Overview

History has not been kind to King James. A cradle king who was crowned in Scotland in 1567 and England and Ireland in 1603, James VI and I has long been eclipsed in fame and reputation by his predecessor and cousin, Elizabeth I, and his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Yet James, if often overlooked or, more often, cruelly stereotyped, presents an equally fascinating figure: a diplomat whose long reigns encompassed extraordinary dramas, “a passionate Protestant with a profound interest in witches and demons, a lover of young men, and the patron of both Shakespeare and the great version of the Bible that still bears his name” (Fintan O’Toole). James identified himself with the “Mirror of Great Britain,” a spectacular jewel commissioned upon his accession to the English throne, which not only furnished him with one of his favorite metaphors—that of the mirror, with its limitless capacity to magnify, illuminate, and distort—but gave symbolic endorsement to his vision of British union. Now, four hundred years after his death, Wolfson History Prize–winning historian Clare Jackson finally reappraises the life and legacy of the “first king of Great Britain.” Beginning with the surprise assassination of his father, Lord Darnley, and the subsequent beheading of his mother, Jackson contextualizes James’s troubled childhood as well as the many attempts on his life, from his teenage detention by the Ruthven Raiders to the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. She reflects on the renewed creativity of the Jacobean era, culminating in the King James Bible, Macbeth, and King Lear, and demonstrates how the king’s keen interest in joining worlds old and new—establishing colonies overseas and, closer to home, uniting Scotland, England, and Ireland—set the geopolitical stage for centuries to come. In so doing, Jackson reveals King James as perhaps the most consequential monarch of the early modern era, whose impact, for better and for worse, still reverberates today. Closely attentive to James’s own words in numerous publications, manuscript musings, verse, and private correspondence, The Mirror of Great Britain tells the story of this highly unusual, significant monarch with flair, insight, and empathy for the man who bore the crown.

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9781324094999

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Reviews

""James VI and I is arguably the most intriguingly complex of British monarchs. . . . Clare Jackson’s dazzling portrait of James plunges us not only into his extraordinary political career but into his mental universe, a ferment of ambitions, obsessions, and desires from which much of the English-speaking world emerged. Splendidly erudite and wonderfully vivid in its detail and insights, The Mirror of Great Britain enriches our understanding both of James’s times and of our own."" -- Fintan O’Toole, New York Times best-selling author of We Don’t Know Ourselves ""In Clare Jackson’s luminous biography of James VI and I, this much misunderstood king speaks to us as the man he was rather than as the puppet of fortune. . . . The Mirror of Great Britain is a profound meditation on the meaning of identity and the fragility of kingship."" -- Amanda Foreman, New York Times best-selling author of The Duchess, Georgiana and A World on Fire ""A fine, humanizing portrait of Great Britain’s most misunderstood and maligned monarch. In this erudite and beautifully written biography, Clare Jackson brings the man who was both James VI of Scotland and James I of England to life for a new generation of readers."" -- Ruth Scurr, author of Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows ""Highly readable. . . . A robust history."" -- Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Clare Jackson is Honorary Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge and Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History at Trinity Hall. For her book Devil-Land: England under Siege, 1588–1688, Jackson was awarded the 2022 Wolfson History Prize. She lives in Cambridge, England.

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