He strove to abate the acrimony of his own subjects against the religion of their fathers: he became himself the object of their diffidence and aversion.

Whatever measures he embraced--in Scotland to introduce prelacy, in England to enforce the authority of the established church, and support its rites and ceremonies--were interpreted as so many steps towards Popery; and were represented by the Puritans as symptoms of idolatry and superstition.
Ignorant of the consequences, or unwilling to sacrifice to politics his inclination, which he called his conscience, he persevered in the same measures, and gave trust and preferment, almost indifferently, to his Catholic and Protestant subjects.

And finding his person, as well as his title, less obnoxious to the church of Rome, than those of Elizabeth, he gradually abated the rigor of those laws which had been enacted against that church, and which were so acceptable to his bigoted subjects.

But the effects of these dispositions on both sides became not very sensible till towards the conclusion of his reign.
{1606.} At this time, James seems to have possessed the affections even of his English subjects, and, in a tolerable degree, their esteem and regard.

Hitherto their complaints were chiefly levelled against his too great constancy in his early friendships; a quality which, had it been attended with more economy, the wise would have excused, and the candid would even, perhaps, have applauded.