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In the late 15th century Fortescue in England and Commynes in France compared the governance of the two commonwealths under the strain of war. The influence of Renaissance humanism is seen in the 16th century in More's Utopia with its vision of an ideal state, and Montaigne's superb essays ranging over the whole field of human experience in the midst of the French Wars of Religion. The same crisis inspired Jean Bodin, a third lawyer-humanist, to set out in his Six Livres de la République a model regime based on a methodical study of historical states. The problem of how to defend royal sovereignty in the face of aggressive religious sects also preoccupied James VI of Scotland and I of England. In 1649 Parliament would execute James' son and set up a ‘Commonwealth and Free State’ without kings, who were seen as naturally promoting ‘their own power and will above the laws’.

This chapter examines the Essex rising of 8 February 1601, and introduces the themes that structure the rest of the book. A narrative explains the context of the events that led to the earl’s protest on the streets of London. Then, analysis focuses on the ways that Essex and his followers conceived of the legitimacy of their actions as a loyalist intervention to save queen and state, and to defend the succession of James VI of Scotland from a court-based conspiracy to enthrone the Spanish Infanta. Government propaganda denied the legitimacy of Essex’s protestations of loyalty, insisting that the rising was a treasonous rebellion, and arguing that Essex’s character and conduct reflected long-standing ambitions to usurp the throne, as Henry Bullingbrook had deposed Richard II. These narratives of Essex’s rising exemplify political and ideological divisions that had emerged over the course of the earl’s later career.

This chapter discusses the drama and tension of the accession, and the history of the Union of the Crowns in the lifetime of James. James VI was proclaimed King of England when Elizabeth died. It was ruthlessly silent about James' Anglo-Scottish ancestry. But what James VI had inherited from his Stuart ancestors, most notably James IV and the even more effective James V, was a lofty vision of the diplomatic importance of the King of Scots and his ability to have an impact on other European countries. In 1603, the brutal fact was that the Scots and the English disliked one another intensely. The theme of Anglo-Scottish hostility is briefly outlined. The Union of 1603 did have a profound impact on his style of kingship. It was also noted that the dearth of Tudor heirs contributed to the absolute problem of finding different kings for England and Scotland. When celebrating the fourth centenary of that momentous event, the toast was certainly to King James.

This discusses the political history of the religious settlements between 1558 and the end of the century. It contrasts England and Scotland, roughly characterized by having reformation from above and from below, but also emphasizes shared concerns and attitudes. The problems of reform in Ireland are treated separately: here the danger of assuming inevitable failure for Protestantism is stressed.

This chapter examines the Scottish Petrarchans before and after 1603 or the Union of the Crowns. It explains that Petrarch was initially resisted as a model for the connection between poetry and nationhood and that the Scottish sonnet became more anglicised when James VI became King of England and Scotland and Petrarchism became the more dominant lyrical influence. It considers three Scottish poets who exemplify this development of the Petrarchan sonnet, culminating in William Drummond of Hawthornden.

This chapter discusses the men with the virtue and skills necessary in the art of government who were provided by nobles to aid kings. It notes that among the higher ranks of the nobility that duty and that right to give counsel was heritable, as was recognised by parliament in the personal summons issued to peers. It further notes that Mary, James VI, and Charles I each recognised this relationship with their nobles, and while they called on the services of different men none of these rulers entirely ignored the counsel of the nobility or recruited significant numbers of advisers and servants to government from outside of noble society.

This chapter focuses on the tensions within the political community, on those fissures that broke apart the consensus that made government possible. It observes that ideas about resistance, implacable religious divisions and a legacy of weak government and civil war that fed the worst attributes of a feuding society all threatened to make the kingdom ungovernable. It also discusses and highlights the nobility's ambivalence towards resistance as James VI came of age, an increasing disenchantment with religious politics, and a growing unease at the escalation of feuding. It explains that the power of individual nobles, and even factions of nobles, could be broken by the crown when it exploited the natural conservatism of noble society and deployed the power of other nobles in its cause. It emphasizes that James VI's removal to England in 1603 changed forever the political landscape of Scotland, altering in the process the relationship between crown and nobility.

This chapter discusses the royal court of the sixteenth century, which suffered from unfavourable comparisons with that of James IV and James V and with its close contemporaries in England or France, while the early seventeenth-century court is often overlooked as English and of little relevance to Scotland. It observes that the courts of Mary and James VI were poor compared to the courts of James IV and James V. It explains that because the crown was relatively impoverished it does not mean that the court was politically irrelevant. It observes that nobles chased office, wealth, and influence at court, and much of the politics of the period focused on court power struggles that were enmeshed in the turbulent politics of the localities. It opines that the political and cultural significance of the post-1603 court cannot be dismissed and the long-term detrimental impact on Scotland requires a more sophisticated interpretation.

In the wake of English victory at the end of the Nine Years War, Ulster met a similar fate. The unexpected flight of leading Irish lords to the continent and the revolt of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty enabled the state to confiscate vast tracts of Ulster. James VI and I allocated land in relatively small parcels to one hundred Scottish and English ‘undertakers’ and about fifty ‘servitors’ in the hope that they would create a British type of rural society. In addition, he set aside other acres to endow key ‘civilizing’ institutions — the church, towns, schools, and Trinity College, Dublin; while he obliged the City of London to take on the entire County of Londonderry in an effort to bring capital and economic prosperity to a commercial backwater. In addition to plantations, the Crown sought to tame ‘those rude parts’ — while at the same time enriching itself by interfering in land titles.

This chapter explores the early decades of the seventeenth century, when James VI of Scotland became James I of England and controversy about worship and the structure of the state church erupted anew in Scotland. When James I succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603 and added England, Wales, and Ireland to his native Scotland, the hopeful and the admiring outnumbered the detractors, for the godly knew that in 1592 he had endorsed presbyterianism in Scotland and, more recently, had disparaged Catholicism and Dutch Arminianism. Their hopes aroused, a small group of English activists initiated a petition the king received as he made his way to London. The “Millenary Petition,” so named because of the assertion it was endorsed by a thousand ministers, complained of pluralism and nonresidency, singled out bishops as pluralists although otherwise saying nothing about episcopacy, and called for higher standards in admitting men to the work of ministry. The Millenary Petition signaled the persistence of Puritan sympathies in England despite the damage done to the movement in the 1590s. The chapter also considers “Dutch Puritanism,” a convenient shorthand for the more radical or safety-seeking laypeople and ministers who went to the Netherlands as early as the 1580s.

Through dynastic accident, England and Scotland were united under King James VI and I in 1603. To smooth the transition, officials attempted to create a single state: Great Britain. Yet the project had a narrow appeal; the majority of the English populace rejected a closer relationship with Scotland. Such a strong reaction against Scotland resulted in a revived sense of Englishness. This essay analyzes English tactics to distance themselves from the Scots through historical treatises. For centuries, the English had created vivid histories to illuminate their ancient past. It is evident from the historical works written between 1586 and 1625 that authors sought to maintain a position of dominance over Scotland through veiled political commentaries. As such, their accounts propagated an English national identity based on a sense of historical supremacy over the Scottish. This was further supported through the use of language studies and archaeological evidence. After the 1603 Union of the Crowns, these stories did not change. Yet, questions arose regarding the king's genealogy, as he claimed descent from the great kings of both kingdoms. Consequently, historians re-invented the past to merge their historical accounts with the king's ancestral claims while continuing to validate English assertions of suzerainty.

This chapter defines the broader conclusions that can be drawn from the earl’s career and rising. It restates the importance of the role that political and religious ideas played in shaping the events of the late 1590s and the earl’s revolt. It is argued that the religious tensions revealed by Essex’s involvement in succession politics were inherited by James VI on his accession to the English throne. It is argued that the ideas and concepts used by Elizabethans to define the monarchical state, and the roles and rights of subjects within it, were often drawn from highly negative literary paradigms: this represented a significant shift from the political culture of the earlier Elizabethan period, foreshadowing public discourse about the early Stuart monarchy, with ramifications for the ideological divisions of the seventeenth century.

This chapter re-examines the secret correspondence between James VI, Sir Robert Cecil, Lord Henry Howard and others over the last two years of Elizabeth I’s reign. James wanted friends who might influence Elizabeth in his favour and counteract the supposedly nefarious influence of others upon her. Equally, Cecil and Howard profited from depicting themselves as potent, though clandestine, defenders of the Scottish king’s claim where it counted most: at the heart of Elizabeth’s court. Counsel thus emerges as a central concern of this correspondence. Although it did not straightforwardly ‘pave the way’ for the peaceful accession of 1603, the secret correspondence provided its participants with what they could plausibly view, in hindsight at least, as an effective means to further their interests.

Ben Jonson had become established as the leading court poet within a few years of James VI and I's accession to the throne. Though he was never officially created laureate, he was on close personal terms with the king and was the regular author of court masques from 1605 to the end of the reign. His political stance marked a significant break with the major Tudor traditions of public poetry. Edmund Spenser had inherited from mid-century gospellers the idea of the poet as a prophet, celebrating the achievements of the Reformation and satirizing ecclesiastical abuses. Jonson reacted against this Protestant prophetic tradition in the most emphatic possible way: in the 1590s he became converted to Catholicism. Jonson never attempted to present himself as a prophetic poet; his stance was that of a detached and ironic observer of human affairs rather than a visionary who laid claim to special prophetic insights.