[MR] Wikipedia: James VI of Scotland / James I of England

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots,

On this date in 1566 King James VI of Scotland was born at Edinburgh
Castle, the son of Mary Queen of Scots and her second husband (and cousin)
the ill-starred Henry Stuart, aka Lord Darnley.

At this time, Scotland was, as usual, in turmoil as various lords struggled
for power, influence, and indeed the throne itself. In addition, Scotland
had officially gone Protestant in 1560. Mary was a staunch Catholic, and
had support from various Catholic or Catholic-leaning lords.

As many of you know, Darnley's house was blown up on 10 February 1567 (he
and a servant were actually strangled and found nearby). Mary was suspected
of arranging his killing in revenge for Darnley's murder of her secretary
(and possible lover) David Rizzio. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell
(another of Mary's lovers), was thought to have done the deed. When Mary
and Bothwell wed on 15 May 1567, civil war broke out in Scotland between
Protestants and Catholics. On 24 July 1567, Mary Queen of Scots was forced
to abdicate and the infant James became King of Scotland.

James was the great-great grandson of English King Henry VII (equally
through both his mother and father), and so was in line to eventually
become king of England. He was the closest surviving relative of Queen
Elizabeth I, and succeeded to the English throne upon her death in 1603.
Thus James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. The two countries
were uneasily united under one sovereign, but Scotland and England retained
separate parliaments, laws and economies.

James was probably the most successful monarch in the House of Stuart, but
whether he was a good king or just a powerful one is open to debate. On one
hand, he was able to end centuries of war between England and Scotland,
cemented Protestantism in both countries, gave us the King James Bible, and
fostered English colonization into North America. James was personally
crude in the extreme (he didn't even believe in bathing and loved smutty
jokes in public), rewarded inept court favorites, was often vindictive
toward those he didn't like (Raleigh was an excellent example), and got a
lot of innocent people executed for witchcraft.

Here in the SCA we generally consider Elizabeth I's death in 1603 and the
beginning of James' reign in England to be the end of our period of
interest (this seems to be rather flexible though). His reign in Scotland
is, of course, definitely within our period.

Wikipedia's biography of James is at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I .

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆