Product Description

As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, born into her 'bloody nest', James had the most precarious of childhoods. Even before his birth, his life was threatened: it was rumoured that his father, Henry, had tried to make the pregnant Mary miscarry by forcing her to witness the assassination of her supposed lover, David Riccio. By the time James was one year old, Henry was murdered, possibly with the connivance of Mary; Mary was in exile in England; and James was King of Scotland. By the age of five, he had experienced three different regents as the ancient dynasties of Scotland battled for power and made him a virtual prisoner in Stirling Castle. In fact, James did not set foot outside the confines of Stirling until he was eleven, when he took control of his country. But even with power in his hands, he would never feel safe. For the rest of his life, he would be caught up in bitter struggles between the warring political and religious factions who sought control over his mind and body. Yet James believed passionately in the divine right of kings, as many of his writings testify. He became a seasoned political operator, carefully avoiding controversy, even when his mother Mary was sent to the executioner by Elizabeth I. His caution and politicking won him the English throne on Elizabeth's death in 1603 and he rapidly set about trying to achieve his most ardent ambition: the Union of the two kingdoms. Alan Stewart's impeccably researched new biography makes brilliant use of original sources to bring to life the conversations and the controversies of the Jacobean age. From James's 'inadvised' relationships with a series of favourites and Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to his conflicts with a Parliament which refused to fit its legislation to the Monarch's will, Stewart lucidly untangles the intricacies of James's life. In doing so, he uncovers the extent to which Charles I's downfall was caused by the cracks that appeared in the monarchy during his father's reign.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #416790 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 438 pages

About the Author
Alan Stewart is the author of the acclaimed biographies Philip Sidney: A Double Life and Hostage to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon (with Lisa Jardine). He is Reader in Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, and Associate Director of the AHRB Centre for Editing Lives and Letters. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Slightly boring
If a review quoted on a book says, 'a very timely biography', beware! It means that there are not many new biographies on this subject and, if being, well, 'timely' is the best complement the book can get, that is not good enough.
If you are into a vivid, fast paced writing with a lot of personal detail (that of Alison Weir or Maureen Waller) you will be disappointed.
The book seems to be a bit inconsistent - the author tries to be very scholarly in some chapters, informal and personal in other and it just does not work.
If you're writing a paper on James I, you may find it useful. If you are into the King as a person and want to start with this book as an introduction into Stuart's England, don't bother.

Too much source material spoils the flow
I had looked forward to reading this biography of James Ist. Whilst an admitted devotee of Alison Weir and the scholarship and detail she brings to her biographies, I found this book hard going. This was mainly due to too much primary source quotation which would appear almost after every 6 lines or so.

The Cradle King - Alan Stewart
I'm a big fan of historical biographies, especially of England's monarchs, but this book was, as the other reviewers have said, frankly boring and dull. True, a historian should make ample use of primary sources and take quotations from them - which to his credit Stewart does - but he goes overboard. Every paragraph has a quotation, sometimes wholesale, leaving no room for the historian's other task of analysing the sources, discerning what is happening, and more importantly, why something has happened the way it did.

Similarly, the author merely produces a chronological account of James I & VI's life, there is little analysis, historical investigation and study of the socio-political themes of the period which the king faced. As a result the reader is left with a terse, dull read.

In summary, I can't recommend this book. I'm sure there are better biographies of James available. This one is for hardcore fans of James I & VI only.