Reign of James VI of Scotland

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Domains

Changes of government, elections and reigns

Dates

Date of occurrence 1567-1625

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Inheriting the Scottish crown as an infant, James grew up to become a Protestant despite his mother, Mary Queen of Scots' deep-seated Catholicism. An early battle for ultimate power over the Scottish kingdom with the Presbyterian church led to James publishing two tracts which deified the monarchy over the ecclesiastics: The Trew Law and Basilikon Doron. The concordat of Leith in 1572 gave the monarch power to appoint bishops without the approval of ecclesiastics; this development was opposed by a Presbyterian party led by Andrew Melville (1545-1622). James' supreme power increased in 1586 when he signed a treaty with Queen Elizabeth I of England which agreed his right to inherit the English throne, thereby …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

288 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Reign of James VI of Scotland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 June 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=582, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Reign of James VI of Scotland

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback