King James I - The First Stuart King of England Documentary

[Music] The Man known to history as King James the first of England and sixth of Scotland was born on the 19th of June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle in the capital of Scotland his mother was the more historically significant of his parents and is known to posterity as Mary Queen of Scots Mary Stewart or Queen Mary the first was the daughter and only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland and his Queen consort Mary of geese her father had died most likely of Cholera or dysentery in mid-December 1542 just six days after Mary was born as a result she had become Queen of Scotland less than a week after her birth Mary's mother subsequently ensured that she was raised in France as a zealous Roman Catholic during the 1540s and 1550s she would not return to Scotland to take up her position as Queen until the early 1560s when she was in her late teens as we will see shortly Mary's tumultuous Reign was Central to James's early life James's father was Henry Stewart Lord darnley an English Noble of Scottish descent who was born in the west riding of Yorkshire in 1546 at a time when the Nobles of lowland Scotland often had lands in northern England he had headed north to Scotland in 1565 with the intention of winning the affections of Queen Mary which he immediately did over the objections of much of the Scottish nobility they quickly married in the summer of 1565 following which Mary fell pregnant giving birth to James their only child in the summer of 1566. it is not possible to understand the Dynamics of James's early life and his time as King of Scotland without looking backwards to the 1540s 1550s and early 1560s the political Intrigue of these years enormously influenced the first 20 years of James's reign as King of Scotland in December of 1542 when James's grandfather died and his mother Mary became Queen of the country as a six-day-old child Scotland was a resoundingly Roman Catholic country one which was closely allied with France against England the old Alliance which characterized Scottish political history for centuries during the late medieval period as a result when Mary of geese sent her only child off to France to be raised there the French effectively took over the Scottish government and remained in control of Affairs in Edinburgh throughout the 1540s and 1550s but during that time the Protestant Reformation began to take hold across Scotland in the wake of the preaching of calvinist ministers such as John Knox owing to this by the late 1550s many of the most powerful Scottish Lords had become Protestants and were increasingly at loggerheads with the french-dominated Regency government of Mary of geese who was determined to block any Divergence from Roman Catholicism in the country by the time Queen Elizabeth the First of England ascended to the throne as a Protestant Monarch in November 1558 this religious tension in Scotland was building it was in this environment the plans were initiated in France for James's mother to return to Scotland and take up her position as Queen now that she was nearing her adult years in the meantime the Protestant Lords or lairds of the congregation in Scotland reached an agreement with the English government whereby they would receive English military aid to expel the French from Scotland and in the process establish a new Protestant government the Treaty of Berwick which brought this into effect constituted a remarkable diplomatic realignment in Britain whereby Scotland and England became Allied on religious grounds in the months that followed an English military Expedition headed north and helped the Lords of the congregation to expel the French from Scotland and initiate the Scottish Reformation whereby protestantism became the state religion yet there remained the problem of Queen Mary who arrived in Scotland in August 1561 determined to exercise her position as Queen in her own right she remained a fervent Roman Catholic and her religion ensured that she was immediately in conflict with the bulk of her most powerful Lords in the years that followed Mary had developed a tense working relationship with the Scottish lairds and leading clinics such as John Knox it was into this precarious political environment that darnley arrived in 1565 quickly wooing Mary and marrying her resulting in James's birth in the summer of 1566. however even before James was born the relationship between his parents who had after all only known each other for a few weeks when they married became strained primarily owing to darnley's arrogance heavy drinking and his efforts to dominate the Scottish Court overshadowing the queen and the process matters culminated in March 1566 when Donnelly and his Entourage murdered Mary's private secretary David ritzio by stabbing him 56 times in front of Mary who was six months pregnant with James at the time the birth of James that summer saw a temporary rap Rushmore between the queen and James's father but by early 1567 Mary had entered a relationship with James Hepburn fourth Earl of Bothwell thus when darnley was killed on the 10th of February 1567 at Kirko field in Edinburgh the suspicion immediately arose that the queen and her new lover had been responsible for his murder darnley and his valet were found strangled to death in an orchard next to where he was recovering from smallpox the Scottish Lads whose relationship with Mary had been tense since she first returned to Scotland in 1561 responded badly to Donnelly's murder as he had begun to favor their party against the queen in the final months of his life this was compounded when Mary quickly married Bothwell in mid-may 1567 cementing the perception that Bothwell and the queen had murdered darnley in response the Scottish Lords arrested the queen just weeks later and had her imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle on an island in the middle of Loch Levin the infant James was handed over to John Erskine Earl of Marr and his wife the Countess of ma for them to see to his raising while the Scottish Lords determined what course of action to take next Mary Queen of Scots never saw her child again after her arrest and detention with Mary now detained at Loch leaving James in the hands of the Earl of ma and the Scottish Lords having revolted definitively against the queen a decision needed to be made about how Scotland would be ruled going forward overthrowing and deposing a monarch was not something which any subject took lightly in early modern times an age in which there was a strong belief in the divine right of kings and queens to rule yet by 1567 the Scottish Lords had over half a decade of a fractious relationship with Mary a queen who refused to renounce her adherence to Roman Catholicism and who had recently murdered her husband on top of this Scotland had been inundated by years of vitriolic condemnation of female rule by figures like the radical Protestant cleric John Knox who in 1558 8 and published a tract entitled the first blast of the trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of women a polemical piece of misogyny aimed at Mary of geese but which was indicative of the general attitude towards Mary in the 1560s it was in this light and with an infant child which they could crown in her stead that the Scottish lairds decided in the summer of 1567 to depose Mary thus on the 24th of July 1567 just after turning 13 months old James became King James VI of Scotland five days later the infant was crowned and Sterling and the measure was ratified by the Scottish Parliament the following December James obviously could not rule in his own right nor would he be able to do so for many years to come accordingly a minority government was established whereby some of the leading Scottish no woman would govern the nation during his younger years this minority government was to be comprised of a regent who would act as the head of the government in association with a council of ministers the first such Regent was James's half Uncle James Stewart first Earl of moray an illegitimate child of King James V and his mistress lady Margaret Erskine who was born in 1531 fully 11 years before Mary Queen of Scots had he not been illegitimate Modi would have become king in December 1542 when his father died but now in 1567 he became the most powerful man in Scotland during James's Authority meanwhile James's reading and education was handed over to a number of individuals termed the preceptors these included learned members of the Scottish Gentry such as the historian and humanist scholar George Buchanan and several members of the Erskine family mares relatives on his mother's side this dispensation of rule by a regent and a government run on consensus amongst the leading Protestant noble families of Scotland would be followed throughout the late 1560s and the entirety of the 1570s but as we will see it was not a stable Arrangement and James's early Reign was a tumultuous period in Scottish history much like that of his mother on the 2nd of May 1568 James's mother escaped from Loch Leven Castle having acquired the aid of George Douglas a brother of Sir William Douglas the owner of Loch Niven Castle who had been charged with her detention she had prepared for her escape and in the days that followed gathered a considerable army allying with Archibald Campbell the fifth Earl of argyle and most powerful Lord of The Western Isles of Scotland Campbell was a confirmed Protestant and an ally of mores for much of the 1560s but he had been opposed to the decision to depose Mary in 1567 and now championed her cause upon her escape from Loch Levin but that cause was short-lived on the 13th of May less than two weeks after her escape from detention Mary and Argyle met with mores forces at the Battle of Lang inside near Glasgow here Moray won a definitive Victory Mary escaped and fled South eventually Crossing into Northern England where she sought Refuge from Queen Elizabeth but Elizabeth's government was unwilling to offer Aid to Mary instead she was placed under house arrest at Carlisle Castle she would spend the next 18 and a half years detained in various castles across Northern England and the English Midlands as Elizabeth's government decided that she should not be released for fear that Scotland would once more be brought into the Catholic fold if she returned to her Homeland and potentially Drew on French aid her place as a prisoner of the English government would influence anglo-scottish relations throughout the Regency governments of the late 1560s and 1570s and in the 1580s when James finally began to rule Scotland in his own right back in Scotland James was oblivious to his mother's plight and wider events yet as he Grew Older he would doubtlessly have become more cognizant of the chaotic politics which seemed to surround him and Scotland as a result the Civil conflict within the country did not end when Mary fled to England in May 1568 it continued for years thereafter despite morre's efforts to establish peace he was assassinated by James Hamilton a supporter of the former Queen in Lynn Lithgow on the 23rd of January 1570. as a result Matthew Stewart fourth Earl of Lennox and James's grandfather on his father's side became the new Regent on the three and a half year old King's behalf Lennox only held the position for a year and a half before he too was killed by supporters of Mary Queen of Scots in a clash at Sterling in September 1571. John Erskine sixth Earl of ma and the individual to whom James had been entrusted as an infant in the summer of 1567 next served as Regent his authority was challenged immediately by James Douglas fourth Earl of Morton who was widely suspected of having poisoned ma when he died just over a year later though the accusation of Foul Play was never proven when he did die Morton succeeded as the next Royal Regent the fourth in the space of less than three years but Morton would be the last holding the position for the remainder of the 1570s until James was of age to begin ruling in his own stead he was broadly speaking the most successful of the four regions bringing a fair degree of stability to Scotland in the mid-1570s as the supporters of Mary Queen of Scots reconciled themselves to the fact that she would not be restored as Queen by the time Morton became Regent in the Autumn of 1572 James was beginning to emerge as a conscious individual in the world having turned six years old earlier that summer he spent these years being raised at Sterling Castle by various Scottish Nobles and educated by the preceptors appointed in 1567. none was more influential than George Buchanan under whose guidance James became one of the most well-educated and erudite scholar Kings in 16th century Europe a book to write with Clarity and skill in Latin while also possessing the ability to read and write in Scots French and Greek it was a concern of those who raised him and saw to his education that he would be raised in the right religion to rule the New Scotland and despite the fact that his mother had had him baptized as a Roman Catholic James was raised as a Protestant though he became a moderate one and his concern over the growth of presbyterianism in Scotland as we will see brought him into conflict with many of his Nobles and the leaders of the Scottish Church known as the Scottish Kirk in later years in time James would grow into a knowledgeable Monarch often reserved but stoic and practical a king who was later known as the wisest fool in Christendom for the manner in which his clear intelligence could often contrast with his poor judgment when it came to favoring members of his court in the summer of 1579 James turned 13 years of age in a time when the concept of being a teenager did not exist the years between 13 and 15 were when a person was generally deemed to transition from childhood to to being an adult and 30 years earlier James's cousin King Edward VI of England had begun to rule in his own right when he reached this age accordingly The View was that James was now ready to play a more active role in the management of his kingdom consequently in the late Autumn of 1579 a ceremony was held to Mark James's entry into Edinburgh and his Assumption of his divine right as King of Scotland the streets were lined with crowds and a gun salute was fired from the imposing parapets of Edinburgh Castle on the acopolis high above the town but for all the formal ceremony of the entry into Edinburgh and the Autumn of 1579 James simply moved from a Regency government dominated by Morton to handing power to Esme Stewart senior domini a Franco Scottish Noble who was a cousin of the Kings on his father's side upon taking up his position in Edinburgh James fell under the influence of his cousin largely dismissed Morton from his position and made dobini the head of the government in 1581 the new dispensation was cemented when dobini was elevated to the title of Earl of Lennox while Morton was arraigned on charges of having been complicit in the murder of James's father darnley back in 1567 and was duly executed on the 2nd of June 1581. it was an ominous start to James's personal rule one which pressagged his tendency to fall under the influence of Court favorites such as Lennox a propensity which he would retain for the remainder of his long reign lennox's French background and Roman Catholicism were deeply concerning for many of the Scottish Lords given his influence over the young king despite his latter conversion to Scottish protestantism some saw in lennox's Rise a drift back towards the 1550s and the dominance of Scotland by Mary of geese and the French unsurprisingly then a number of the country's Nobles those with more pronounced Protestant Presbyterian leanings were soon conspiring to bring his tenure as the most powerful figure within James's government to an end these malcontents were led by William Riven first Earl of gauri who was Allied with Archibald Douglas eighth Earl of Angus with the new Earl of mar John Erskine Sir Thomas Lyon the master of glams Lord Boyd Lord Lindsay and several leading members of the Scottish Kirk their plan centered on effectively kidnapping James which is exactly what they did seizing him while he was hunting near the castle of Riven in perthshire in mid-august 1582 the exact date is unclear and what became known as The rhython Raid either took place on the 22nd or 23rd of August having secured his person the conspirators presented the 16 year old king with a supplication which outlined why they had taken the course of action they had their concerns over the influence of Lennox and the French party at court and what measures they believed the king should take to protect the Protestant Reformation the Lords kept James captive for nearly a year during which Lennox agreed to return to France where he died in the early summer of 1583 thus eliminating the threat he posed following his release from captivity in June 1583 James made clear his intention to govern personally going forward and to prevent the rise of any overly powerful Lord amongst the Scottish nobility several of those who had been involved in the Reverend raid and his detention were exiled from Scotland his two most pressing concerns in the 1580s were to bring the Scottish Lords to heal after Decades of fractiousness and to reassert the power of the monarchy where there had been an absence of effective kingship in place since the death of James V back in the early 1540s to that end he began curtailing some of the lord's powers and promoting others who were key allies though this process took an extensive amount of time and the Reverend raid was not the last time that some of the Scottish lairds attempted to capture James and force him in into accepting certain policies his efforts to curtail the Lord's behavior in this manner necessarily involved needing to reform the Scottish finances and develop an effective Administration moves which strengthened the central Administration and allowed the government at Edinburgh and Hollywood house to overpower individual Scottish Lords in this James was ably assisted by John Maitland first Lord Maitland of thurlstein who he appointed as Lord Secretary of Scotland in 1584 and Lord Chancellor late in 1586. much of Scotland's political turmoil since the 1550s had centered on religious Affairs while the Scottish Reformation had been successful as in many other European countries which adopted protestantism its position as the state religion remained Fragile the decades thereafter as a huge proportion of the Scottish people remained Roman Catholics and full conversion was only achieved over several Generations moreover as in other countries like England there were differing conceptions of protestantism with some favoring a moderate protestantism others Lutheranism and others believing that a more radical Reformation should be implemented in Scotland proponents of the latter view became known as Presbyterians owing to their liking for a decentralized Scottish church or Kirk in which individual religious communities would be headed by presbyters or church Elders who were not answerable to Bishops and archbishops in line with the traditional form of Church administration presbyterianism was prevalent across much of Scotland by the 1580s but James was opposed to an excessive development of it primarily because a decentralized church limited Royal control over religious affairs from his foremost tutor Buchanan James had inherited a theory of monarchy which stressed that as king he should be in charge of nearly all aspects of Scottish life the growth that presbyterianism clashed with that and James's relationship with the more radical Protestant element in Scotland would remain difficult throughout his long reign when it came to his foreign policy James's Reign marked a new departure in many respects in Scottish history though the seeds of it had been sown in 1560 when the Lords of the congregation had allied with England against the French occupation of much of Scotland this conflicted with hundreds of years of Scottish policy which had sought to thwart English efforts to acquire influence over Scotland aware that his country was decidedly within the Protestant camp in Europe's growing Wars of religion James continued this policy of amicability with England agreeing to a new Treaty of Beric with the English government in 1586. this was negotiated in the context of the outbreak of war between Protestant England and Catholic Spain in 1585 and the ongoing Wars of religion in France where the Catholic House of geese and other powerful agents were attempting to eradicate the Protestant huguenots the Treaty of Beric was a statement of friendship between James's government in Edinburgh and Elizabeth's in London one which ensured that Scotland would not in any way look to take advantage of England's war with Spain to further Scottish interests along the anglo-scottish border the Treaty of medic was overshadowed a year later by events in England James's mother had remained under house arrest there in various locations across Northern England and the Midlands throughout the 1570s and 1580s this was a comfortable detention with Mary having dozens of household staff in her employee but there was no doubt that she was still a political prisoner both owing to the perception of her as a threat to the Scottish reformation and her claims to the English throne in both instances her Roman Catholicism was highly problematic as was her ongoing efforts to conspire with certain factors in France and with successive French ambassadors in England through encrypted letters in Cipher many of Elizabeth's senior ministers wished to rid England of the threat she posed and there were more than enough grounds on several occasions to accuse Mary of conspiring against the state but Elizabeth the first remained opposed to the execution of a fellow Monarch it was only following the uncovering of a Catholic conspiracy in England led by Anthony babington and involving Mary in 1586 that Elizabeth finally agreed to try Mary she was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth as part of the plot and was executed at fathering hay Castle in northamptonshire on the 8th of February 1587. James was appalled by the execution of his mother which he denounced as Preposterous but beyond diplomatic objections there was no further Fallout from it James continued to accept an annual subsidy from the English exchequer which had been agreed upon as part of the Treaty of berek the previous year and when the Spanish Armada threatened England in the Autumn of 1988 Scotland offered diplomatic support to Elizabeth's government and did not Aid the crippled Spanish Fleet as it rounded Scotland and tried to flee back to the Iberian Peninsula by sailing round Ireland and home southwards that James elected not to react more strongly to his mother's execution in England was almost entirely due to his awareness of his place in the succession to the English Throne Queen Elizabeth had not married in the 1560s or 1570s despite numerous suitors from Europe's Royal houses and by the mid-1580s she was entering her 50s and Beyond her child-bearing years with her siblings long dead the Tudor line would inevitably end once she died as a great grandson of the sister of King Henry VII Margaret Tudor James had a strong claim to succeed Elizabeth when she died but first he had to secure his own Line This was complicated by the fact that James was gay but a royal marriage was nevertheless arranged with Princess Anne daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark they married in 1589 with details of James's preference for men being kept from her until after the union was solemnized through a proxy marriage at kronborg Castle in Denmark and headed for Scotland soon after the marriage was a complicated one thereafter with James and Anne respecting one another but clashing not just over his sexuality and his extended retreats to the countryside with young men of the court but also the manner in which their first born child Prince Henry Frederick born in 1594 was raised six more children followed down to 1606 but only two survived Beyond infancy Elizabeth born in 1596 and Charles born in 1600 while Anne also suffered two miscarriages shortly before James's eventual Heir Charles was born James had completed work on his most accomplished literary Endeavor the basilicon Doran meaning Royal gift in ancient Greek Was A Treatise on government and kingship which explored how a monarch should ideally operate both as a Christian ruler and as the head of state this along with the true law of free monarchies which he had published in 1598 laid out James's clear belief in the divine right of kingship that he was anointed by God to rule Scotland as such it was symptomatic of the drift towards absolutist monarchy which would Define European politics in the 17th century more broadly these learned writings emphasize James's considerable intellect something which was in evidence in his General patronage of the Arts and literature both in Scotland in the 1580s and 1590s and later in England in the north this involved support for poets such as William Fowler and Alexander Montgomery while the playwright's William Shakespeare and Ben Johnson both benefited considerably from Royal favor in London in the 1600s the 1590s were also notable for James's growing fascination with witchcraft the 16th and 17th centuries saw a massive spike in belief in witchcraft across Europe with tens of thousands of people mostly women accused tried and executed on charges of Witchcraft to such an extent that this period is known as the witch craze it was more pronounced in some parts of Europe than others with very few witch hunts in countries like Spain and Italy but huge numbers of executions in Germany Switzerland and Scotland in 1590 rumors had circulated that a storm which had threatened Queen Anne's boat which conveyed her from Denmark to Scotland had been caused by witches possibly operating in North Berwick James accordingly took a personal interest in what have become known as the north Beric witch trials which ran for two years in the early 1590s and involved confessions extracted Through Torture methods and all too common feature of early modern witch trials in the end many people were executed following the trials in an episode which influenced Shakespeare's depiction of the witches in Macbeth James's interest in and paranoia concerning witchcraft continued throughout his adult life and in 1597 he published a book entitled demonology which explored his beliefs in Black Magic and necromancy as well as the benefits of trying to identify and pursue witches another section of Scottish society which experienced James's anger during the 1590s was the galacht of northern and western Scotland in the late medieval period Scotland had become a nation of two halves Southern and much of Eastern Scotland had anglicized to a great extent adopting English as the spoken language and elements of English law culture and custom yet in the Scottish Highlands of the North and the outer Hebrides or Western Isles of the West Scottish Gaelic practices still prevailed to a great extent with Iris spoken by many of the more senior Lords and hibernos Scottish political and cultural practices dominating in these areas James saw these parts of his realm as barbaric and backwards in much the same way as the English in Ireland viewed the largely independent Lords of Ulster Karnak and Munster as quasi Savages in an effort to de-galisize The Western Isles he sponsored a scheme by the gentleman adventurers of Fife to colonize the Isle of Lewis with Scots from the lowlands in 1598 while in later years he passed the statutes of Iona a series of regulations which aim to bring an end to Gaelic practices in the north and west of Scotland and to inculcate the Scottish there into the perceived values of lowland Society by sending the sons of the Scottish LEDs of the Highlands and outer Hebrides to schools in the south of Scotland similar policies aimed at crushing Gaelic culture and replacing it with concepts of European Renaissance civility had been employed by the English government in Ireland since the middle of the 16th century in an effort to reduce the independence of the dozens of Irish Lordships there and bring them firmly under Crown rule this program of conquest by the Tudors resulted in the outbreak of a major war there in the mid-1590s one which existentially threatened the English Crown's control over the island the nine years war as it has become known was led by Hugh O'Neill second Earl of Tyrone the foremost Lord of Ulster in the north of Ireland and would drag on until 1603 the war placed James in a difficult position as many of his Scottish lairds were sympathetic to the cause of O'Neill and his allies yet James did not wish to show overt favor towards the Irish Lords for fear of dampening his chances of succeeding as king of England and Ireland on the death of Queen Elizabeth nevertheless a significant amount of Aid was received by O'Neill and his allies through Scotland primarily in the shape of modern weapons and gunpowder shipped into Ulster from Scottish ports and the arrival of Scottish red Shanks from The Western Isles to the northeast of Ireland to fight against the crown forces James did little to openly support these actions but at the same time he did not try to prevent this covert Aid reaching Ulster aware that if he did not succeed Elizabeth it would be best for Scotland if England's control of Ireland remained tenuous and incomplete in the end James need not have worried about somebody else occupying the English Throne after Elizabeth's death when she died on the 24th of March 1603 at Richmond Palace outside London her chief minister Robert Cecil had only one candidate in mind to succeed the queen he had secretly been in correspondence with James for several years to organize for the Scottish King to come South as soon as Elizabeth died while Cecil would engineer Affairs so as to have James smoothly accepted as the new king of England this was not because James had the strongest claim in law there were upwards of a dozen different candidates who might have succeeded Elizabeth and a few of these had better claims but several of these candidates were either Catholics or individuals whose protestantism was so moderate as to convince individual tools such as Cecil that they were secret or crypto Catholics hence the Protestant political establishment in London was unwilling to accept their claims and as Elizabeth lay dead at Richmond Palace her body ignored by her government ministers Cecil and others conspired to ensure James succeeded as king of England bringing the house of Stuart to power across Britain and Ireland James began his triumphal Journey South in April passing through England and then to London where he was crowned as King James the first of England and Ireland at Westminster Abbey on the 25th of July because England had never had a monarch called James but Scotland had had five previous Kings of that name James as the unusual distinction of being known as King James the first and sixth not everyone was happy to accept the succession of the Scottish Monarch as king of England in the weeks following his arrival in London and coronation two alleged plots known as the by and Main plots were uncovered by the government seemingly involving high-ranking Nobles and government ministers who aimed to either establish a Catholic or a Puritan as the new monarch instead of James these were quickly foiled but whether there were actually plots of this kind of foot or whether they were invented by senior figures in the government to remove their enemies notably so Walter Raleigh as a threat is open to debate in any event many individuals were convicted of treason over the alleged plots including rally who spent the next 13 years under arrest in the Tower of London altogether more Sinister and real was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 wherein Catholic conspirators had aimed to blow up the House of Lords during the opening of the second session of the English Parliament on the 5th of November 1605. the Monarch traditionally gave a speech at the opening of Parliament and the plan was to kill James and have him replaced with a Catholic king or queen in the end the Gunpowder Plot was foiled before the plan could be realized but it pointed towards the difficulties religious tensions in England posed for James in his new realm while James faced a difficult situation when it came to England still considerable and radicalized Roman Catholic Community the Catholics were not the only religious minority in his new realm that were problematic another was the Puritans these were Radical Protestants who favored a brand of protestantism based on the Evangelical religious communities which had emerged in parts of Switzerland and Germany under clinics like John Calvin in the middle of the 16th century the Puritans were unhappy with the Elizabethan religious settlement which had created a nominally Protestant Church of England but one which retained many of the trappings of the Roman Catholic Church many powerful government ministers and members of parliament were Puritans and in 1603 shortly after his arrival in England they had presented the new king with a document known as the millinery petition which called for the adoption of puritanical measures within the Church of England notably the abolishing of the Sacrament of Confirmation changes to how baptism was carried out and other theological and doctrinal reforms following this James convened a major Gathering of church leaders in January 1604 at Hampton Court Palace the confidence is notable for leading to the decision to produce what eventually became the King James Vulgate Bible that James concessions to the Puritans were generally not followed through on at the heart of the matter was the issue of James's own religious views he was most certainly a Protestant but a relatively moderate one one who was influenced by the fact that his mother had been a Roman Catholic and hailed from Catholic France already before he became king of England James had shown reluctance to meeting the demands of the Presbyterians in Scotland the Scottish equivalent of the English Puritans as their form of religious worship implied a decentralized church which was not controlled by the government therefore James despite his clear Protestant Faith was unwilling to support the greater calls for autonomy by the Puritans and the Presbyterians this led to increasing problems in England during his reign as the religious landscape became more and more varied for instance in the early 1610s the Baptist and anabaptist movements which had emerged in Germany Holland and other regions in the 16th century infiltrated England James was unwilling to allow them to Worship in Freedom and duly placed restrictions on these emerging religious communities ultimately however he could not stop the growth of these religious minorities and the religious tensions within England Scotland and Ireland would have dramatic consequences during his son Charles's reign James had inherited a fairly well-established government when he arrived in England in the summer of 1603 one that was led by Robert Cecil he had little desire to interfere with this being a monarch who left the day-to-day operations of government to his ministers additionally Cecil had facilitated his accession as king of England and James honored him with the titles of VI count cranbourne and Earl of Salisbury Beyond him a number of seasoned administrators such as Thomas Sackville first Earl of Dorset Henry Howard Earl of Northampton and Charles Howard Earl of Nottingham were charged with running much of government business these figures negotiated the Treaty of London which was signed in August 1604 and which brought the first anglo-spanish war which had been underway between England and Spain since 1585 to an end James also bestowed positions on some of his Scottish friends at the English court but he only ever returned to Scotland himself once in 1617 and instead left the management of Scotland to officials in Edinburgh overall he was a wise enough King to realize that he should leave the management of government business to efficient ministers and administrators but James's Court was costly to run the king being fond of Ceremonies pageantry and bestowing large gifts on those who found favor with him at court issues which saw the crown finances in difficulty by the 1610s the best means of remedying are poor financial position for any early modern Monarch was to call on Parliament to provide Financial subsidies four parliaments were assembled by James in England the Blessed Parliament was convened in 1604 and sat intermittently until 1611. it contributed march to 17th century English politics rubber stamping the political dispensation which allowed for a Scottish Monarch to become king of England in its early sessions thereafter Cecil negotiated the great contract with the parliament whereby the political Community would provide extensive funding to the crown to modernize England's Navy and pay for the running of the Court establishment however a breakdown of negotiations towards the end of this foreshadowed difficulties which were to arise between crown and Parliament in years to come come James convened a new parliament in 1614 but it saw such division between the government and MPS that it was dissolved after just two months achieving nothing and becoming known as the adult Parliament James's third and fourth parliaments which met in the early 1620s lasted longer but saw sustained scrutiny of the Crown's finances and Corruption amongst senior ministers and the King's Court favorites James's Reign is also significant for his policies in Ireland as we have seen a major war was underway there between the Irish Lords and the crown government in the 1590s and early 1600s this was the culmination of Decades of policies under the Tudors which had seen the English government extend its control over the island from a small Enclave around Dublin to all corners of the country various methods had been used including military conquest of some of the dozens of Irish Lordships to administrative expansion by imposing Regional councils headed by Englishmen into the western and southern provinces of connect and Munster and colonization of certain regions for instance a major Plantation had been initiated in Munster in the late 1580s through which hundreds of thousands of acres of land were taken from the Irish Lords and redistributed amongst English Planters in the immediate aftermath of the nine years war which ended in 1603 just days after Elizabeth's death and James's accession James opted not to confiscate the lands of the great Ulster Lords who had led the war against the crown such as Hugh O'Neill and the o'donnells and Maguires however in the Autumn of 1607 O'Neill along with Rory O'Donnell and several other senior Irish Lords of Ulster left Ireland without Crown permission and headed for the continent to try to drum up support for a new Catholic war from Spain and the papacy faced with this fresh Act of treason James and his ministers quickly decided that their extensive lands in Ulster would be planted the Ulster Plantation as it is known to posterity and which was initiated in 1609 and 1610 was conceived of by James as a Great British project a symbol of the Union of the crowns of England and Scotland under his rule consequently the three and a half million statute Acres which were confiscated and planted in Ulster were to be distributed between a mix of English and Scottish Planters many of them senior Court members in London or figures with political connections the city of London's Mercantile Community was also co-opted into the project and given the newly created County of London Derita plant establishing the towns of dairy and Colerain in the process while Trinity College Dublin which had been founded in 1591 as a Protestant seminary in Ireland and the Protestant Church of Ireland also received extensive lands in Ulster those Irish who were deemed to be Crown loyalists were given some Estates but generally they were pushed into the poorer lands where they were interspersed with English military garrisons that were there to ensure that they did not Rebel again although it got off to a slow start in the 1610s the Ulster Plantation would eventually transform the demographic landscape of Ulster with huge numbers of Scottish Presbyterians in particular settling in the north of Ireland in the course of the 17th century Paving the way for the creation of Northern Ireland three centuries later Ulster was not the only region that witnessed English colonization efforts in the first years of James's rule from London during the reign of Queen Elizabeth English Colonial adventurers such as Martin frobisher Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh had begun exploring the North American Seaboard with the goal of discovering a Northwest Passage over the Americas to China they never found this route nor would any other Mariner until the 19th century but they did map out the coast from Florida All the Way North to Newfoundland Raleigh had even attempted to establish a colony in the region which he named Virginia but this failed now in 1606 the Virginia company was founded in London by various Merchants at Aristocrats with Colonial Ambitions hoping to build England into a major colonial power which could rival Spain's success in the New World in 1607 the first permanent English colony in North America was established in the Chesapeake region of Virginia at a site which was named Jamestown in honor of the king it struggled at first but the discovery that tobacco could be successfully grown here saw it begin to flourish in the early 1610s while other English colonists also began establishing England's first Caribbean colonies on the islands of Nevis and Saint Kitts towards the end of James's Reign hoping to take advantage of the Boom in demand for sugar back in Europe a commodity which could be grown across the West Indies England's first forays into colonizing North America during James's Reign became intertwined in the last years of his rule with the king's religious policies the unwillingness of the government to tolerate the emergence of Puritan congregations in England had led to some communities of Puritans deciding to move overseas to Regions where they could worship in the manner which they wished in Freedom one such congregation was that led by Robert Brown a cleric from Rutland in the English Midlands a large group of his followers known as brownists had moved to leeden and the Dutch Republic in the late 1600s but Ten Years Later in the late 1610s they decided to move again after considering numerous options including establishing a colony in Guyana in South America these brownist Puritans led by William Bradford High I had the Mayflower in 1620 and voyaged across the Atlantic Ocean settling in a region of North America which was called Massachusetts after the local Native Americans here the pilgrims established the Plymouth Colony as the first of the New England colonies Ten Years Later a much larger expedition of English Puritans led by John Winthrop would arrive to establish the town of Boston thus the unwillingness to Grant English Puritans complete freedom of worship at home and the drive towards Empire combined to see the beginnings of New England's religious colonies in the final years of James's reign just as the colonists in Virginia were beginning to establish tobacco plantations all along the banks of the James River and Scots and Englishmen and women were arriving to Ulster tragedy struck the King's family in October 1612 James's oldest son Prince Henry Frederick became ill government correspondence and other sources written from the court in the final days of October and into early November indicate that the situation at first worried the royal family and privy Council and then became a full-blown crisis from descriptions of his illness and the post-mortem record which was carried out to prove he was not poisoned historians of the early Stuart period are generally agreed that Henry had contracted some form of typhoid fever it proved fatal and he died at 18 years of age on the 6 of November 1612. James was devastated by the loss of his Heir and could not bring himself to attend his funeral later that month additionally while his son Charles now became heir to the throne James prevadicated about acknowledging the fact that he was replacing Henry and it was not until the 4th of November 1616. just shy of four years after Henry's death that James invested Charles with the title of Prince of Wales the formal honorific granted to the heir designate to the throne of England since the late 13th century Henry was not the only major death at the heart of government in 1612. early that summer Robert Cecil died prematurely at the age of just 48. his death left a vacuum at the heart of government which was only partially filled by competent ministers such as Henry Howard first Earl of Northampton in this period of political flux James began to rely on court favorites men who held excessive influence over the Monarch and which were a feature of most early modern courts across Europe the first of these was Robert Carr first Earl of Somerset a figure who had grown in influence at the court from the late 1600s and was eventually appointed Lord Chamberlain in 1614. for the next two years he dominated the government until a scandal brought him down but rather than learning from the Epic episode James instead handed even more power over to George Villiers who he elevated to the title of Duke of Buckingham in 1616. Buckingham's influence over political Affairs was exceptionally large building a network of clients which stretched into dominating the privy Council the court and Regional officers throughout England and Ireland in the process he became vastly wealthy the exact nature of his relationship with James has been debated for decades with some historians arguing that James was simply besotted by a charming and handsome young man who was just in his mid-twenties when he began his Ascent to power and others suggesting that the relationship was sexual in nature there is no concrete documentary evidence to prove this but there is no doubt that Buckingham explode tweeted the king's attraction to him to become the most powerful individual in Britain during the last 10 years of James's reign Henry's death in 1612 had been all the more somber as it had occurred during what was intended to be a celebratory period at the Stuart court that Autumn Frederick V the elector Palatine of the palutenant a large German state which lay along the course of the river Rhine in Western Germany had arrived in England to marry James's daughter Elizabeth Frederick and Elizabeth had been born within a week of each other back in August 1596 and the union was seen as advantageous for both the stewards and the elector Palatine as cementing an alliance between two of Europe's Most firmly Protestant States it helped that Elizabeth and Frederick proved to be fond of one another something which did not always occur in the arranged Royal marriages of early modern Europe although Henry's illness death and funeral delayed Affairs their wedding thing was eventually celebrated at the palace of Whitehall on the 14th of February 1613. after a surgeon in London the couple headed for Germany where they would have 13 children beginning the ties between the British royal line and the German aristocracy which would eventually see one of Elizabeth's grandsons succeed to the throne of Britain in 1714 as King George the first Elizabeth's marriage to Frederick would also pull England into the conflicted politics of Central Europe in the late 1610s in 1618 the ultra-roman Catholic House of Habsburg in Austria initiated efforts to enforce Catholicism in Bohemia part of its Realms in what is now the Czech Republic where there was a large Protestant population these efforts soon resulted in renewed War across the Holy Roman Empire in Germany and other regions between Catholic and Protestant Powers Frederick elector Palatine quickly became involved in the early stages of what would eventually become the 30 Years War the bloodiest and most destructive conflict fought in early modern Europe in 1619 he accepted the title of king of bohemia offered to him by the Protestant Lords of bohemia and attempted unsuccessfully to challenge Habsburg power across the Holy Roman Empire in response to this James attempted to act as a European Peacemaker calling for negotiations between the many different Protestant and Catholic states which made up the Holy Roman Empire at the time but his calls went unheeded and in due course in the early 1620s as the war turned against his son-in-law he began to offer covert Aid to Frederick and his Protestant allies in Central Europe that James was not able to offer greater support to Frederick in the early 1620s was in large part owing to the poor financial state of the English exchequer by this time years of profligate spending by James and his court as well as abusive government finances by Somerset and Buckingham had ensured that the Crown's finances were heavily compromised by this time Parliament was unwilling to provide further subsidies to finance James's spending without oversight and reform and so in 1621 Lionel Cranfield a London Mercer and businessman as well as a long-standing member of parliament was appointed as Lord High treasurer of England over the next two and a half years granfield introduced a new rigor into government Administration and financial management limiting Buckingham's power and run the government like a business one which sought to increase Crown Revenue through taxation and greater efficiencies while also reducing spending James's relationship with Cranfield who was eventually made Earl of Middlesex in 1622 differed from his relationships with his favorites like Buckingham as he had no personal liking for Cranfield but rather promoted him based on his Effectiveness as an administrator had he continued in Crown service much of the political turmoil which would characterize James's successors Reign might have been avoided but in the end Cranfield was undermined by Buckingham and was removed from power on the back of trumped-up corruption charges brought against him in 1624. much of the objection to middlesex's policies was over his unwillingness to support a costly foreign policy involving war with Spain the likelihood of such a war increased greatly in 1623 ever since the mid 1610s negotiations have been underway for Prince Charles to marry infanta Maria Anna the daughter of King Philip III of Spain although the proposed Union was unpopular with English Protestants James was in favor of the Spanish match owing to his belief that an alliance with Spain was preferable to negate the threat from France to English interests as such negotiations had continued but had still not been resolved by 1621 when Philip III died bringing the infanta's brother Philip IV to power in Madrid in the hopes of finalizing an agreement Charles and Buckingham set off for Spain in 1623 that when they arrived there their proposals were and they returned to England infuriated by the Spanish snub James's foreign policy was reversed overnight as England now prepared for war with Spain his objections to this eventually led to middlesex's downfall meanwhile as English warhawks planned war against Spain Charles who by now was exercising a great degree of independence from his aging and sick father entered into new negotiations with King Louis XII of France to marry his sister orieta Maria a union which was finally solemnized in the summer of 1625. James would never live to see his son and Heir marry his health had been deteriorating since the early 1620s as he entered his mid-50s suffering from a combination of gout arthritis and kidney stones the latter being a fearsome Affliction in early modern times which could result in unrelenting pain at a time when treatment of the dreaded Stone was difficult in James's case it led to considerable pain and turned his urine a deep red in his final years in the first months of 1625 things deteriorated rapidly as he suffered from an attack of dysentery malaria and a stroke these illnesses combined to kill James on the 27th of March 1625 at 58 years of age his funeral was held on the 7th of May at which he was eulogized as a Latter-Day King Solomon Prince Charles ascended to the throne as King Charles the first of England Scotland and Ireland armed with funding from a war-ready parliament Charles was at war with Spain before the end of the year bringing to an end the period of Peace England had enjoyed under his father it would be a tortuous reign in which Charles alienated much of the political communities of England Scotland and Ireland resulting in rebellions to the north and across the Irish sea and Civil War in England itself he would eventually lose his crowns and his head in 1649 the unrest of his Reign perhaps demonstrating how successful James had been in holding the political situation together as well as he had for over 20 years after the Union of the three crowns James the first is one of the most underappreciated of England's monarchs for years he was derided by generations of historians in large part owing to his homosexuality and also because he avoided wars during his 20-plus years on the throne owing to this he was perceived as a weak and vacillating ruler but this view is not tenable on the strength of the evidence available certainly James had his weak points his tendency to give too much power to Somerset first in the mid-1610s and then Buckingham during the last 10 years of his Reign was problematic as was his profligate spending but in many other respects his Reign was a successful one he oversaw the union of the English and Scottish crowns well in the mid-1600s are not insignificant feat given that England and Scotland and have been perennial enemies for centuries in his first years in London he also saw off numerous conspiracies against the crown and established peace with Spain after a near 20-year war that Queen Elizabeth had been unable to bring to an end furthermore despite facing a wide range of religious and political problems across his dominions he created a stable triple monarchy and even sought to broker peace in Europe when the foremost conflict of the early modern era broke out in Germany overseas his Reign was really the first major era of the emerging British Empire with colonies being established in North America and the Caribbean he was not a perfect ruler but he dealt well with a lot of problems and ensured that the problems which boiled over during his son's Reign many years later did not his own rule in this sense his long reign as king should be viewed as a considerable success what do you think of King James the first is he one of Britain's most underappreciated monarchs please let us know in the comment section and in the meantime thank you very much for watching foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] awesome [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: The People Profiles

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Keywords: Biography, History, Historical, Educational, The People Profiles, Biography channel, the biography channel, biography documentary channel, biography channel, biography highlights, biography full episodes, biography of famous people, full biography, biography full episode, biography full documentary, bio, history, life story, mini biography, biography series on tv, full documentary biography, education, documentary, documentaries, docs, facts, James I, King James I, King James, Stuarts

Id: kiY4Ded3NH4

Length: 73min 0sec (4380 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023