A Brief Biography Of King James VI

1362 Words3 Pages

As you may already know, King James VI and I was the king of Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland all at the same time. Impressive might be your opinion of it but King James had to endure lots of hardships to rule all three of these great and powerful kingdoms. One of the many hardships that King James had to endure was the fact that he was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Mary's reign over Scotland was unstable because both she and her husband were Roman Catholics so they encountered rebellion by Protestant noblemen. During Mary and Darnley's marriage, Darnley secretly worked with the rebels and planned to kill his wife a few months before James was born. James was born on June 19, 1566 at Edinburgh Castle. Since he was the only son of Queen Mary, he became the heir to the Scottish throne. His godparents were Charles IX of France and Queen Elizabeth I of England. His father Darnley was murdered on February 10, 1567 Protestant rebels arrested Mary and imprisoned her and after that, she never saw her son, James, again. Since James's mother was imprisoned and his father was murdered, Queen Elizabeth I adopted him. Scotland had become unstable since there was no one ruling while King James was in Great Britain. Some Protestants did not want James as their king so they lured him into Ruthven Castle and imprisoned him. After he was liberated in June 1583, he was determined to control his kingdom and gain power. While he was in Scotland, he established an effective royal government and created peace among the royal officials and the lords. He was assisted by John Maitland of Thirlestane, who led the government until 1592. He was not favored by a few of ... ... middle of paper ... ...t a body of writings that were mediocre but earned him a special place beside English kings since the time of Alfred. The body of writings were "The True Law of Free Monarchies" and "Basilikon Doron" and in both of them, he showed his opinion of the rights of kings. He loved his wife,Anne, and wrote beautifully to her. In total, they had nine children together but only three of them had survived till adulthood. He was fluent in Greek, Latin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Scots. William Shakespeare was one of James's subjects. If it weren't for James's encouragement to his subjects to learn and study art and literature, William Shakespeare might not have been known for what he is known today. He formed the foundation which is now known as the British empire by uniting warring tribes of Scotland then joining the Scottish and English crown in 1603.

Open Document