JAMES I, THE GUNPOWDER PLOT, AND THE RISE OF THE MIDDLING SORT Colleague Jonathan Healey. King James I faces a divided England upon his accession, navigating religious tensions between Catholics, Puritans, and the mainstream. The 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a ra

JAMES I, THE GUNPOWDER PLOT, AND THE RISE OF THE MIDDLING SORT Colleague Jonathan Healey. King James I faces a divided England upon his accession, navigating religious tensions between Catholics, Puritans, and the mainstream. The 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a radical Catholic attempt to blow up Parliament, fuels lasting anti-Catholic paranoia and associates Catholicism with tyranny. Healey explains the rise of the "middling sort," a wealthy, literate class of farmers and lawyers who increasingly comprise the voting body in Parliament. Meanwhile, Jamesstruggles with structural inflation and attempts to avoid the fractious Parliament by keeping England out of expensive foreign wars. NUMBER 1
1670 CHARLES II