Clemence Shakespeare Overview

King James  I..... (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union......James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland (through both his parents), uniquely positioning him to eventually accede to all three thrones.

James's sexuality is a matter of dispute. Throughout his life James had close relationships with male courtiers, which has caused debate among historians about their exact nature...... his sexuality has long been a matter of debate. He clearly preferred the company of handsome young men. The evidence of his correspondence and contemporary accounts have led some historians to conclude that the king was homosexual or bisexual. In fact, the issue is murky." (Bucholz & Key 2004, p. 208)....Many of James's biographers conclude that Esmé Stewart (later Duke of Lennox), Robert Carr (later Earl of Somerset), and George Villiers (later Duke of Buckingham) were his lovers..... Restoration of Apethorpe Hall, undertaken in 2004–08, revealed a previously unknown passage linking the bedchambers of James and Villiers...... A few biographers of James argue that the relationships were not sexual..... James's Basilikon Doron lists sodomy among crimes "ye are bound in conscience never to forgive", and James's wife Anne gave birth to seven live children, as well as suffering two stillbirths and at least three other miscarriages..... Contemporary Huguenot poet Théophile de Viau observed that "it is well known that the king of England / fucks the Duke of Buckingham"...... Buckingham himself provides evidence that he slept in the same bed as the King, writing to James many years later that he had pondered: "whether you loved me now ... better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog".....

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham KG (1592 – 1628) was the favourite, claimed by some to be the lover, of King James I of England. Despite a very patchy political and military record, he remained at the height of royal favour for the first three years of the reign of Charles I, until he was assassinated by a disgruntled army officer......Buckingham Palace is the London residence and administrative headquarters of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom.....In August 1614 at age twenty-one, Villiers caught the eye of James I at a hunt in Apethorpe......Money was raised to purchase Villiers a new wardrobe and intense lobbying secured his appointment as royal Cupbearer, a position that allowed him to make conversation with the king. Villiers began to appear as a dancer in masques from 1615, in which he could exhibit his grace of movement and beauty of body.....he was made Earl and in 1618 Marquess of Buckingham, dukedom of Buckingham. Villier's new rank allowed him to dance side by side with the royal heir Charles I, the second son of King James......with whom his friendship developed through his tutoring of the prince in dance.....In 1617, John Oglander wrote that he "never yet saw any fond husband make so much or so great dalliance over his beautiful spouse as I have seen King James over his favourites, especially the Duke of Buckingham."

"In 1617, King James declared: You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, and I have George."......Stewart, Alan (2003). The Cradle King: A Life of James VI & I. London: Macmillan.

In a letter to Buckingham in 1623, the King ends with, "God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear father and husband."..... Buckingham reciprocated the King's affections, writing back to James: "I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had," "I desire only to live in the world for your sake" and "I will live and die a lover of you." Restoration of Apethorpe Hall in 2004–8 revealed a previously unknown passage linking his bedchamber with that of James..... Buckingham himself provides evidence that he gave in to the King's passion, writing to James many years later that he had pondered: "whether you loved me now…better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog'.......Buckingham: The Life and Political Career of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham, 1592–1628 Lockyer, Roger; Longman 1981 ISBN 0-582-50296-9, p.22



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King James's visit to Denmark, a country familiar with witch-hunts, may have encouraged an interest in the study of witchcraft,[35] which he considered a branch of theology......After his return to Scotland, he attended the North Berwick witch trials, the first major persecution of witches in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act 1563. Several people, most notably Agnes Sampson, were convicted of using witchcraft to send storms against James's ship. James became obsessed with the threat posed by witches and, inspired by his personal involvement, in 1597 wrote the Daemonologie, a tract which opposed the practice of witchcraft and which provided background material for Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth. James personally supervised the torture of women accused of being witches.

King James saw himself as an expert on witchcraft, which was still an issue in Stuart England in so far as many did not share the same views as James....The idea of black and witch witches can be traced back to Roman times. However in the sixteenth century a new Christian theory developed based on Christian theology, canon law and philosophical ideas. This theory was that a witch had made a deliberate pact with the devil – almost a form of a personal arrangement – but that a witch did not act alone. Therefore if one witch existed in a locality, there had to be more. This led to a shift in the persecution of witches. Whereas a village may have punished an individual in the past, now the Christian witch theory demanded that more be found within one locality. This resulted in many arrests for witchcraft as the difference between white and black witchcraft effectively ended. The authorities of the time believed that even healing had to be as a result of pact with the devil – so white witches were also persecuted. The arrest of one ‘witch’ almost certainly led to more arrests as torture was allowed to be used on suspects to find out the names of other witches within a locality.....The wholesale persecution of witches started in Scotland in 1590 when James VI was king – the future James I of England. Witchcraft had been a criminal offence in Scotland prior to 1590 but action against suspected witches was limited. However after 1590 and in the last thirteen years of the reign of James, Scotland fully accepted the Christian witch theory so that when one witch was found, others were hunted out. Prior to 1590, it seems that witchcraft was seen as a minor issue by those in power. In 1583, the General Assembly complained that witchcraft carried no punishment despite being outlawed in 1563. This changed in 1590.......The year saw the start of a series of trials for treason. Three hundred witches were accused of gathering to plot the murder of James. It is known that James had a morbid fear of violent death. Therefore these trials were of especial interest to him and he suddenly developed a very keen interest in demonology and witchcraft..... Witches were accused of attempting to drown James by calling up a storm while he was at sea with his new wife..... In 1591 he showed a particular interest in the trial of Mary Napier – arrested for consulting a witch and linked to treasonable activity. She claimed to be pregnant at the time of her arrest. Despite the 1563 law outlawing witchcraft, no one had ever been arrested in Scotland for consulting a witch. Yet James wrote to the court ordering them to find out if she was pregnant or not and that if she was not, she should be burned. That Napier was a friend of Bothwell’s also indicates that James was willing to use witchcraft for political ends. The court acquitted Napier – much to the anger of James.....In 1597, James felt sufficiently knowledgeable about witchcraft that he wrote “Daemononlogie”. This was an eighty page book that expounded his views on the topic and it was meant to add to the intellectual debate that was going on within Europe about witchcraft. The book has three sections on magic, sorcery and witchcraft and one on spirits and ghosts. Having produced this book, James decided to end the standing commission that had been established to hunt out witches. However, the persecution did not end. By the time he left for England in 1603, witches were still being arrested and of those arrested, half were executed. Between 1603 and 1625, there were about twenty witchcraft trials a year in Scotland – nearly 450 in total. Half of the accused were found guilty and executed."....http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/stuart-england/james-i-and-witchcraft/

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"One can connect Shakespeare's patron, King James I, to almost every significant dramatic alteration Shakespeare made to his source material on the historical Macbeth, as we can see in Shakespeare's Sources for Macbeth. But fascinating contemporary references and compliments to James also are found throughout the play. ....The two-fold balls and treble sceptres (4.1) is a reference to the double coronation of James, at Scone and Westminster, and the most overt homage to James in the play. The balls or globes "were the royal insignia which King James bore in right of his double kingship of England and Scotland, and the three sceptres were those of his three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland".....Another obvious tribute to James is Malcolm's reference to the evil  or scrofula, which James believed he could cure by his touch; a power supposedly inherited from Edward the Confessor.Macbeth also, more so than any of Shakespeare's works, is overflowing with Biblical imagery, and, of course, one of King James's great passions was Scripture, culminating in the King James Version of the Bible in 1611. Another of James's interests was witchcraft, and woven into Macbeth are portions of James's own book on the subject, Daemonologie. ......It is not surprising that Shakespeare aimed to please James. Shortly after his arrival in London, James insisted that Shakespeare's troupe come under his own patronage......"......http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth/jamescompliments.html

Richard III is a historical play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1592. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England.....

William Shakespeare was born in 1564......Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical acclaim quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most -popular playwright in England and part-owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603) and James I (ruled 1603–1625), and he was a favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by bestowing upon its members the title of King’s Men. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two.

Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron......The poet was throughout his life greatly indebted to the patronage and support of royal and noble personages; his royal patrons were Queen Elizabeth and King James I, both of whom greatly loved the drama. The virgin queen devoted herself to the study of the ancient classical period; she also delighted in our own theatrical entertainments, and used her influence in the progress of the English drama, and fostered the inimitable genius of Shakespeare. In regard to her taste for the ancient stage, Sir Roger Naunton tells us "That the great Queen translated one of the tragedies of Euripides from the original Greek for her amusement." Shakespeare was ardently attracted to Elizabeth and her Court, and proved a faithful servant to his royal mistress. The first evidence of this is in his fine eulogy of the virgin queen in that most sweetly poetical early drama, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, as "a fair vestal throned by the west"; the play was probably produced for a special Court performance.....Shakespeare's patrons & other essays by Henry Brown

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King James  spoke about the divine right of kings....King James was a Christian, but he was not Roman Catholic.....King James is often vilified for his defense of the divine right of kings, but his point was right and valid--kings should be able to rule their own countries without having to bow to the dictates of a foreign power, in this case, specifically, the Pope of Rome. .....King James saw himself as the potential peacemaker of Europe, and his propaganda portrayed him as the modern Solomon. In religion the Church of England could provide a model middle ground, and in his view both Catholics and Protestants would be able to accept churches modeled after it.

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Under King James I of England, the Puritan movement co-existed with the conforming Church of England in what was generally an accepted form of episcopal Protestant religion. This equilibrium was disturbed towards the end of this period by several new developments, doctrinal from the Synod of Dort, political from the discussion of the Spanish Match shortly after the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, and internal to the Church with a partial shift of views away from Calvinism. Separatists who had never accepted King James's settlement of religious affairs began migrating to New England colonies, from the Netherlands as well as England....Elizabeth I died in March 1603; she was succeeded by James VI of Scotland, who had been King of Scots since the abdication of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots,

The Puritans were a group of English Reformed Protestants who sought to "purify" the Church of England from all Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England was only partially reformed.......Puritanism in this sense was founded by some of the returning clergy exiled under Mary I shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558 as an activist movement within the Church of England......In September 1620, a merchant ship called the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, a port on the southern coast of England. Typically, the Mayflower’s cargo was wine and dry goods, but on this trip the ship carried passengers: 102 of them, all hoping to start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic. Nearly 40 of these passengers were Protestant Separatists–they called themselves “Saints”–who hoped to establish a new church in the New World. Today, we often refer to the colonists who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower as “Pilgrims.”......

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The King James Bible, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 AD and completed in 1611..... The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 Biblical apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament.

 In January 1604, James I convened the Hampton Court Conference, where a new English version was conceived in response to the problems of the earlier translations perceived by the Puritans, a faction of the Church of England. The translation is widely considered to be both beautiful and scholarly and thus a towering achievement in English literature.

King James I gave the translators instructions intended to ensure that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy. The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin.....

William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536) was an English scholar who became a leading figure in Protestant reform in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known for his translation of the Bible into English. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther. While a number of partial translations had been made from the seventh century onward, the spread of Wycliffe's Bible resulted in a death sentence for any unlicensed possession of Scripture in English—even though translations in all other major European languages had been accomplished and made available....In 1535 Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde (Filford) outside Brussels for over a year. In 1536 he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying prayer that the King of England's eyes would be opened seemed to find its fulfillment just two years later with Henry's authorization of the Great Bible for the Church of England—which was largely Tyndale's own work.


The current edition of the KJV is different from the original 1611 translation and several other early editions.  “The KJV Bible we use today is actually based primarily on the major revision completed in 1769 – 158 years after the first edition....The 1611 version, and all other editions of the KJV that were published for the next fifty years, contained the Apocrypha. Protestant Christians do not regard the apocryphal books as uniquely inspired and authoritative. The 1666 edition was the first edition of the KJV that did not include these extra books......

King James believed that a single ‘authorized version’ was a political and social necessity. He hoped this book would hold together the warring factions of the Church of England and the Puritans which threatened to tear apart both church and country. Most of the translators,however, were clergymen belonging to the Church of England, but at least some had Puritan sympathies.......King James issued over a dozen rules that the translators had to follow. King James disliked the Geneva Bible, the Bible used by the Puritans, because he believed that some of the commentary in the margin notes did not show enough respect for kings.[4] James’ new translation was to have no commentary in the margins......King James favoured the hierarchical structure of the Church of England and wanted the new translation to keep words that supported a bishop led hierarchy. In keeping with James’ preferred views on church government, he specified, “The old ecclesiastical words [are] to be kept; as the word church [is] not to be translated congregation.” (I personally believe that congregation is a better translation in some instances.) King James also ruled that only his new Bible could be read in England’s churches. The translation rules of King James can be found here. The political motives of King James had a direct influence on the translation of the KJV.......

The King James Version is an excellent translation, but I believe that many of the recent English translations to be better. I mostly read the New Testament in Greek, but the English Bibles I use, roughly in order of preference, are: the NIV (2011), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), and the King James Version (KJV).  Most of the other, better known English translations are fine too......It is most important that we read a Bible that we can understand. The New Testament was originally written in common, everyday Greek – a language that almost everyone in the Roman Empire (the world of the New Testament) could easily understand. We need modern English translations of the Bible that modern audiences can easily understand.....http://newlife.id.au/