Extracts from accession speech to Parliament,19 March 1603.
ON PEACE.
I resolve to call this Parliament ... That you who are here presently assembled to represent the body of this whole Kingdom, and of all sorts of people within the same, may with your own ears hear, and that I out of mine own mouth may deliver unto you the assurance of my due thankfulness for your joyful and general applause to the declaring and receiving of me in this seat (which God by my birthright and lineal descent had in the fullness of time provided for me,) and that, immediately after it pleased God to call your late Sovereign of famous memory, full of days, but fuller of immortal trophies of honour, out of this transitory life ...
It is the blessings which God has in my person bestowed upon you all, wherein I protest I do more glory at the same for your weal, than for any particular respect of mine own reputation or advantage therein ... The first then of these blessings, which God has jointly with my person sent unto you, is outward peace, That is, peace abroad with all foreign neighbours: for I thank God I may justly say, that never since I was a King I either received wrong of any other Christian Prince or State, or did wrong to any. I have ever, I praise God, yet kept peace and amity with all ... for by peace abroad with their neighbours the towns flourish, the merchants become rich, the trade does increase, and the people of all sorts of the land enjoy free liberty to exercise themselves in their general vocations without peril or disturbance ... In the word of a King I promise unto you, That I shall never give the first occasion of the breach thereof, neither shall I ever be moved for any particular or private passion of mind to interrupt your public peace, except I be forced thereunto, either for reparation of the honour of the Kingdom, or else by necessity for the weal and preservation of the same, in which case, a secure and honourable war must be preferred to an unsecure and dishonourable Peace ...
ON THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.
Although outward peace be a great blessing, yet is it far inferior to peace within, as civil wars are more cruel and unnatural than wars abroad. And therefore the second great blessing that God has with my person sent unto you, is peace within, and that in a double form. First, by my descent, lineally out of the loins of Henry VII, is reunited and confirmed in me the union of the two princely roses of the two houses of Lancaster and York, whereof that King of happy memory was the first uniter, as he was also the first ground-layer of the other peace ...
But the union of these two princely houses is nothing comparable to the union of two ancient and famous kingdoms, which is the other inward peace annexed to my person ... Has not God first united these two kingdoms, both in language, religion, and similitude of manners? Yes, has he not made us all in one island, compassed with one sea, and of itself by nature so indivisible, as almost those that were borderers themselves on the late borders, cannot distinguish nor know or discern their own limits? These two Countries being separated neither by sea, nor great river, mountain, nor other strength of nature ...
And now in the end and fullness of time untied, the right and title of both in my person, alike lineally descended of both the Crowns, whereby it is now become like a little world within itself, being entrenched and fortified round about with a natural, and yet admirable strong pond or ditch, whereby all the former fears of this nation are now quite cut off: The other part of the island being ever before now, not only the place of landing to all strangers that were to make invasion here, but likewise moved by the enemies of this State, by untimely incursions, to make enforced diversion from their conquests, for defending themselves at home, and keeping sure their back door, as then it was called, which was the greatest hindrance and let that ever my predecessors of the nation had in disturbing them from their many famous and glorious conquests abroad. What God has conjoined then, let no man separate...
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