attention to his Catechism and more to Machiavelli's Prince had he wanted to stay a King but i think he was more interested in spiritual rewards than earthly ones.
Thank you for this very interesting video....good speaker and interesting content
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I'm not sure that James didn't want to try recatholicise England but I'm going off what Baron Macaulay says about him in his History of England. He'd already, amongst other things, imprisoned Archbishop Sancroft as well as a number of other Bishops who'd defied him before he was deposed. I would have liked more detail on his intellectual relationship to Henry Tudor. Like Henry (and unlike his brother Charles ii) he appears to have been a person of high religious principal. He was probably therefore confused that Henry appeared to act on such pragmatic, even self indulgent, motives. Of course Henry had a knack for believing he always acted from the purest of motives, even when deep down he wasn't. James was more perhaps honest with himself. It was said at Versailles once he'd gone into exile "when you hear him talk, you can understand why he's here." He should have paid less attention to his Catechism and more to Machiavelli's Prince had he wanted to stay a King but i think he was more interested in spiritual rewards than earthly ones.