| Stories and Notes |
James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and her second husband Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. He was descended through the Scottish kings from Robert the Bruce, and the English Tudors through his great grandmother Margaret Tudor sister of Henry VIII. His parent’s marriage was short-lived and Darnley was found murdered 8 months after James was born in June 1566. His mother married again, but in 1567 was forced to renounce the throne of Scotland in favour of her infant son. James became King James VI of Scotland aged 13 months in July 1567, and was crowned at Stirling. Mary fled to England where she was eventually executed following Catholic plots against Elizabeth I in 1587.
His childhood and adolescence were unhappy, abnormal, and precarious; he had various guardians, whose treatment of him differed widely. His education, although thorough, was weighted with strong Presbyterian and Calvinist political doctrine, and his character – highly intelligent and sensitive, but also fundamentally shallow, vain, and exhibitionist – reacted violently to this. He also sought solace with extravagant and unsavoury male favourites who, in later years, were to have a damaging effect on his prestige and state affairs. A suitable Queen was found for him in Anne of Denmark and they were married in 1589. As King of Scotland, he curbed the power of the nobility, although his attempts to limit the authority of the Kirk (Church of Scotland) were less successful.
When Elizabeth I of England died in 1603 unmarried, James moved to London and was crowned King James I of England the first of the Stuart Kings of the combined crowns of England and Scotland. The English courtiers were wary of his Scottish favourites, affairs with male courtiers and uncouth ways. He was however a supporter of literature and arts. William Shakespeare was among the ‘Kings Men’ troupe of actors who performed plays for their patron James. He commissioned the King James Authorized Version of the Bible, published in 1611, which remains one of the most important English translations of the Bible. He initially acted mainly upon the advice of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, but on Salisbury’s death all restraint vanished. His religious policy consisted of asserting the supreme authority and divine right of the crown and suppressing both Puritans and Catholics who objected. Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605 produced an anti-Catholic reaction, which gave James a temporary popularity which soon dissipated.
His foreign policy aimed primarily at achieving closer relations with Spain was not liked by Parliament who saw Spain as the Old Catholic enemy of the Armada and competitor for world trade. During his reign the East India Company expanded trade bringing spices from the East, and Jamestown was founded in Virginia. His willingness to compromise politically, even while continuing to talk in terms of absolutism, largely accounts for the superficial stability of his reign. However, the effects of many of his actions were long term, becoming fully obvious only after his death. James and Anne had 8 children only three of whom survived infancy. Their eldest son Henry died aged 18 of typhoid, and their 2nd son Charles became King Charles I. The marriage of their daughter Elizabeth to Frederic V, Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia, was to result in the eventual Hanoverian succession to the British throne. |
1566 - 1625 (58 years)
