15/07/2020
The Stuart dynasty ruled over the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland during the seventeenth century. Apologies to our friends in Wales and Cornwall, both fiercely proud of their national identities and ancient languages, but they had been more or less annexed by England in the middle ages, with the monarch’s heir taking the title Price of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. On Saturday night, PBS America’s UK outlet broadcast a three hour series of documentaries on Stuart rule, between 1603 and 1714, a long century which saw the transition of society and culture from a world still dominated by superstition and fear to something more recognizably modern, with stable political institutions, a lively press and media, and regular Parliaments. The dynasty had begun in the fourteenth century in Scotland where James the Sixth was the latest in a long lineage of a stable regimen. In 1603, he was invited to take over the English throne and although James dreamed of uniting England and Scotland into a single country which he proposed be called Great Britain, he never saw his dream fulfilled, and the kingdoms ran side by side, with the same monarch, until 1707, when the Act of Union under Queen Anne finally saw the fulfilment of James’s vision. But it was James who arguably started the tumultuous processes off which saw the path to one nationhood and which contributed to the development of a modern country. James was known during his lifetime as “Queen James” and is known to have lavished praise and favours on male favourites at court. The exact nature of the dalliances that James had with men is not at all agreed on by historians. Although many letters exist which to a modern eye look like love missives, the English language has evolved significantly in the last four hundred years, and the way in which people expressed themselves has also altered. Look at the plays of William Shakespeare. We can just about make out what is going on, but the language is florid and overexpressive, constructed differently and perhaps even melodramatic. Personal correspondence is very difficult to interpret. In a recent memorable episode of the BBC science fiction serial “Doctor Who”, gay actor Alan Cumming plays King James as an outrageous, camp, lascivious sadist, holding a fascination with witchcraft and taking a shine to a young male character. This portrayal though is probably exaggerated and many recent historians have held King James to have been an intellectual man of some achievement and something of a philosopher king.
