Union of the Crowns (1603): James VI Becomes King of England

The Union of the Crowns took place on 24 March 1603, when Queen Elizabeth I of England died and her cousin James VI, King of Scots, succeeded her as James I of England and Ireland. For the first time the two old rivals of Britain shared a monarch. It was a personal union only, but it set the course that led to the creation of Great Britain a century later.

Background: the Tudor succession problem

Elizabeth I, the last of Henry VIII’s children, never married. For decades the question of who would succeed her was one of the most dangerous subjects in English politics, and the queen refused to name an heir. An Act of 1571 even made it treason to discuss the succession in certain ways.

The strongest claim by blood belonged to the Stuarts of Scotland. In 1503 Henry VII had married his daughter Margaret Tudor to James IV of Scotland, and James VI was their great-grandson. His mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been a claimant too until her execution in 1587. However, Henry VIII’s will had passed over the Scottish line in favour of the descendants of his younger sister Mary, and some argued that James, born outside England, could not inherit.

James VI of Scotland

James had been King of Scots since July 1567, when he was thirteen months old, following his mother’s forced abdication. By 1603 he was an experienced ruler of 36 who had survived noble factions and kidnappings and had brought the Scottish Kirk and nobility under greater royal control. He was also a writer on kingship: his books The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598) and Basilikon Doron (1599) set out his belief that kings ruled by divine right.

From 1601 James conducted a secret correspondence with Sir Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State. Cecil prepared a smooth transfer of power, while James avoided provoking the queen.

What happened in March 1603

Elizabeth fell ill early in 1603 and died at Richmond Palace in the early hours of 24 March 1603, aged 69. Whether she named James on her deathbed is uncertain: later accounts claimed she signalled her approval, but these cannot be confirmed. Within hours the Privy Council proclaimed James king in London.

Sir Robert Carey, a member of the court, rode north on his own initiative to be first with the news. Covering around 400 miles (640 km) in about three days, he reached Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh late on 26 March. The official messengers followed.

James left Edinburgh on 5 April 1603. His journey south took about a month, as he was welcomed by crowds and gentry, hunted, and knighted hundreds of men along the way. He reached London in early May. Because of a serious outbreak of plague, his coronation at Westminster Abbey on 25 July 1603 was a reduced affair.

Attempts at a fuller union

James wanted more than a shared crown. He hoped for a “perfect union” of England and Scotland with one name, one law and one church. A commission of English and Scottish members discussed terms in 1604, and in October 1604 James proclaimed himself King of Great Britain by royal proclamation after the English Parliament refused to adopt the title by law.

Some symbols of union followed. A new gold coin issued in 1604 was called the “unite”, and in April 1606 a flag combining the crosses of St George and St Andrew was ordered for ships, the ancestor of the Union Flag. In 1608, in Calvin’s Case, English judges ruled that Scots born after James’s accession in England were not aliens in England.

However, the English Parliament rejected a full union in 1606 and 1607. Many members feared Scottish favourites, competition for offices and changes to English common law. The two kingdoms kept separate parliaments, legal systems, churches and governments.

Key people

• James VI and I (1566–1625), King of Scots from 1567 and of England and Ireland from 1603, the first monarch to rule all three kingdoms.
• Elizabeth I (1533–1603), the last Tudor monarch, whose refusal to name an heir kept the succession uncertain until her death.
• Sir Robert Cecil (1563–1612), Secretary of State, who managed the transfer of power and became James’s chief minister and Earl of Salisbury.
• Sir Robert Carey (c. 1560–1639), the courtier whose ride to Edinburgh brought James the first news of his accession.

Two kingdoms, one king

The two realms James now ruled were very unequal. England, with perhaps four million people, was far richer and more populous than Scotland, which had perhaps around a million. England had a strong Parliament with control over taxation, a common-law tradition and a church governed by bishops; Scotland had its own Parliament, a legal system influenced by Roman law and a Presbyterian-leaning Kirk.

Ireland, the third kingdom, had been conquered only recently: the Nine Years’ War there ended with the surrender of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, at Mellifont on 30 March 1603, days after Elizabeth’s death and before O’Neill knew of it.

James saw himself as a peacemaker. In 1604 he ended the long war with Spain by the Treaty of London, and he presented the union of his kingdoms as a natural and God-given marriage. Many of his subjects on both sides of the border were far less enthusiastic.

Consequences

The court moved permanently to London, and Scotland became a kingdom with an absent king. James governed it through his Privy Council in Edinburgh and returned only once, in 1617. Scottish nobles and courtiers sought fortunes in England, which created resentment there.

The union of crowns brought peace to the Anglo-Scottish border, where cross-border raiding had been endemic; James renamed the area the “Middle Shires” and pursued the reivers, or raiding families. It also tied Scotland and Ireland to English foreign policy. Scottish settlers later played a large part in the colonisation of Ulster.

The first years of the new reign were eventful: James met Puritan clergy at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, survived the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, and commissioned the Bible translation published in 1611. In the longer run, the difficulty of ruling three kingdoms with different religions contributed to the crises of Charles I’s reign in the 1630s and 1640s.

Legacy

The Union of the Crowns created the Stuart monarchy of England, Scotland and Ireland that lasted, with the interruption of the republic, until 1714. Charles I later commissioned Peter Paul Rubens to paint the ceiling of the Banqueting House in Whitehall, installed in 1636, which includes an allegory of the union of the two kingdoms under his father.

The political merger James wanted came only with the Acts of Union of 1707 under Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch.

Timeline

• 1503, August: Margaret Tudor marries James IV of Scotland.
• 1566, 19 June: James is born at Edinburgh Castle.
• 1567, 29 July: James is crowned King of Scots as an infant.
• 1603, 24 March: Elizabeth I dies at Richmond; James is proclaimed in London.
• 1603, 26 March: Sir Robert Carey brings the news to Holyrood.
• 1603, 5 April: James leaves Edinburgh for London.
• 1603, 25 July: James is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
• 1604, 20 October: James proclaims himself King of Great Britain.
• 1606, 12 April: A combined flag is ordered for ships.
• 1707, 1 May: The Acts of Union create the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Why it matters

The Union of the Crowns turned a long history of Anglo-Scottish warfare into a shared monarchy without merging the two states. The tensions and opportunities it created shaped the politics of the British Isles for the next century and led directly to the United Kingdom.