Gimson's Kings and Queens by Andrew Gimson

Author:Andrew Gimson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473521667
Publisher: Random House

JAMES I

1603–1625

THE FIRST MEMBER of the Stuart dynasty presented a startling contrast to his predecessor. In place of their magnificent and dignified queen, the English found themselves with a shambling, slobbering, dishevelled king who spoke in a barely comprehensible Scottish accent. His tongue was too big for his mouth and this arthritic, gout-ridden thirty-six-year-old was in the habit of falling in love with beautiful young men, while taking no trouble to win the approval of anyone else.

There was nevertheless general relief that the succession had occurred without a drop of blood being spilt. James himself was in no doubt of his high royal status. He had never known any other life, and was descended through both his parents from Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII.

In 1567, at the age of thirteen months, Charles James Stuart, to give him his full name, was crowned James VI, King of Scots. His mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, was suspected of complicity in the murder of his father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and had made herself impossibly unpopular by marrying the ringleader of that crime, the Earl of Bothwell. She was forced to abdicate, and fled in danger of her life to England, where twenty years later she was executed for plotting against her cousin, Elizabeth I.

James in his boyhood was a pawn in the hands of the violently quarrelsome Scottish nobility and the Calvinistic Scottish Church, or Kirk. On two occasions he was kidnapped, and he acquired a lifelong fear of assassination which prompted him to wear thickly padded clothes. He also acquired an excellent classical education at the hands of a teacher, George Buchanan, who did not hesitate to beat him.

At the age of seventeen, James managed to manoeuvre himself into power, but made no more than token efforts to intercede on his mother’s behalf. He married Anne of Denmark, by whom he had three children who survived infancy: Henry, Charles and Elizabeth. He was described by one observer as ‘an old young man’, for he took things with pedantic seriousness, and published works defending the doctrine of the divine right of kings: ‘Kings are called Gods; they are appointed by God and answerable only to God.’ His own life was transformed by becoming King of England.

On the way south, James was astonished that despite their luxuriousness, the country houses in which he stayed were not fortified against attack. England was far richer than Scotland, and far more peaceful. At Stamford Hill, just north of London, he was greeted by the Lord Mayor and aldermen, wearing velvet robes and gold chains, and by 500 ‘richly apparelled’ citizens, including nine actors, among them William Shakespeare.

An early sign of the king’s trust in his own judgement came in his Counterblast to Tobacco, in which he condemned the then new pastime of smoking: ‘A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.