When Elizabeth I died, so too did the House of Tudor. But,
as Tracy Borman explains, the optimism surrounding the
accession of the first Stuart king, James I, didn’t last long
A
KING OF
LOW
REGARD
James I / The first Stuart king
E
lizabeth I’s virginity was
both her most celebrated
virtue and the death knell
of the Tudor dynasty. With
no direct heirs to succeed
her, Elizabeth had little
choice but to leave the
crown of England to James Stuart, the
son of her old rival, Mary, Queen of Scots.
The choice was just as unpalatable forElizabeth’s subjects as it was for the queen
herself: England and Scotland were
traditional adversaries, and the concept of
a single, united kingdom seemed as distant
then as it had ever been.
Moreover, although as the great great
grandson of Henry VII, James VI of
Scotland had the strongest blood claim to
the English throne, it was not without
complications. Henry VIII, whose relations
with Scotland had always been turbulent,
had excluded the descendants of his sister
Margaret (James VI’s great grandmother)
from the succession. But the lack of any
other viable claimants made it imperative
for this legal obstacle to be overcome.
James VI came into his inheritance in
the early hours of 24 March 1603, when
Elizabeth breathed her last at Richmond
Palace. Within just eight hours, he was
proclaimed king in London. Fearing
civil unrest, the Council closed the
ports and imprisoned any notabletroublemakers. But the widespread riots
that had been anticipated never
materialised and, when James made his
way south, he was besieged by apparently
joyous new subjects. As the playwright
Thomas Dekker wryly observed, on
Thursday it had been treason to say ‘God
Save King James’, but on Friday it was
high treason not to.
James’s newfound popularity was due
more to the fact that he was a male ruler
than that he had the strongest bloodline
to the English throne. After almost half
a century of female sovereignty – which,
despite Elizabeth I’s dazzling success,
was still considered both unnatural and
inferior – the people of England welcomed
the accession of a king. Better still, James
already had two sons and heirs, Henry and
Charles. In short, his gender won out over
his Scottishness.
But James soon proved a disappointment.
He might have been a long-awaited king,
but he hardly cut a very manly figure. His
skin was remarkably white and soft, and
his beard was described as “sparse”.
Physically weak and uncoordinated, “hisJames and his wife, Anne of Denmark
(pictured), led very separate lives,
leading to much speculation
NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND/GETTY IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES