by Allan Massie
The scene of confusion amid which he found the King seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James’s own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments, but they were slovenly arranged, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jests and ribaldry; and notes of unmercifully long orations to Parliament, and essays on king-craft, were mingled with roundels and ballats by the royal ’Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the King’s hounds, and remedies against canine madness.6
As for the royal character, Scott found James to be ‘fond of his dignity, which he was perpetually degrading by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated’.
The King was indeed an oddity, but a more able and attractive one than Scott allows. Moreover, he had one other quality that is rare in monarchs. Though capable of firm, even ruthless action, when he was alarmed or his immediate interests seemed to be threatened, he was essentially kindly.
His interests were also unusually wide. He was a patron of the arts. Shakespeare’s theatre company were designated the King’s Men, and several of his plays were given command performances at court. Macbeth, with its fantasy about the origins of the Stuarts and its promise that as the heirs of Banquo they would reign till ‘the crack of doom’, may even have been written to please and honour the King. Moreover, in an essay on Macbeth and the Gowrie Conspiracy, Arthur Melville Clark suggested that:
in preconceiving much of the supernatural in his play, Shakespeare was influenced in the direction of contemporary witch-lore by the fact that King James was the author of a notable book on ‘Demonology’…that the King believed himself to have been a special target of witches and that he regarded himself as possessed of a nose for smelling out practitioners of sorcery and exposing their machinations. And that is why James was so interested in the cabbalistic characters found in Gowrie’s pockets, and why the depositions…which testify about Gowrie in relation to magic, prognostications, and amulets were published along with the official accounts of the events of 5th August; why the official account itself declared that for many generations the Ruthvens were known throughout the whole land as dabblers in the occult…Macbeth and Gowrie were both traitors and both intermeddlers with the diabolical.7
But if James patronised drama – The Tempest, for instance, being performed on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding – the taste of the court ran rather to the lavish spectacle of the masque, gorgeous affairs with the text provided by Shakespeare’s friend and rival Ben Jonson, with decor and choreography by Inigo Jones. One of the most notable of these, The Masque of Blackness, saw Queen Anne herself blacked up and arrayed in a beautiful costume fashioned from some of the late Queen’s wardrobe of two thousand gowns. The show was set on the purely imaginary banks of the Niger and featured sea nymphs, mermen and mermaids, charming negro children dancing in the old banqueting hall in the Palace of Whitehall, transformed for the occasion into a rich landscape bordered by the sea, and under a blue silk heaven, a silver throne occupied by the moon. It was all very splendid, very popular, very expensive and very silly.
The month-long state visit of Queen Anne’s brother, Christian IV of Denmark, offered an occasion for more revelry and even greater extravagance. There was a tournament in which the Danish king rode in the lists like a medieval knight, and this was perhaps the one occasion on his visit that he was even halfway sober. For the rest there was feasting and drinking, and then more feasting and more drinking, with James and Anne matching the Dane glass for glass. It culminated in a banquet and pageant at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, James’s favourite country residence. According to the acerbic Sir John Harrington, a godson of Queen Elizabeth, a show displaying the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon saw Sheba lose her footing and collapse with the gifts she was carrying on top of the Danish king. He rose gallantly and would have danced with her, but himself fell over and had to be carried, smeared with wine, cake and jellies, to his bed. Then Faith, Hope and Charity advanced to congratulate King James on his majesty, but Hope was speechless and Faith legless. Only Charity played her part with suitable decorum, but she was followed by Victory and Peace, and they were in much the same condition as Faith and Hope. Victory dissolved into tears and when Peace found her way to the throne blocked by courtiers, themselves the worse for wear, she laid about vigorously with the symbol of her role, an olive branch.8
Such was life at court in the merry days of King James.
James and Anne had seven children, of whom four died in infancy. The survivors were Henry, born 1594, who became Prince of Wales in 1603; Elizabeth, born in 1596; and ‘Baby Charles’, born 1600.9 By the time he inherited the English throne, James probably no longer slept with his wife, though their relations were mostly friendly, but he was a fond and devoted father. Naturally enough his first care was for Henry as the heir to his crowns, and he wrote for him a book of instruction in the art of king-craft, and in his duties as a man and monarch. Though often pompous in the manner of the day, the Basilikon Doron is also full of good sense and keen observation. Among other things, James warned his son against ‘the preposterous humility of the proud Puritan’ who thinks he is entitled to lay down the law to others – including the King – while resenting any criticism of himself. ‘Laws,’ the King told his son, ‘are ordained as rules of virtuous and social living, and not to be snares to trap your good subjects’, advice that modern parliaments and bureaucrats might with advantage ponder.
Henry, like his father before him, received a good education, happily being taught in more kindly fashion than James had been by Buchanan. He was athletic and a keen sportsman, though he disappointed James by being no great enthusiast for hunting. According to the French ambassador, Henry took part ‘rather for the pleasure of galloping, than that which the dogs give him’. He was loyal to his servants, taking their side if anyone criticised them, and passionately devoted to ships and the navy. He possessed the characteristic Stuart charm, and is said to have had a delightful smile. But he was also something of a prig, and disapproved of the disorderly court his father kept. He may indeed have nursed a growing contempt for his pacific parent. He was dazzled by the last notable survivor of the heroic reign of Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh; but Raleigh, described in the Queen’s lifetime as ‘the most unpopular man in England’, was a prisoner in the Tower of London, under sentence of death (suspended), on account of his suspected involvement in a plot against James in the first year of his reign. Henry, indifferent to Raleigh’s offence, inveighed against his hero’s incarceration, remarking bitterly, ‘only my father would keep such an eagle in a cage’. Perhaps there were the makings of a feud between father and son, such as were to be characteristic of the Stuarts’ Hanoverian successors, but whereas the Georges all hated their elder sons, James remained tolerant of Henry’s independence of mind and his affection was undiminished.
In 1612, however, Henry contracted a fever after a game of tennis. Despite the attentions of the doctors – or perhaps because of the remedies they attempted, applying new-killed pigeons to his shaved head to draw out ‘the corrupt and putrid fever’ and cockerels, split open, to his feet – he died, asking only for his ‘dear sister’. It is tempting to speculate on how different the fortunes of the Stuarts might have been if Henry had lived to be king. Would this strong-willed, energetic, staunchly Protestant young man have won and held the favour of his people and Parliament, taking the country into war on the Protestant side in the great European conflict that broke out six years after his death? Would the Parliament have provided him with the means to execute the ‘patriotic’ Protestant policy they so often called for – whil
e showing no willingness to pay for it? Such speculation belongs to counter-factual history, but is nonetheless enticing.
James’s daughter Elizabeth was, in the fashion of the time, brought up away from court, seeing her parents only occasionally. She learned French and Italian, and spent the afternoons of her childhood on horseback. She hero-worshipped her elder brother, and they sent each other letters almost every day, at times when meetings were impossible. She was waiting, as all princesses must, for marriage, for the day when some foreign match would be arranged and adult life would begin. There was a succession of suitors, among them briefly the recently widowed Philip III of Spain. He was old enough to be her father, reputed virtuous, also deeply stupid. She was spared this marriage when her father settled on a German prince, Frederick, Elector Palatine of the Rhine. (The title of elector meant that he was one of the seven princes who elected the Holy Roman Emperor. In fact, this election was by now little more than a formality; the title had become hereditary in the House of Habsburg.) Frederick was the same age as Elizabeth, a lively but serious young man, as befitted his position as the leader of the German Protestant Union. He was a Calvinist, but not of the most rigid sort. The marriage was arranged, but when Frederick arrived in England, where he fell in love with his bride, as he was doubtless determined to do, Prince Henry died and the wedding had to be postponed. It took place the following year, and the newly-weds sailed to the Netherlands, leaving James in tears, which, in his own fashion, he doubtless enjoyed. Ten months later Elizabeth gave birth to her first child, a boy, christened Frederick Henry. There would soon be a quiver of children, but not before the lives of the young couple were turned upside down.
Of ‘Baby Charles’, little need be said at this point. He had been a backward child, slow in learning to walk and speak, which latter he did with a disabling stammer. He was small and shy and his brother Henry declared that when he was king, he would make Charles Archbishop of Canterbury.
Meanwhile, before Henry’s death and Elizabeth’s marriage, King James had himself fallen in love. The object of his affections was a young Scotsman called Robert Ker, or Carr as he was known in England. He belonged to a cadet branch of the Kers of Ferniehurst, one of the great Border families, and he had first come to England with James as one of his ‘running pages’. But he had been sent home and then spent some time in France, where his manners acquired a degree of polish. Returning to England, he had the good fortune to break his leg falling from his horse in a tournament, and this brought him to the King’s notice. He was confined to bed, where the King visited him and was delighted. Ker was a blond, long-legged boy, deemed handsome (though his portrait suggests that his expression was foxy). He was not very bright but was possessed of an animal magnetism; at least two other people besides James were to be in love with him. James was now in his forties, a time of life when many are ready to make fools of themselves. He made Ker a gentleman of his bedchamber, a post that required him to sleep in or near the King’s chamber; in Ker’s case, one must assume, in James’s bed also. James’s interest was not only sexual. He took it on himself to repair the young man’s defective education, teaching him Latin. One observer remarked snidely that it would have been a better idea to teach him English, since the boy spoke with a strong Scots accent. But so of course did the King himself. Responsibilities and honours were showered on the young man. He acted as the King’s secretary (which enabled James to keep him about his person) and was soon raised to the peerage as Viscount Rochester. Recognised as the reigning favourite, he found courtiers eager to please and flatter him. His elevation must have seemed to him as welcome as it was surprising, always assuming he could bear James’s displays of love with equanimity. There is no evidence that he found this difficult. Queen Anne disliked Ker, which was not surprising, but James was indifferent to his wife’s opinion. All the warm sentimentality of his nature was directed at the young man, who would soon rise even further, being made Earl of Somerset.
Others sought advancement through Ker’s influence with the King. Chief among them was Francis Bacon, who, thanks also to the death in 1612 of his cousin Salisbury, at last achieved office as Attorney-General. Northampton too was quick to make friends with the young man, and soon sought a means of making that friendship firmer. His brother, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, had a beautiful daughter called Frances. She had been married while still a very young girl to the equally young Earl of Essex. They did not suit. Frances developed a distaste for his person; he disliked and perhaps feared her, for she was strong-willed and dominating, and made no secret of her contempt for him. Now, returning to court, her fancy turned to Somerset. He was flattered but found himself unable to write the sort of love letters she might expect, and enlisted the help of his closest friend, Sir Thomas Overbury. Overbury was a clever young man and something of a poet. He had been the bosom friend, and perhaps the lover, of Ker before he rose to greatness. At first he was happy to do as his friend asked. It may have amused him; perhaps he didn’t take the thing seriously. Then he became intensely jealous and advised Ker to break off his courtship of Frances. Politics played a part in his changed attitude. Overbury was opposed to a Spanish alliance, which the Howards favoured. He became a nuisance. It was thought wise to get him out of the way. James was persuaded, easily enough, to offer him an ambassadorship. Overbury refused it. The King was offended; the disobedient poet was dispatched to the Tower as a prisoner.
Meanwhile Frances, advised by her uncle, opened legal proceedings to obtain an annulment of her marriage to Essex, on the grounds that it had never been consummated on account of the Earl’s incapacity. This was insulting, and Essex, though disliking his wife extremely, could not be expected to collude in a process that would leave him an object of pity or, worse, mockery. The nullity suit made no progress. There were rumours that Frances was employing witchcraft against Essex. Perhaps Overbury started them, or at least fanned them. Perhaps he threatened to divulge secrets that would prevent the marriage Frances had set her heart on. Then Overbury died. Poison was soon suspected.
Frances obtained her annulment10 and she and Somerset were married. The ceremony was held at court. There were masques – one paid for by Bacon; it cost him £2,000 which he could ill afford, since he was always deep in debt. Poets, among them John Donne, wrote verses in honour of the occasion and in praise of the happy couple. Some historians have seen James’s approval, indeed encouragement, of the match as evidence that his relationship with Robert Ker had never been sexual. Yet this is to misunderstand both him and the age, which approved passionate friendships between men without supposing that this precluded marriage. Besides which, James’s first passion for Ker was fading. He had settled into a loving tenderness, and in any case there was always a paternal element to his feeling for the young men he loved.
But now the rumours surrounding Overbury’s death became firm allegations. There was indeed evidence of poisoning. A woman called Mrs Turner, reputed to deal in potions and spells, was incriminated, tried and hanged; and Mrs Turner had been a close associate of the new Countess of Somerset.
The governor of the Tower, Sir Gervase Elwes, passed on all he suspected to the King. James was alarmed. The scandal was coming dangerously near the throne. Somerset begged him to have the investigation stopped, but James told him he could not allow such a crime as was alleged ‘to be suppressed and plastered over’. He had the good sense to see that a cover-up might be more damaging than anything that might emerge from an examination of the evidence. ‘If the delation [accusation] prove false,’ he told Robert, ‘no man among you shall so much rejoice as I.’11 Somerset came to the King at Royston where he was hunting to plead once more. In vain. According to one witness, ‘When he came to take his leave of the King, he [James] embraced and kissed him often, wished him to make haste back, showed an extreme passion to be without him; and his back was no sooner turned, but he said with a smile, “I shall never see his face more.”’12 One may question the ‘smile’.
&nbs
p; Somerset hurried back to London to destroy letters from Northampton, who had died a few months previously, which he feared might compromise him.
The minor figures in the case having been condemned and disposed of, Robert and Frances were both arrested and committed to trial. The case was prosecuted, quite gently, by Bacon. Frances confessed her guilt, while affirming that her husband was innocent. He refused to plead guilty. Both were condemned to death, but James commuted the sentences to imprisonment, and the pair remained in the Tower for several years. The reprieve was unpopular: one law for the rich, another for the poor wretches who had been their accomplices. James was convinced of Frances’s guilt, even before her confession. He had sent a message to Robert by way of the lieutenant of the Tower, saying: ‘If it shall plainly appear that she is very fowle, as is generally conceaved and reported that she is, as being the author and procurer of that murder, then I thinck justice may not be stayed, and he shold have just cause to be glad that he is freed from so wicked a woman.’13 But when the time came, he could not bring himself to have Frances executed. It would have been difficult to do so without sending Somerset to the block also, despite his protestation of innocence, and James had sufficient lingering affection for him not to do that.
Even before Somerset’s downfall, James had a new favourite, a new love. The young man was called George Villiers, and he was both beautiful and charming. James was captivated, more completely in love than he had ever been; he called Villiers ‘Steenie’, from a fancied resemblance to a portrait of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr. More intelligent than Ker, Villiers took care to ingratiate himself with the Queen, who was soon writing to him in affectionate terms: ‘My kind dog, I have received your letter which is very welcome to me. You do very well in lugging the sow’s ear, and I thank you for it, and would have you do so still on condition that you continue always a watchful dog and be always true to him, so wishing you all happiness. Anna R.’ The young man’s rise would be meteoric: Knight of the Garter, Viscount Villiers, Earl, then Duke of Buckingham. The day would come when James would tell his Council that he was ‘neither a god nor an angel, but a man like any other. Therefore I act like a man, and confess to loving those dear to me than other men. You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf, and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had his John, and I have my George.’ This was the besotted language of infatuation. Buckingham for his part played his game cleverly, making a parade of his devotion while also charming the King with boyish impertinence: ‘I kiss your dirty hands,’ he wrote. James responded in similar vein. ‘Steenie’ was his dog, as well as the Queen’s, and he celebrated a visit to Buckingham’s house in Rutland with one of his occasional verses:
