a b Bucholz & Key 2004, p.208: "... his sexuality has long been a matter of debate. He clearly preferred the company of handsome young men. The evidence of his correspondence and contemporary accounts have led some historians to conclude that the king was homosexual or bisexual. In fact, the issue is murky." What this suggests to me is that we greatly overvalue book-larnin' these days. Lots of otherwise sensible commentators will regularly admit that a "genius" politician was not very good at politics, or a "genius" academic administrator was a terrible manager, but then continue as if they regarded mere incompetence at one's chosen career to be of secondary importance, compared to the far greater value of being a genius. Wasn't it a shame that Enoch Powell didn't have more or a career in politics? Well no, he was crap at it. Wouldn't Larry Summers have made a great president of Harvard if it wasn't for those academics who didn't like him? Well perhaps, but Harvard's a university, academics are pretty much all there is there, and if you can't manage them, you can't manage Harvard. Before James became king he made promises to people from different political and religious factions. The Catholics wanted to move the church in a decisive direction and rid the country of Protestantism, while the Protestants wanted to get rid of the vestiges of Catholicism and go mainstream Protestant. When he forced through the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland his Five Articles of Perth, measures intended to bring the worship and government of the Church of Scotland into line with the Church of England, he met with strong opposition.

Bergeron, David M. (1999). King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. p.348.James’s reign began during a turbulent period of religious intolerance and change. Since the beginning of the 16th century, no Scottish monarch had ascended to the throne as an adult, they were all aged two or under. James VI was just 13 months old when he became King, his mother, Mary Queen of Scots was born a week before her father King James V died. This succession of infant monarchs created a minority rule between a series of power-hungry regents who ran the show. demonstrate a detailed and critical command of the body of knowledge concerning the ideas and writings of James VI & I The people’s enthusiasm, however, was perhaps more motivated by self-interest than James’s own firm belief in the Divine Right of Kings to govern as they alone felt. Of course the English Puritans were delighted to see him. He was sure to be on their side, for the Reformation had been carried out much more strictly in Scotland than in England. And of course the English Catholics were delighted to see him – for was he not the son of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots? In March 1605, Archbishop Spottiswood wrote to James warning him that sermons against bishops were being preached daily in Edinburgh. [139] Regencies [ edit ] James (right) depicted aged 17 beside his mother Mary (left), 1583. In reality, they were separated when he was still a baby.

Steenie,” however, succeeded in making himself as thoroughly unpopular in Spain as he had made himself in England. Charles returned home with him at the end of eight months with no match made; the sum result of their achievements was that Villiers felt that he had been so insulted (whereas the reverse was true) that he was determined to lead England into a war against Spain. James was not at all put out by his favourite’s failure. Now old and doddery, he referred to himself in Villiers’s presence as “your old dade.” Worse still for England, Prince Charles had fallen victim to the easy charm of Villiers, a fact that the rest of the court noticed with increasing anger and alarm. Having brought the heir to the throne under his magic spell Villiers grew tired of his “dear old dade.” While the King languished into senility Villiers continued his disastrous career of ruining England’s foreign policy, and when the old King died early in 1625 he left to his son Charles a seething kingdom and a heritage of danger. James’s controversial reign over two countries saw him in constant struggles with Parliament particularly when it came to spending treasury money. Parliament on the other hand was determined to control taxation. But James believed that he was only answerable to God alone and should be able to do as he liked. As James ignored Parliament for most of the decade, his personal relationships with favourites - offering them expensive gifts and high ranking titles - also irked the authorities. But few at the time were aware of the intimate nature of some of these relationships. Gay lovers 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. Although he long tried to get both countries to adopt a closer political union, the kingdoms of Scotland and England remained individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, both ruled by James in personal union. In recent decades, much scholarship has emphasised James's success in Scotland (though there have been partial dissenters, such as Michael Lynch), and there is an emerging appreciation of James's successes in the early part of his reign in England. [188]This course will examine the ideas and writings of King James VI & I, beginning with his rule over Scotland and including England after 1603. Labelled 'the wisest fool in Christendom', and long regarded as one of the British Isles' less successful rulers, more recently he has been effectively rehabilitated by 'revisionist' historians who argue that he was a highly intelligent and politically astute monarch. The focus here will be mainly on James' ideas, as expressed though his own writings and those of his contemporaries. James VI of Scotland and I of England (Charles James Stuart) (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was a king who ruled over England, Scotland, and Ireland, and was the first Sovereign to reign in the three realms simultaneously. a b Cummings, Brian, ed. (2011). The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.737. Davies 1959, p.20: "Probably no single event, prior to the attempt to arrest the five members in 1642, did more to lessen the general reverence with which royalty was regarded in England than this unsavoury episode." When the Earl of Salisbury died in 1612, he was little mourned by those who jostled to fill the power vacuum. [m] 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. [158] 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. [159]