James I died in March 1625. It wasn’t long after that that Dr Eglesham suggested that James had been poisoned by his favourite – the Duke of Buckingham pictured at the start of this post. Eglesham helpfully produced a pamphlet entitled The Forerunner of Revenge which helpfully outlined his claims. But could James’ favourite really have killed the man who raised him from comparative poverty to being one of the wealthiest men in the country – not to mention one of the most powerful.
James, who was not a healthy man, fell ill with tertian ague and took to his bed. Tertian fever was a kind of malaria but it, mostly, wasn’t fatal. He was given a remedy by George Villiers that involved a drink with a restorative and a plaster. James’ condition declined quickly after George’s remedies. The restorative was a white powder and James regretted having taken it.
It has been suggested that Villiers (pictured right) may have had form – his wife’s brother died in suspicious circumstances making her an heiress. And apparently the Marquess of Hamilton’s corpse didn’t behave as it should have – it was described as having swelled suggesting that the marquess may have been poisoned.
James Hamilton, for those who are interested, came to England with James in 1603. He was part of the anti-war faction at court. Buckingham and Hamilton had also had a bit of a spat in 1620 when Buckingham took exception to a comment about the sale of titles and advancement of men who did not have the requisite blood lines. Buckingham felt that the snub was aimed at him and his extended family.
The main problem in terms of George’s defence was that he did not apply medicines that James’ own doctors sanctioned. He’d sought a diagnosis of his own and paid a different doctor for the cure which he administered. Eglesham not only took umbrage from this but also from the fact that as masters of the Goldbeaters’ Company his fortune has suffered a severe setback in 1621 when the king revoked their patent under pressure from Parliament. Parliament didn’t have a grudge against the Goldbeaters or Eglesham they were seeking to control the power that George Villers had gained from the monopolies that the king had given to him during his rise to favour.
Nor did it help that Eglesham, a Scot, had just lost his key patron – the Marquess of Hamilton – yes, the chap with the bloated corpse. One of the rumours was that Hamilton had been killed as part of a Catholic conspiracy. It was even suggested that Eglesham had secretly helped to convert Hamilton to Catholicism on his deathbed. This wasn’t good news either as England was on an anti-Catholic high following the disasterous trip by Charles and Buckingham to Madrid in 1623. Eglesham, in fear for his life, fled to Brussels – and wrote the Forerunner of Revenge which was published in English and Latin. It was widely read.
The Spanish were delighted with the book because it gave them an opportunity to destabilise England now that Charles and Buckingham had gone to war with the Hapsburgs – think of it as an early application of fake news.
Eglesham blamed Buckingham for his misfortunes, had laid the evidence of Buckingham’s crimes out in his text and now declared that it was Charles’ job to punish crime and uphold justice because without justice the Crown would fall.
As it happened Eglesham’s work would resonate through the period. Charles’ loyalty to Buckingham saw him trying to protect the Duke from Parliament by dissolving Parliament when it sought to impeach his friend in 1626. He then raised revenues by other avenues than Parliament. These to things led to a failure of justice in terms of the “crimes” which Buckingham had committed by his foreign policy and his continued power not to mention the failure in justice when Charles had members of the gentry imprisoned without trial for their failure to pay his forced loans.
Whether Buckingham actually did kill James is another matter entirely – but a grand read for fans of conspiracy theories. Certainly Parliament took the view that there was no smoke without fire when it came to their impeachment attempt in 1626.
Bellamy, Alastair and Cogswell, Thomas (2015) The Murder of James I New Haven: Yale University Press
Ruigh, Robert, E.(1971) The Parliament of 1624: Politics and Foreign Policy Harvard: Harvard University Press.
By Robert E. Ruigh
As those of you who know me may recall one of my most favourite historical figures is Robert Carey. He’s the chap who caught the ring his sister, Philadelphia Scrope, chucked it from the bedroom window having it plucked from Elizabeth I’s finger after her demise in 1603. Robert rode for Edinburgh and did the journey in a very impressive three days.
One of the portraits is unquestionably Elizabeth in her middle years. The other is a woman who looks remarkably like Anne Boleyn because of the french hood that she wears although it has been argued that it could be Katherine Parr- there are issues over hair colouring. It has even been suggested that it is the image of a more youthful Elizabeth – now Elizabeth was unquestionably vain but would she really cart around two secret images of herself? Not being an art historian I couldn’t comment. Dr Starkey observed, at the time he curated the exhibition in the National Maritime Museum where the ring was first displayed, it is likely to be an image of Anne because despite the fact that Elizabeth knew her mother for only a very short time she was likely to be a huge influence on her daughter’s life. This view is supported by Tracey Borman in The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen. Elsewhere it is pointed out that Elizabeth is known to have spoken of her mother only twice in her lifetime but it would also have to be said that if as Alison Weir suggests a youthful Elizabeth can be seen wearing her mother’s famous pearls in the Whitehall family group portrait along with a pendant that looks suspiciously like the letter A then she did indeed feel a closeness to her mother which History can only speculate upon.
19 July 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh arrested. The key event of 1603 was the so-called the Main Plot which evolved into a secondary Bye Plot that came to light in 1604 (I’ve blogged about them before). Essentially with the Main Plot there was some question as to whether James was the best person to be king Henry VII had other descendants who were English. The one we think of at this time is usually Arbella Stuart who was implicated in the Main Plot which saw Sir Walter Raleigh sent to the Tower. The plan was to depose James and put Arbella in his place. The Bye Plot was much more straight forward. It simply involved kidnapping James and forcing him to suspend the laws against Catholics.
The architecture of any border territory is inevitably studded with fortifications; the largest being the castle. On the Scottish borders there are two other kinds of fortified building dating, in their present form, from the sixteenth century. The best known of these two is the pele or peel tower. These were three or four storey buildings with very thick walls. The ground floor was used for storage whilst the upper floors were for living. Some towers like the one at Clifton near Penrith were really only used during times of crisis.
The third typical border fortification is the bastle house. A bastle house is a fortified farmhouse. Typically it presents as a two-storey building with very thick walls. The ground floor was a barn for livestock. If it had windows at all they would have been narrow slits for ventilation. At Black Middens the original door was in the gable end. The rather dark and dingy upper floor with its tiny door and narrow window were the living quarters which were accessed, in the early days at least, by a ladder which could be hauled up behind the inhabitants in times of trouble. In later times an external stair case was often added along with more windows and doors. The bastle house at Black Middens near Bellingham also boasts some sturdy looking sockets for bars across the door as additional security. A farmer would have to be relatively wealthy in order to afford one of these stone buildings.
Its been a while since I heard this rhyme.
The unicorn is straight forward. It first made its appearance when James VI of Scotland became James I of England. The Scottish coat of arms was supported by two unicorns usually in chains because a free unicorn is a particularly fearsome beast. Having said that Mary Queen of Scots used lions on her privy seal and other folk used unicorns because of their many virtues and links to Christ.
