The History of England Volume 5

Despite considerable concerns throughout England, the transition of the House of Tudor to the House of Stewart, from Elizabeth to James I (reigned 1603-1625) proved untroubled, not least because the queen left the country in ‘flourishing circumstances'. The new monarch moved to London and, despite being James VI of Scotland, made it his home for the next two decades. Unsurprisingly, his early distribution of honours benefitted more Scots figures than English, and coloured the nature of his English court, though he prudently left most of the main offices in the hands of Elizabeth's ministers. Various plots—involving among others Sir Walter Raleigh, and, in 1605 the ‘Gunpower Conspiracy'—were swiftly dealt with; and though James regarded himself ‘an absolute king', this was leavened by pragmatism. Hume considers the continuing activity of learning and the arts in the reign of James, through the work of Shakespeare, Ben, Johnson, John Donne and Francis Bacon; and that James himself was a