King James I :: Papers

King James Iborn June 19, 1566, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotlanddied March 27, 1625, Theobalds, Hertfordshire, EnglandKing of Scotland (as James VI) from 1567 to 1625 and first Stuart king of England from 1603 to 1625, who styled himself king of Great Britain. James was a absolute advocate of royal absolutism, and his conflicts with an increasingly self-assertive Parliament set the stage for the rebellion against his successor, Charles I.James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stewart, victor Darnley. Eight months after Jamess birth his father died when his house was destroyed by an explosion. After her third marriage, to James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, Mary was defeated by rebel Scots lords and abdicated the throne. James, one year old, became king of Scotland on July 24, 1567 Mary left the kingdom on May 16, 1568, and never saw her son again. During his minority James was surrounded by a small band of the great Scottish lords, from wh om emerged the four successive regents, the earls of Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. There did not exist in Scotland the great gulf surrounded by rulers and ruled that separated the Tudors and their subjects in England. For nine generations the Stuarts had in fact been merely the ruling family among many equals, and James all his life retained a whole tone for those of the great Scottish lords who gained his confidence.The young king was kept fairly isolated but was given a good education until the age of 14. He canvass Greek, French, and Latin and made good use of a library of classical and religious writings that his tutors, George Buchanan and Peter Young, assembled for him. Jamess education aroused in him literary ambitions seldom found in princes but which also tended to make him a pedant.Before James was 12 he had taken the government nominally into his own hands when the Earl of Morton was driven from the regency in 1578. For several years more, however, James remained th e puppet of contending intriguers and faction leaders. After falling under the influence of the Duke of Lennox, a Roman Catholic who schemed to profit back Scotland for the imprisoned Queen Mary, James was kidnapped by William Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie, in 1582 and was forced to denounce Lennox. The following year James escaped from his Protestant captors and began to come his own policies as king.