Catholicism was one of the first problems, which James had to deal with at the beginning reign, as Catholicism was deep-rooted and wide spread in seventeenth centaury England. But this problem was not a major or dangerous problem, as most English Catholics had been loyal to the English Crown since the reformation. The last major Catholic problem, which had faced the Crown, occurred when a minority led by Catholic exiles, Allen and Parsons, had been actively organising propaganda and occasionally armed forces against the Crown, but this incidents were in the past when James came into power. The problem that James faced was that the Church of England was based on protestant system and therefore the Catholics went against the basis of the English church. Many of James associates looked on Catholics as a danger and were suspicious of them, but James was more open-minded and could see that many of them were quiet and well minded people. James was successful in his handling of the Catholics. This is shown by the way that he balanced his view and actions towards the Catholics, by allowing a measure of toleration towards them, without offending too much the anti-papist prejudices of his subjects. This was a lot more than could be said for Elizabeth, who greatly disliked Catholics and made no attempt to be liberal in her view or actions towards them. James did have reasons for this tolerance towards the catholic, for example by allowing discreet religious practices to take outside the state law, James hoped to detach the moderate Catholics who had an opinion from the revolutionary minority, who were willing to take the necessary measures to instigate their ideas. This tolerance toward Catholics was somewhat ruined by the Gun Powder plot in 1605, meaning that when parliament reassembled in 1606, two severe penal laws against the Catholics were passed. But these anti-Catholic laws were not rigorously enforced, which implied that James remained open-minded in his view towards Catholics and it is likely that this open minded view prevented many other incident such as the Gun Powder Plot from occurring.
