For the history of his reign reference may be made to the articles on the histories of England and Scotland. James's work as a ruler can be divided, without violating any sound rule of criticism, into black and white--into the part which was a failure and a preparation for future disaster, and the part which was solid achievement, honourable to himself and profitable to his people. His native kingdom of Scotland had the benefit of the second. Between 1583 and 1603 he reduced the anarchical baronage of Scotland to obedience, and replaced the subdivision of sovereignty and consequent confusion, which had been the very essence of feudalism, by a strong centralized royal authority. In fact he did in Scotland the work which had been done by the Tudors in England, by Louis XI. in France, and by Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain. It was the work of all the strong rulers of the Renaissance. But James not only brought his disobedient and intriguing barons to order--that was a comparatively easy achievement and might well have been performed by more than one of his predecessors, had their lives been prolonged--he also quelled the attempts of the Protestants to found what Hallam has well defined as a "Presbyterian Hildebrandism." He enforced the superiority of the state over the church. Both before his accession to the throne of England (1603) and afterwards he took an intelligent interest in the prosperity of his Scottish kingdom, and did much for the pacification of the Hebrides, for the enforcement of order on the Borders, and for the development of industry. That he did so much although the crown was poor (largely it must be confessed because he made profuse gifts of the secularized church lands), and although the armed force at his disposal was so small that to the very end he was exposed to the attacks of would-be kidnappers (as in the case of the Gowrie conspiracy of 1600), is proof positive that he was neither the mere poltroon nor the mere learned fool he has often been called.