1566 The birth of James VI and I
James VI of Scotland and James I of England was one of the longest reigning of British monarchs, succeeding to the throne as a baby. He was superbly educated, an author of poetry, political theory, and a book on witchcraft (in which he was a believer) but he was also a coward, crude of speech, and given to expensive love affairs with male courtiers. Of him Chambers Book of Days says:
King James—so learned, yet so childish; so grotesque, yet so arbitrary; so sagacious, yet so weak- ‘the wisest fool in Christendom,’ as Henry IV termed him—does not personally occupy a high place in the national regards; but by the accident of birth and the current of events he was certainly a personage of vast importance to these islands. To him, probably, it is owing that there is such a thing as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland among the states of Europe.
This sovereign, the son of Henry Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots, was born on the 19th of June 1566, in a small room in the ancient palace within Edinburgh Castle. We know how it was—namely, for security—that the queen selected Edinburgh Castle for her expected accouchement; but it is impossible to imagine by what principle of selection she chose that this event should take place in a room not above eight feet square. There, however, is the room still shown, to the wonder of everybody who sees it. The young prince was ushered into the world between nine and ten in the morning, and Sir James Melville instantly mounted horse to convey the news of the birth of an heir-apparent of Scotland, and heir-presumptive of England, to Queen Elizabeth.
Darnley came at two in the afternoon to see his royal spouse and his child. ‘My lord,’ said Mary, ‘God has given us a son.’ Partially uncovering the infant’s face, she added a protest that it was his, and no other man’s son. Then, turning to an English gentleman present, she said, ‘This is the son who I hope shall first unite the two kingdoms of Scotland and England.’ Sir William Stanley said, ‘Why, madam, shall he succeed before your majesty and his father?’ ‘Alas!’ answered Mary, ‘his father has broken to me;’ alluding to his joining the murderous conspiracy against Mary’s secretary David Rizzio [who had stirred up Darnley to jealousy]. ‘Sweet madam,’ said Darnley, ‘is this the promise you made that, you would forget and forgive all?’ ‘I have forgiven all,’ said the queen. ‘but will never forget. What if Fawdonside’s pistol had shot? [She had been held at gunpoint while Rizzio was knifed to death in front of her.] What world have become of him and me both?’ ‘Madam,’ said Darnley, ‘these things are past.’ ‘Then,’ said the queen, ‘let them go’.
The Queen, however, did not let those things go. Before too long she conspired to have Darnley murdered and then married his killer — for these crimes she was deposed by the Scottish nobility and baby James crowned in her place. She fled to England and never saw her child again; she would be executed after 20 years of imprisonment by Elizabeth I. In 1603 James would succeed his mother’s killer and become king of both England and Scotland.