James I ─ Scotland's King of England

Few kings have been more savagely caricatured or grossly misunderstood than England’s first Stuart. Yet, as this new biography demonstrates, the modern tendency to downplay his defects and minimise the longer term consequences of his reign has gone too far. For, in spite of genuine idealism and flashes of considerable resourcefulness, James I remains a perplexing figure—a uniquely curious ruler, shot through with glaring inconsistencies, whose vices and foibles not only undermined his high hopes for healing and renewal after Elizabeth I’s troubled last years, but, contrary to current belief, helped entrench those self-same political and religious tensions that eventually consumed his successor. A flawed, if well-meaning, foreigner in a rapidly changing and divided kingdom, his passionate commitment to time-honoured principles of government would, ironically, prove his undoing, as England edged unconsciously towards the crossroads and the shadow of the Thirty Years War descended like a pall upon Europe.

John Matusiak is a frequent contributor to History Review and History Today, and is the author of Henry V, Henry VIII, The Tudors in 100 Objects, andWolsey.