frank_davis

Yes, absolutely. I've long thought that it would have been the best thing for England if Guy Fawkes et al had succeeded, although no doubt the "old guard" would have weedled their way back into power by now. I've also long thought that the only good reason not to blow up the entire House of Commons when it is sitting in a particularly lively debate (such as the smoking ban one was) is because the building itself is so astonishingly beautiful. But the MP's who "reside" in it? To a man (and woman) the most perfect examples imaginable of "useless eaters."

Oh, one other tiny thing - I thought that Elizabeth I was a Protestant, not a Catholic. But my History is shaky at best ....

Elizabeth I was indeed a protestant, but she was already dead by the time of James I. The Elizabeth to which I refer was the eldest daughter of James I, and aged about 9 years at the time of the Gunpowder Plot.

Intriguing notion Frank.

Some additional food for thought:

Reading Iain Gateley's book 'La Diva Nicotina' it seems that James 1 increased tobacco taxes by 4,000% and also banned English farmers from growing it. Chris Snowdon's 'Velvet Glove, Iron Fist' notes this though he says that the tax was reduced somewhat before the ban on English growers.

Iain Gateley further notes that the medical industry wanted tobacco to be classed as a medicine under their control, but he refused and made it a Royal monopoly instead.
James 1 abolished the existing patent system in 1603 and set up a new one which continues today. According to Gateley, James' successor, Charles 1 sent soldiers out to destroy any English tobacco crops they found.
At that time tobacco would have been a huge cash crop and this must have caused much resentment.
According to a BBC documentary I saw a while back, there was a huge recession in the agricultural industry during the 1630's (?), with many farmers going bankrupt and losing their land. One such was a guy called Oliver Cromwell. Again, according to the BBC documentary, the puritans, under Cromwell, banned dancing, drinking and other entertainments but were not concerned about tobacco.

Maybe tobacco was a significant factor in the civil war.

Tony

I don't know much about the history of the cultivation of tobacco. I've turned up a few fragmentary links:

The Devil's Weed

In the late sixteenth century, English smokers, to the dismay of non-partakers, tended to smoke themselves into a stupefaction resembling drunkenness; thus, the practice of smoking tobacco was termed "dry drinking." In 1604, James I of England turned his intolerant gaze toward tobacco. In his splenetic "A Counterblaste to Tobacco," King James described what might be considered the first description of addiction, albeit wearing the dress of sin. James’s hatred of tobacco led to a 4000% increase in duty taxes on imported tobacco, but notably, tobacco production was not outlawed. Therefore, the need to expand tobacco cultivation within England and its various colonial outposts increased. The colony at Jamestown, Virginia, had failed to thrive during two preceding attempts at settlement. However, third time’s the charm. John Rolfe planted tobacco seeds he had obtained from Trinidad; through trial, error, and shrewd calculation, Rolfe grew enough tobacco of premium grade and flavor that soon Virginia tobacco—carrying the first known usage of a brand name from the colonies: "Orinoco"—gained precedence in England.

Virginia under Charles I and Cromwell.

Charles I, his son, assumed the throne in 1625 and promptly assured the planters that though the form of Virginia's government had changed, the individual planters could be sure that their rights and property would be respected. Charles informed the colonists, however, that he would take over the buying of their tobacco as a royal monopoly and give them such prices as would satisfy and encourage them. Agreement with the planters, nevertheless, was difficult to obtain.

Virginia appears to have remained royalist during the English civil war, but to have rapidly accommodated the Parliamentary commissioners who arrived in 1652.

History of Tobacco

Great quantities were grown in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, but of course the psalm-singing Rump Parliament prohibited its growth. The smokers, however, were too strong for Cromwell,

Your second link is a review of Iain Gateley's book 'La Diva Nicotina' and states (as does your first one) that:
"James’s hatred of tobacco led to a 4000% increase in duty taxes on imported tobacco, but notably, tobacco production was not outlawed."

Production in the American colonies was not banned. But English production was. What Gateley says (on p78) is:
"James 1, who must have felt that tobacco had only appeared in the British Isles to vex him, issued proclamations in 1620, 1621 and from his deathbed in 1624 forbidding the domestic production of tobacco.
...His son King Charles 1 was forced to issue a similar prohibition in 1633"

So maybe the ban on English growers only started in 1620. Although to be grown legally prior to that, it would have had to be taxed.
Unfortunately he says nothing about Cromwell except:
"...Englishmen...continued to cultivate and smuggle tobacco during Oliver Cromwell's protectorate, and after the restoration of the monarchy."

So presumably the law was not repealed. The BBC documentary seemed to suggest a laxer attitude from the puritans even if some of them were very anti-smoking.

All a bit inconclusive I'm afraid.

On another note it seems Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned for 13 years in 1605 for his part in the 'Main plot' to oust James 1 (wikipedia).

Tony

It seems that Oliver Cromwell was an occasional smoker.

From cigarettespedia:

[Oliver] Cromwell [1653-1658] was an occasional smoker; many of the Puritans indulged in tobacco,

The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell vol 3

Our learned friend Bulstrode says : The Protector often advised about this of the Kingship and other great businesses with the Lord Broghil, Pierpoint (Earl of Kingston s Brother, an old Long- Parliament man, of whom we have heard before), with Whitlocke, Sir Charles Wolseley, and Thurloe ; and would be shut up three or four hours together in private discourse, and none were admitted to come in to him. He would sometimes be very cheerful with them ; and laying aside his greatness, he would be exceedingly familiar; and by way of diversion would make verses with them, play at crambo with them, and every one must try his fancy. He commonly called for tobacco, pipes and a candle, and would now and then take tobacco him- self; which was a very high attempt. Then he would fall again to his serious and great business of the Kingship; f and advise with them in those affairs. And this he did often with them ; and their counsel was accepted, and in part followed by him in most of his greatest affairs, as well as it deserved to be.

Napoleon Bonaparte preferred snuff.

The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte got through 7lbs of snuff a month.

His snuff box

During our interview with Napoleon, he took a prodigious quantity of snuff, from a box made of exquisite tortoise shell, mounted with silver medallions, with the heads of the King of Rome, Maria Louisa, and Julius Caesar.

Wellington was another snuff user.

Until the 1900s, the volume of snuff produced far exceeded that of tobacco for smoking or chewing. Everyone took it - from poet Alexander Pope to naturalist Charles Darwin, actress Sarah Siddons to the Duke of Wellington. Lord Nelson took large quantities to sea with him,...

Tobacco funded Napoleon's wars?

The tobacco monopoly, set up by Napoleon Bonaparte to finance his wars,..

The Social History of Smoking (George Apperson) p66

Sir Isaac Newton is said to have smoked immoderately; and a familiar anecdote represents him as using for the purposes of a tobacco-stopper, in a fit of absent-mindedness, the little finger of a lady sitting beside him, whom he admired, but the truth of this legend is open to doubt. Thomas Hobbes, who lived to be ninety (1588-1679) was accustomed to dine at 11 o'clock, after which he smoked a pipe and then lay down and took a nap of about half an hour

Newton by Patricia Fara (review)

Parts of the myth remain -- the apple, or Newton standing on giants' shoulders are still familiar. Other images haven't endured: as Fara notes: "Newton the dog-lover and pipe-smoker have disappeared."

Some fascinating links you've found there Frank. Many thanks. I clearly have a lot of reading to do!
Slightly off topic but as you raised the issue of Isaac Newton, I couldn't resist posting Iain Gateley's take on Newton and smoking (he repeats the anecdote you mentioned above):
"Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist since Aristotle, smoked incessantly. Whether this habit contributed or not to his inventive genius is impossible to determine, for Newton smoked from his infancy until his death bed. The weed was so integral to his identity that he was once observed ‘in a fit of mental abstraction, using the finger of the lady he was courting as a tobacco stopper, as he sat and smoked in silence beside her.”

Not only was Newton a smoker, but so also was Einstein, and also Richard Feynman. It seems that almost all the great physicists were smokers. Einstein once said:

"Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs."

I doubt if Newton would have dissented from that view. And I wonder to what extent tobacco actually enabled these men to think in a 'calm and objective' manner. Is it entirely fortuitous that the Enlightenment - which was above all a matter of reason - got under way shortly after tobacco arrived from the New World? I sometimes wonder whether, as tobacco is driven out, reason is also being driven out as well.

If nothing else, the antismokers are astonishingly indifferent to, and contemptuous of, reason. The modern antismoking crusade is a triumph of unreason over reason, of propaganda lies over truth, of appearance over reality. Environmentalism, particularly of the global warmist variety, is also deeply irrational. I sometimes wonder whether antismokers are thus irrational precisely because they don't smoke, and so never attain a 'calm and objective' judgment of matters.

I'm inclined to agree that the simultaneous arrival of tobacco and the age of reason was no coincidence. Ditto the fall.

A couple of links about Thomas Harriet I came across:
http://news.skymania.com/2009/01/englishman-who-beat-galileo.html
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/features/Star-role-of-the-British.4878905.jp

Tony