The demands of crown finance in England generated an extended debate about the practice of kingship and governance under James VI and I. The transformation of economic resources into revenue required political action on the part of the king and those who assisted him in ruling. It obliged him to extend legal claims to his subjects' wealth and property or to ask directly for support through taxation, loans and gifts. In effect, the king sought to transfer his subjects' wealth from their hands to his own by persuading them to send some part of their ‘own’ to Whitehall or to expend it locally in needful fashion. This process required James first to make policy and then see that policy implemented. The key to understanding crown finance, therefore, rests in James's kingship: how he operated as a political actor, the principles and mindset from which he did so and the manner in which he ruled.

The king was served by individuals whose duties are best captured by using the term ‘governor’, after the style of Thomas Elyot's influential humanist manual, The boke named the governor. James's kingship in particular makes specific bureaucratic or functional labels like councillor or minister problematic, for the fluidity of Jacobean kingship put a premium on individuals who successfully combined duties or offices, especially the responsibilities of counselling their king and carrying out his decisions.