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James VI and I
Photo: John de Critz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons22

James VI and I

King of Scotland from 1567 to 1625, King of England and Ireland from 1603

James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567, and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603, until his death in 1625. Though he long attempted to get both countries to adopt a closer political union, the kingdoms of Scotland and England remained sovereign states ruled by James in personal union, with their own parliaments, judiciaries and laws.2

From Wikipedia’s article on James VI and I (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Jun 29, 1566, died Apr 6, 1625.1

About

James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, and thus a potential successor to all three thrones. He acceded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was forced to abdicate. Although his mother was a Catholic, James was raised as a Protestant. Four regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. In 1589, he married Anne of Denmark. Three of their children survived to adulthood: Henry Frederick, Elizabeth, and Charles. In 1603, James succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, who had died childless. He reigned in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known as the Jacobean era, until he died in 1625. After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, he based himself in England, returning to Scotland only once in 1617, and styled himself King of Great Britain and Ireland. He advocated for a single parliament for England and Scotland. During his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and the English colonisation of the Americas began.

At 57 years and 246 days, James's reign in Scotland was the longest of any Scottish monarch. He achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced great difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and conflicts with the English Parliament. Under James, the "Golden Age" of Elizabethan literature and drama continued, with writers such as William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon contributing to a flourishing literary culture. James was a prolific writer, authoring works such as Daemonologie (1597), The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598), and Basilikon Doron (1599). He sponsored an early translation of the Bible into English (later named for him as the Authorized King James Version), and the 1604 revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Contemporary courtier Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed "the wisest fool in Christendom" (wise in small things, foolish otherwise), an epithet associated with his character ever since. Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise James's reputation and treat him as a serious and thoughtful monarch. He was strongly committed to a peace policy and tried to avoid involvement in religious wars, especially the Thirty Years' War that devastated much of Central Europe. He tried but failed to prevent the rise of hawkish elements in the English Parliament who desired war with Catholic Spain. The first English king of the House of Stuart, he was succeeded by his second son, Charles I.

From Wikipedia’s article on James VI and I, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Early life and education

  • Date not recordedtutor3

Birth

James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Mary and Darnley were each great-grandchildren of Henry VII of England through Margaret Tudor, the older sister of Henry VIII. Mary's rule over Scotland was insecure, and she and her husband, being Roman Catholics, faced a rebellion by Protestant noblemen. During Mary and Darnley's difficult marriage, Darnley secretly allied himself with the rebels and conspired in the murder of the queen's private secretary, David Rizzio, just three months before James's birth.

James was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle, and as the eldest son and heir apparent of the monarch automatically became Duke of Rothesay and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. Five days later, the English diplomat Henry Killigrew saw the queen, who had not fully recovered and could only speak faintly. The baby was "sucking at his nurse" and was "well proportioned and like to prove a goodly prince". He was baptised "Charles James" or "James Charles" on 17 December in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle. His godparents were Charles IX of France (represented by John, Count of Brienne), Elizabeth I of England (represented by Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford), and Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy (represented by ambassador Philibert du Croc). Mary refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as "a pocky priest", spit in the child's mouth, as was then the custom. The subsequent entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, featured men dressed as satyrs and sporting tails, to which the English guests took offence, thinking the satyrs "done against them".

Lord Darnley was murdered on 10 February 1567 at Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh, perhaps in revenge for the killing of Rizzio. James inherited his father's titles of Duke of Albany and Earl of Ross. Mary was already unpopular, and her marriage three months later (on 15 May 1567) to James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who was widely suspected of murdering Darnley, heightened widespread bad feeling toward her. In June 1567, Protestant rebels arrested Mary and imprisoned her in Lochleven Castle; she never saw her son again. She was forced to abdicate on 24 July 1567 in favour of the infant James and to appoint her illegitimate half-brother James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, as regent. This made James the third consecutive Scottish monarch to ascend to the throne as an infant.

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Childhood at Stirling Castle

The care of James was entrusted to the Earl and Countess of Mar, "to be conserved, nursed, and upbrought" in the security of Stirling Castle. James was anointed King of Scotland at the age of thirteen months at the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, on 29 July 1567. The sermon at the coronation was preached by John Knox.

In accordance with the religious beliefs of most of the Scottish ruling class, James was brought up as a member of the Protestant Church of Scotland, the Kirk. The Privy Council selected George Buchanan, Peter Young, Adam Erskine (lay abbot of Cambuskenneth), and David Erskine (lay abbot of Dryburgh) as James's preceptors or tutors. As the young king's senior tutor, Buchanan subjected James to regular beatings but also instilled in him a lifelong passion for literature and learning. Buchanan sought to turn James into a God-fearing, Protestant king who accepted the limitations of monarchy, as outlined in his treatise De Jure Regni apud Scotos. In 1573, the young king distributed Maundy money, and in 1577 he presented small gold rings to his companions as New Year's Day gifts. These annual rituals are among his first recorded acts of kingship.

Regencies

In 1568, Mary escaped from Lochleven Castle, leading to several years of sporadic violence. The Earl of Moray defeated Mary's troops at the Battle of Langside, forcing her to flee to England, where she was subsequently kept in confinement by Elizabeth. On 23 January 1570, Moray was assassinated by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. The next regent was James's paternal grandfather, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, who was carried fatally wounded into Stirling Castle a year later after a raid by Mary's supporters. His successor, the Earl of Mar, "took a vehement sickness" and died on 28 October 1572 at Stirling. Mar's illness, wrote James Melville, followed a banquet at Dalkeith Palace given by James Douglas, Earl of Morton.

Morton was elected to Mar's office and proved in many ways the most effective of James's regents, but he made enemies by his rapacity. He fell from favour when Frenchman Esmé Stewart, Sieur d'Aubigny, first cousin of James's father Lord Darnley, arrived in Scotland and quickly established himself as the first of James's powerful favourites. James was proclaimed an adult ruler in a ceremony of Entry to Edinburgh on 19 October 1579. Morton was executed on 2 June 1581, belatedly charged with complicity in Darnley's murder. On 8 August, James made Stewart Duke of Lennox, the only duke in Scotland. The king, then fifteen years old, remained under the influence of the Duke for about one more year.

From Wikipedia’s article on James VI and I (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: poet, writer, monarch, aristocrat.12

  • 1603 to 1625King of Ireland11
  • 1603 to 1625Monarch of England11
  • 1587 to 1625Monarch of Scotland11
  • 1566 to 1587Duke of Rothesay11
  • Date not recordedFounded London Company4
  • Date not recordedFounded Virginia Company5
  • Date not recordedFounded Royal School Dungannon6
  • Date not recordedFounded Portora Royal School7
  • Date not recordedFounded Presbyterian Church in Ireland8
  • Date not recordedFounded London and Bristol Company9
  • Date not recordedFounded Plymouth Company10

Known for: Daemonologie, The True Law of Free Monarchies, Some Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis poesie, Basilikon Doron, De jure regni apud Scotos.13

Personal life

  • BornJun 29, 1566, Edinburgh Castle14
  • DiedApr 6, 1625, Theobalds House15
  • CitizenshipKingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland16
  • ResidenceStirling Castle17
  • SpouseAnne of Denmark 1589 to 161918

Marriage

Throughout his youth, James was praised for his chastity, since he showed little interest in women. After the loss of Lennox, he continued to prefer male company. A suitable marriage, however, was necessary to reinforce his rule, and the choice fell on fourteen-year-old Anne of Denmark, younger daughter of the Protestant Danish king Frederick II. Shortly after a proxy marriage in Copenhagen in August 1589, Anne sailed for Scotland but was forced by storms to the coast of Norway. On hearing that the crossing had been abandoned, James sailed from Leith with a 300-strong retinue to fetch Anne personally in what historian David Harris Willson called "the one romantic episode of his life". This event led to a mutual acquaintanceship between James and the future king of Denmark, Christian IV, which would be strengthened between the kings after Christian IV visited London twice. Anne and James were married formally at the Bishop's Palace in Oslo on 23 November. James received a dowry of 75,000 Danish dalers and a gift of 10,000 dalers from his mother-in-law, Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. After stays at Elsinore and Copenhagen and a meeting with Tycho Brahe, James and Anne returned to Scotland on 1 May 1590.

By all accounts, James was at first infatuated with Anne and, in the early years of their marriage, seems always to have shown her patience and affection. They attended the wedding celebrations of courtiers and danced in masque costume. The royal couple produced three children who survived to adulthood: Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died of typhoid fever in 1612, aged 18; Elizabeth, later queen of Bohemia; and Charles, James's successor. In 1613, two of his diplomats to Scandinavia, scotsmen James Spens and Robert Anstruther, helped mediate a peace between Denmark and Sweden. Anne suffered from recurrent bouts of sickness and was seriously ill from 1617. James visited Anne only three times during her last illness. She died before her husband, in March 1619.

Personal relationships

Throughout his life James had close relationships with male courtiers, which has caused debate among historians about their exact nature. In Scotland, Anne Murray was known as the king's mistress. After his accession in England, his peaceful and scholarly attitude contrasted strikingly with the bellicose and flirtatious behaviour of Elizabeth, as indicated by the contemporary epigram Rex fuit Elizabeth, nunc est regina Iacobus (Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen).

Some of James's biographers conclude that Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox; Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset; and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, were his lovers. John Oglander observed that he "never yet saw any fond husband make so much or so great dalliance over his beautiful spouse as I have seen King James over his favourites, especially the Duke of Buckingham" whom the king would, recalled Sir Edward Peyton, "tumble and kiss as a mistress". A modern restoration of Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire, undertaken from 2004 to 2008, revealed a previously unknown passage linking what were the bedchambers of James and Villiers.

Some biographers of James argue that the relationships were not sexual. James's Basilikon Doron lists sodomy among crimes "ye are bound in conscience never to forgive", and James's wife Anne gave birth to seven live children, as well as suffering two stillbirths and at least three other miscarriages. Contemporary Huguenot poet Théophile de Viau observed that "it is well known that the king of England / fucks the Duke of Buckingham". Buckingham himself provides evidence that he slept in the same bed as the king, writing to James many years later that he had pondered "whether you loved me now... better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog". Buckingham's words may be interpreted as non-sexual, in the context of 17th-century court life, and remain ambiguous despite their fondness. It is also possible that James was bisexual.

When the Earl of Salisbury died in 1612, he was little mourned by those who jostled to fill the power vacuum. Until Salisbury's death, the Elizabethan administrative system over which he had presided continued to function with relative efficiency; from this time forward, however, James's government entered a period of decline and disrepute. Salisbury's passing gave James the notion of governing in person as his own chief Minister of State, with his young Scottish favourite Robert Carr carrying out many of Salisbury's former duties, but James's inability to attend closely to official business exposed the government to factionalism.

The Howard party (consisting of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton; Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk; Suffolk's son-in-law William Knollys, Lord Knollys; Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham; and Thomas Lake) soon took control of much of the government and its patronage. Even the powerful Carr fell into the Howard camp, hardly experienced for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend Thomas Overbury for assistance with government papers. Carr had an adulterous affair with Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. James assisted Frances by securing an annulment of her marriage to free her to marry Carr, now Earl of Somerset.

In summer 1615, however, it emerged that Overbury had been poisoned. He had died in September 1613 in the Tower of London, where he had been placed at the king's request. Among those convicted of the murder were the Earl and Countess of Somerset; the Earl had been replaced as the king's favourite in the meantime by Villiers. James pardoned the Countess and commuted the Earl's sentence of death, eventually pardoning him in 1624. The implication of the king in such a scandal provoked much public and literary conjecture and irreparably tarnished James's court with an image of corruption and depravity. The subsequent downfall of the Howards left Villiers unchallenged as the supreme figure in the government by 1619.

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Health and death

In his later years, James suffered increasingly from arthritis, gout and kidney stones. He also lost his teeth and drank heavily. The king was often seriously ill during the last year of his life, leaving him an increasingly peripheral figure, rarely able to visit London, while Buckingham consolidated his control of Charles to ensure his own future. One theory is that James suffered from porphyria, a disease of which his descendant George III exhibited some symptoms. James described his urine to physician Théodore de Mayerne as being the "dark red colour of Alicante wine". The theory is dismissed by some experts, particularly in James's case, because he had kidney stones which can lead to blood in the urine, colouring it red.

In early 1625, James was plagued by severe attacks of arthritis, gout, and fainting fits, and fell seriously ill in March with tertian ague and then suffered a stroke. He died at Theobalds House in Hertfordshire on 27 March, aged 58, during a violent attack of dysentery, with Buckingham at his bedside. James's funeral on 7 May was a magnificent but disorderly affair. Bishop John Williams of Lincoln preached the sermon, observing, "King Solomon died in Peace, when he had lived about sixty years... and so you know did King James". The sermon was later printed as Great Britain's Salomon [sic].

James was buried in Westminster Abbey. The position of the tomb was lost for many years until his lead coffin was found in the Henry VII vault, during an excavation in the 19th century.

From Wikipedia’s article on James VI and I (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Awards

  • Date not recordedKnight of the Garter19

Sources

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