James I loved to discuss the king's claims 660 Outlines of European History James I, on the other hand, had a very irritating way of dis- cussing his claim to be the sole and supreme ruler of England. " It is atheism and blasphemy," he declared, " to dispute what God can do ; . . . so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that." James was a learned man and fond of writing Fig. 226. James I books. Among them he published a work on monarchs, in which he claimed that the king could make any law he pleased without consulting Parliament ; . that he was the master of every one of his subjects, high and low, and might put to death whom he pleased. A good king would act according to law, but is not bound to do so and has the power to change the law at any time to suit himself.
