JAMBS I, king of England, and VI of Scotland, the only child of Mary, Queen of Scots, by her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darn ley: b. Edinburgh Castle, 19 June 1566; d. palace of Theobalds, Hertfordshire, 27 March 1625. In 1567 he was solemnly crowned at Stirling, and from that time all public acts ran in his name. His childhood was passed during civil wars, under the regencies of Murray, Mar and Mor ton, during which time he resided in Stirling Castle under the tuition of the celebrated Buchanan. From the first he seems to have imbibed those exalted notions of the royal au thority and divine right which proved so inju rious to his posterity. But James soon found it advisable to ally himself with Queen Eliza beth and to accept a pension from her. When, however, it became apparent that the life of his mother was in danger from the sentence of an English judicature, James sent representatives to England to intercede with Elizabeth; but his whole procedure in the matter shows a singular callousness. As a matter of form he ordered the clergy to pray for his mother, but when the news of Mary's execution arrived James was not much moved, though he at tempted to make a show of indignation by con demning one of the commissioners to death, a sentence which, however, he commuted to ban ishment. On 23 Nov. 1589 James married Anne, daughter of Frederick II, king of Den mark. On his return home, after passing the winter in festivities at Copenhagen, he was in some danger from the unruliness of the nobles; and for several succeeding years of his reign the history of Scotland displays much turbu lence and party contest, but the supremacy of the Crown was finally vindicated. In 1603 James succeeded to the crown of England, on the death of Elizabeth, and proceeded amidst the acclamations of his new subjects to Lon don. One of his first acts was to bestow a profusion of honors and titles on the inhabit ants of both countries. At a conference held at Hampton Court between the divines of the Established Church and the Puritans, James exhibited the he bore to popular schemes of church government. The meeting of Parlia ment also enabled him to assert those princi ples of absolute power in the Crown which he could never practically maintain, but the theo retical claim of which provided the increasing spirit of freedom in the House of Commons with constant matter of alarm and contention.
Although James had behaved with great lenity to the Catholics in Scotland, those in England were so disappointed in their expectations of favor that the famous gunpowder plot was con certed in 1605, the object of which was to blow up the king and Parliament. (See GUNPOWDER Purr, TEO. In 1612 he lost his eldest son Henry, a prince of great promise, then 19; and in the following year the eventful marriage of his daughter Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine took place. No circumstance in the reign of James was more unpopular than his treatment of the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh (q.v.). James had set his heart on marrying his son Charles to a Spanish princess, but the nego tiations failed through the overbearing temper of Buckingham, the royal favorite, who quar reled with the grandees of the Spanish court. The close of the life of James was marked by violent contests with his Parliament. He was also much disquieted by the misfortune of his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, who, having been induced to accept the crown of Bohemia, and to head the Protestant interest in Germany, was stripped of all his dominions by the em peror. Urged by national feelings for the Protestant cause, he was at length (10 March 1624) induced to declare war against Spain and the emperor; and troops were sent to Holland to act in conjunction with Prince Maurice. James was not destitute of abilities nor of good intentions, but the former were not those of a ruler, and he was neither beloved at home nor esteemed abroad. He received dur ing his lifetime a great deal of adulation on the score of his literary abilities, and to him the authorized version of the Bible (1611) is inscribed. He was aptly described by Sully as uthe wisest fool in Christendom?) Consult Aikin, 'Memoirs of the Court of King James the First) (1822) ; Burton, 'History of Scot land' (1873); Macaulay, 'History of (1858) ; Gardiner, S. R. 'History of from the Accession of James I to the Spanish Marriage) (1863-69) ; id., 'The First Two Stuarts' (1876); Henderson, T. F. 'James I and VI' (1904); and 'Cambridge Modern His tory' (Vol. III, 1910).