58 Facts About James VI and I

James VI and I acceded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was forced to abdicate in his favour.

In 1603, James succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, who died childless.

James VI and I continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known as the Jacobean era, until his death in 1625.

James VI and I advocated for a single parliament for England and Scotland.

James VI and I achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced great difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and conflicts with the English Parliament.

Under James, the "Golden Age" of Elizabethan literature and drama continued, with writers such as William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon contributing to a flourishing literary culture.

James VI and I sponsored the translation of the Bible into English, and the 1604 revision of the Book of Common Prayer.

Contemporary courtier Anthony Weldon claimed that James VI and I had been termed "the wisest fool in Christendom" an epithet associated with his character ever since.

Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise James's reputation and treat him as a serious and thoughtful monarch.

James VI and I was strongly committed to a peace policy, and tried to avoid involvement in religious wars, especially the Thirty Years' War that devastated much of Central Europe.

James VI and I tried but failed to prevent the rise of hawkish elements in the English Parliament who wanted war with Spain.

The baby was "sucking at his nurse" James VI and I was "well proportioned James VI and I like to prove a goodly prince".

James VI and I's godparents were Charles IX of France, Elizabeth I of England, and Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy.

The subsequent entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, featured men dressed as satyrs James VI and I sporting tails, to which the English guests took offence, thinking the satyrs "done against them".

The care of James was entrusted to the Earl and Countess of Mar, "to be conserved, nursed, and upbrought" in the security of Stirling Castle.

Mar's illness, wrote James VI and I Melville, followed a banquet at Dalkeith Palace given by James VI and I Douglas, Earl of Morton.

Morton was elected to Mar's office and proved in many ways the most effective of James's regents, but he made enemies by his rapacity.

James VI and I fell from favour when Frenchman Esme Stewart, Sieur d'Aubigny, first cousin of James's father Lord Darnley and future Earl of Lennox, arrived in Scotland and quickly established himself as the first of James's powerful favourites.

James VI and I pushed through the Black Acts to assert royal authority over the Kirk, and denounced the writings of his former tutor Buchanan.

In 1586, James signed the Treaty of Berwick with England.

Queen Elizabeth was unmarried and childless, and James was her most likely successor.

On hearing that the crossing had been abandoned, James sailed from Leith with a 300-strong retinue to fetch Anne personally in what historian David Harris Willson called "the one romantic episode of his life".

Anne suffered from recurrent bouts of sickness James VI and I was seriously ill from 1617.

James VI and I's visit to Denmark, a country familiar with witch-hunts, sparked an interest in the study of witchcraft, which he considered a branch of theology.

James VI and I attended the North Berwick witch trials, the first major persecution of witches in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act 1563.

James became concerned with the threat posed by witches and wrote Daemonologie in 1597, a tract inspired by his personal involvement that opposed the practice of witchcraft and that provided background material for Shakespeare's Macbeth.

James VI and I personally supervised the torture of women accused of being witches.

In 1540, James VI and I V had toured the Hebrides, forcing the clan chiefs to accompany him.

James VI and I wrote that the colonists were to act "not by agreement" with the local inhabitants, but "by extirpation of thame".

Basilikon Doron was written as a book of instruction for the four-year-old Prince Henry James VI and I provides a more practical guide to kingship.

James VI and I published his treatise Some Rules and Cautions to be Observed and Eschewed in Scottish Prosody in 1584 at the age of 18.

James VI and I made statutory provision to reform and promote the teaching of music, seeing the two in connection.

In furtherance of these aims, James was both patron and head of a loose circle of Scottish Jacobean court poets and musicians known as the Castalian Band, which included William Fowler and Alexander Montgomerie among others, Montgomerie being a favourite of the king.

James was himself a poet, and was happy to be seen as a practising member of the group.

Local lords received him with lavish hospitality along the route and James was amazed by the wealth of his new land and subjects, claiming that he was "swapping a stony couch for a deep feather bed".

The kingdom to which James VI and I succeeded had its problems.

Those hoping for a change in government from James were disappointed at first when he kept Elizabeth's Privy Councillors in office, as secretly planned with Cecil, but James soon added long-time supporter Henry Howard and his nephew Thomas Howard to the Privy Council, as well as five Scottish nobles.

James forced the Scottish Parliament to use it, and it was used on proclamations, coinage, letters, and treaties in both realms.

Fawkes James VI and I others implicated in the unsuccessful conspiracy were executed.

The co-operation between monarch James VI and I Parliament following the Gunpowder Plot was atypical.

James then ruled without parliament until 1621, employing officials such as the merchant Lionel Cranfield, who were astute at raising and saving money for the crown, and sold baronetcies and other dignities, many created for the purpose, as an alternative source of income.

On Raleigh's return to England, James had him executed to the indignation of the public, who opposed the appeasement of Spain.

Matters came to a head when James VI and I finally called a Parliament in 1621 to fund a military expedition in support of his son-in-law.

James VI and I flatly told them not to interfere in matters of royal prerogative or they would risk punishment, which provoked them into issuing a statement protesting their rights, including freedom of speech.

In early 1623, Prince Charles, now 22, James VI and I Buckingham decided to seize the initiative James VI and I travel to Spain incognito, to win Infanta Maria Anna directly, but the mission proved an ineffectual mistake.

The outcome of the Parliament of 1624 was ambiguous: James VI and I still refused to declare or fund a war, but Charles believed the Commons had committed themselves to finance a war against Spain, a stance that was to contribute to his problems with Parliament in his own reign.

James was conciliatory towards Catholics who took the Oath of Allegiance, and tolerated crypto-Catholicism even at court.

In Scotland, James attempted to bring the Scottish Kirk "so neir as can be" to the English church and to reestablish episcopacy, a policy that met with strong opposition from presbyterians.

James VI and I's bishops forced his Five Articles of Perth through a General Assembly the following year, but the rulings were widely resisted.

James VI and I assisted Frances by securing an annulment of her marriage to free her to marry Carr, now Earl of Somerset.

James pardoned the Countess and commuted the Earl's sentence of death, eventually pardoning him in 1624.

One theory is that James VI and I suffered from porphyria, a disease of which his descendant George III exhibited some symptoms.

James VI and I recognises his good intentions in matters like Anglo-Scottish union, his openness to different points of view, and his agenda of a peaceful foreign policy within his kingdoms' financial means.

James VI and I's actions moderated frictions between his diverse peoples.

In Scotland, James was "James the sixth, King of Scotland", until 1604.

The Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland under James was symbolised heraldically by combining their arms, supporters and badges.

The compartment often contained a branch of the Tudor rose, with shamrock James VI and I thistle engrafted on the same stem.

The Scottish crest James VI and I motto was retained, following the Scottish practice the motto In defens was placed above the crest.