24th March 1603

King James VI of Scotland becomes King James I of England and Ireland

James Charles Stuart was born at Edinburgh Castle on 19 June 1566 and ascended to the Scottish throne on 24 July 1567, upon the abdication of Mary, Queen of Scots. Still just 13 months old, he was crowned five days later, and a series of regents ruled in his place until he gained majority.

He was the great-great-grandson of Henry VII, who had been King of England and Lord of Ireland so, when Elizabeth I died without a child in 1603, he was next in line to the English and Irish throne. Thus, James VI of Scotland simultaneously became James I of England and Ireland and the two kingdoms were ruled within his personal union, while remaining legally distinct states with their own defined borders. Despite his Scottish roots, he moved his court to England where he lived out the remaining 22 years of his life in what became known as the Jacobean period.

The Gunpowder Plot

As a religious man, he funded the King James translation of the Bible into English. He was also a target for assassination in the Gunpowder Plot, led by Robert Catesby and involving Guy Fawkes, who wanted to put James’s nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, on the throne in his place so that the country might once again become a Catholic state.

Upon his death in 1625, aged just 58, he was succeeded by his son, Charles, who similarly suffered an early end when he was executed in Whitehall in 1649 at the culmination of the English Civil War.