George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition.

Dissimulation is the vice of those who have neitheir true judgment nor courage. King James, from his imbecility, was false, and sometimes vindicated his falsehood, as though deception and cunning had been worthy of a king. But he was an awkward liar, rather than a crafty dissembler.² He could, before parliament, call God to witness his sincerity, when he was already resolved on being insincere. His cowardice was such, that he feigned a fondness for Carr, whose arrest for murder he had secretly ordered. He was afraid of his wife; could be governed by being overawed; and was easily intimidated by the vulgar insolence of Buckingham.³ In Scotland, he solemnly declared his attachment⁴ to the Puritan discipline and doctrines; but it was from his fear of open resistance. The pusillanimous man assents from cowardice, and recovers boldness with the assurance of impunity.

Demonology was a favorite topic with King James. He demonstrated with erudition the reality of witchcraft; through his solicitation it was made, by statute, a capital offence; he could tell ‘why the devil doth work more with auncient women than with others;’ and hardly a year of his reign went by, but some helpless crone perished on the gallows, to satisfy the vanity and confirm the dialectics of the royal author.

King James was sincerely attached to Protestantism.⁵ He prided himself on his skill in theological learning, and challenged the praise of Europe as a subtle controversialist.