James VI and I

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James Stewart (French: Stuart) (19 June, 1566 – 27 March, 1625), was King of Scots as James VI from 1567 to 1625, and King of England and Ireland as James I from 1603 to 1625. He was also Head of the Established Church of England.

Reigns

James became King of Scots as James VI on 24 July 1567, when he was just thirteen months old, succeeding his mother Mary, Queen of Scots who had abdicated. Regents governed during his minority, which Regency ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1581. He succeeded his second-cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England in March 1603 and was annointed and crowned as "James the First, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland" in Westminster Abbey, London, on 25 July 1603. He ruled for 22 years in a Union of Crowns, until his death at the age of 58.

After the Union of Crowns, James was the first to style himself "King of Great Britain" (first proposed by King Edward I), addressing Parliament in an extremely long and eloquent speech, his chief argument being that the Union had already been made in His Person by God, and must now be ratified by Parliament. But the title was the cause of some disharmony in both the English Parliament and the Parliament of Scotland. Nevertheless, it was proclaimed that all Scots born after 1603 would be called "British".

James's second Parliament, which opened on 5 April 1614, is renowned for his address covering all manner of issues, especially promoting religious tolerance (he was totally opposed to the Puritans), penal laws, etc. He espoused his convictions of the rights of the monarch: "Kings exercise a manner or resemblance of Divine Power on earth". This fiery Parliament disagreed particularly with that statement, and this fundamental debate would not be settled before the Civil War in the next reign. In despair James dissolved Parliament and resorted to personal rule of the sovereign without Parliament until his death. The next assembly would not be called for seven years, the longest gap without a Parliament since the Reformation. In 1616 James addressed the Star Chamber saying "it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a King can do, or say that a King cannot do this or that". These ideas would be inherited in concept and practice by his son-and-heir, Charles.

Marriage, children and death

The King died at Theobalds Palace in Hertfordshire, England, and was interred in King Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey, 7 May 1625.

He had married Anna, second daughter of Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway, at Christiania (today, Oslo), 24 November 1589. She was annointed and crowned with her husband in Westminster Abbey 25 July 1603 and died on 2 March 1618/19. They had numerous children, only two of whom lived to maturity:

  • Elizabeth born at Dunfermline, Scotland, 19 August 1596, married Frederick, Count Palatine (in October 1618 elected King of Bohemia) at Whitehall, London, 14 February 1612/13. She died in London 13 February 1661/2 and was buried in the south aisle of King Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey. They had, with other issue, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, Prince Maurice, and a youngest daughter, Sophie born 13 October 1630, and married 30 September 1658 to Ernst Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, Elector of Hanover. She died 8 June 1714.
  • Charles I born at Dunfermline, 19 November 1600, succeeded his father as King.

Culture

James was an established patron of culture, music, art, and education: in 1582 he granted a founding charter to Edinburgh University. In London he became Patron of the College of Heralds whom the King told he was interested in the idea of a Royal Academy to hold lectures "of heroic matter and of the antiquities of Great Britain". The King visited Oxford and Cambridge Universities several times. He also settled a pension upon Trinity College, Dublin, and endowed it with large estates in Ulster.

Under James, the "Golden Age" of Elizabethan literature and drama continued, with writers such as William Shakespeare, John Donne (the King became his patron), Ben Jonson, and Sir Francis Bacon contributing to a flourishing literary culture. James himself was a talented scholar, the author of works such as Daemonologie (1597),[1] True Law of Free Monarchies (1598),[2] and Basilikon Doron (1599). He opposed smoking and in 1604 produced his Counterblaste to Tobacco. "James VI and I was the most writerly of British monarchs. He produced original poetry, as well as translation and a treatise on poetics; works on witchcraft and tobacco; meditations and commentaries on the Scriptures; a manual on kingship; works of political theory; and, of course, speeches to parliament...He was the patron of Shakespeare, Jonson, John Donne, and the translators of the "Authorized version" of the Bible, surely the greatest concentration of literary talent ever to enjoy royal sponsorship in England."[3] The "malicious" Sir Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed "the wisest fool in Christendom", an epithet associated with his character ever since.[4]

See also

References

  1. James I, king of England (1597). Daemonologie, in forme of a dialogue. at Folger Shakespeare Library web site.. Retrieved on 2007-05-12.
  2. text
  3. Rhodes et al.
  4. "A very wise man was wont to say that he believed him the wisest fool in Christendom, meaning him wise in small things, but a fool in weighty affairs." Sir Anthony Weldon (1651), The Court and Character of King James I, quoted by Stroud, p 27; "The label 'the wisest fool in Christendom', often attributed to Henry IV of France but possibly coined by Weldon, catches James’s paradoxical qualities very neatly." Smith, p 238.
  • Dunbar, Bart., Sir Archibald H., Scottish Kings, Edinburgh, 1899, p.262-279.
  • Fraser, Antonia, King James - VI of Scotland, I of England, Book Club Associates, London, 1974.
  • Bingham, Caroline, James VI of Scotland, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1979, ISBN: 0-297-77427-1