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King James died as the first ruler of both Scotland and England—but he had to betray his own mother to do it. All those years ago, when the English had Mary, Queen of Scots executed under shady circumstances, James publicly condemned the “preposterous and strange procedure” that led to her end.
On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother’s execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603 he ...
In 1587, Tudor queen Elizabeth I ordered the execution of James’ mother, who’d spent the past 19 years in captivity in England. When Elizabeth died childless in 1603, 36-year-old James—her...
Sir Francis Walsingham, one of the chief members of Elizabeth’s Privy Council, and an inveterate enemy of James’s mother, had, through a combination of entrapment, espionage and daring, uncovered (or created) the Babington plot, to assassinate Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne of England.
James VI and I died, aged 58, at Theobalds Palace in Hertfordshire on 27 March 1625. In his later years, James had suffered with many ailments, including “increasingly painful arthritis, gout and kidney stones,” Joe Ellis explains. “And because of his frail health, he was increasingly a peripheral figure at court and on the political stage.”
That and his mother's execution in 1587, which he denounced as a "preposterous and strange procedure", helped clear the way for his succession south of the border. Queen Elizabeth was unmarried and childless, and James was her most likely successor. Securing the English succession became a cornerstone of his policy.
His mother was Mary, Queen of Scots and his father her second husband, Lord Darnley. Darnley was murdered in February 1567. In July Mary was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son.
