Read Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy Online

Authors: Alison Weir

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Royalty, #History, #General, #Historical, #Reference, #Genealogy & Heraldry, #Non Fiction

Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy (70 page)

BOOK: Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy
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S
IBLINGS
:
James VI did not have any siblings
.
JAMES VI
Christened Charles James, he was born on 19 June, 1566, at Edinburgh Castle, and was Duke of Rothesay from birth. He succeeded his father as Duke of Albany, Earl of Ross and Baron Ardmannoch on 10 February, 1567. He succeeded his mother as King of Scotland on 24 July, 1567, and was crowned on 29 July, 1567, at the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling.
JAMES VI
He succeeded Elizabeth I, last of the Tudor sovereigns, as King of England, on 24 March, 1603, thus founding the Royal House of Stuart (now using the French version of the name) and uniting for the first time the Crowns of England and Scotland under one monarch. Henceforth, the kingdom incorporating England and Scotland would be known as Great Britain.
For further details of the life of James VI and I,
under James I.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The House of Stuart
England and Scotland became one united kingdom in 1603 when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, and thus finally fulfilled Edward I’s dream of the two countries being joined together.
The Stuart century was to see dramatic changes in the nature of the monarchy. James I believed in the Divine Right of Kings, a doctrine which held that the King was God’s mouthpiece on earth, and could do and say no wrong. This was a view also held by James’s son, Charles I, who, when thwarted by Parliament – a Parliament grown used to being consulted to an increasingly greater degree by successive Tudor monarchs – tried to rule without it. He failed, and the country was plunged into a great civil war, which ended with the King’s execution and the declaration of a Republic or ‘Commonwealth’ under Oliver Cromwell, who became Lord Protector.
Against the odds, the monarchy did survive. Charles II lived in exile at the courts of Holland and France while Cromwell governed, but the Lord Protector’s hold on the country died with him in 1658. His son Richard was weak and ineffectual, and it was not long before Parliament sent for Charles II, whose Restoration took place in May, 1660. Yet by then, the balance of power had been tipped firmly on the side of Parliament, and no British monarch after that date would ever enjoy the autonomy exercised by his predecessors. In fact, it was in the late 17th century that ‘constitutional’ monarchy came into being in Britain; this meant that, instead of actually ruling the country, the sovereign reigned over it. The real power lay with an elected Parliament. In 1688, James II, a professed Catholic, realised that he could not hold the throne in the face of Protestant opposition, and fled the country. Parliament deemed that this act was tantamount to
abdication, and invited William of Orange, husband of James’s daughter Mary, to take the throne of Britain with his wife. In what was known as the ‘Bloodless’ or ‘Glorious’ Revolution, he accepted, and thus became the first ‘constitutional’ monarch.
The unpopularity of James II, mainly due to his Catholicism, made King and Parliament realise that never again could Britain be successfully ruled by a monarch not of the Protestant faith of the Church of England. Thus, in 1701 was passed the Act of Settlement, barring any Roman Catholic from ascending the throne, and any British sovereign from marrying a Roman Catholic. This same Act also settled the succession, in default of Stuart heirs, upon the successors of Sophia of Bohemia, a granddaughter of James I, who had married the Protestant Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, in Germany.
The Stuarts, like the Tudors, were not dynastically robust. Many of their children died young or were miscarried – poor Queen Anne suffering the most losses in this respect – and those who did grow to maturity died in the flower of youth of smallpox. Charles II’s wife was barren, so was Mary II. Anne’s children had all died by the time she ascended the throne. James II’s only surviving son was rumoured, falsely, to have been a changeling, and spent his life in exile, plotting to regain the throne from which he, a Catholic, was debarred by the Act of Settlement. Therefore, when Queen Anne died in 1714, there was no suitable heir of the House of Stuart to succeed her. Thus it came about that Prince George, Elector of Hanover, a bucolic German who could speak no English, succeeded to the throne of Britain and founded the Hanoverian dynasty.
 
James I
JAMES I
He succeeded Elizabeth I as King of England on 24 March, 1603, thus founding the Royal House of Stuart and uniting the crowns of England and Scotland under one monarch. (For details of his earlier life,
see here
, under James VI of Scotland in the previous chapter.) James was crowned on 25 July, 1603, in Westminster Abbey.
James VI & I married
, by proxy on 20 or 24 August, 1589, at Kronborg Castle, Copenhagen, Denmark, and in person on 23 November, 1589, at Oslo, Norway, and again in person on 21 January, 1590, at Kronborg Castle:
Anne
She was the daughter of Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway, by Sophia, daughter of Ulrich III, Duke of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. She was born on 14 October (date on coffin plate) (although the date is sometimes incorrectly given as 12 December), 1574, at Skanderborg Castle, Jutland, Denmark. She was crowned Queen Consort of Scotland on 17 May, 1590, at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, and Queen Consort of England on 25 July, 1603, in Westminster Abbey. She died on 4 March (date on coffin plate) (although other sources state 1 or 12 March), 1619, at Hampton Court Palace, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Issue of marriage:
1  
Henry Frederick
He was born on 19 February, 1594, at Stirling Castle, and was Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, and Lord of the Isles from birth. He became Duke of Cornwall upon the accession of his father to the throne of England on 24 March, 1603. He was made a Knight of the Garter on 14 June, 1603. He was created, and invested as, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 4 June, 1610, at Westminster Abbey. He died on 6 (or, less probably, 12 or 16)
November, 1612, at St James’s Palace, London, of typhoid, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
2  
Stillborn child
It was born at the end of July, 1595.
3  
Elizabeth
She was born on 19 August, 1596, at Dunfermline Palace, Fife. She married Frederick Henry of Wittelsbach, Elector Palatine of the Rhine and later Frederick V, King of Bohemia (1596–1632), on 14 February, 1613, at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall Palace, London, and had issue:
1
Frederick Henry (1614–drowned 1629).
2
Charles Louis, Duke of Bavaria, Elector Palatine of the Rhine (1618–1680); he married firstly Charlotte (1627–1687), daughter of William V, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and had issue, although they were later divorced. He married secondly, morganatically, Marie Susanne Louise (1634–1677), Raugräfin of Degenfeld, daughter of Baron Martin Christopher von Degenfeld, and had issue.
3
Elizabeth, Abbess of Hervorden (or Herford) (1618–1680).
4
Rupert, Duke of Cumberland (1619–1682); he married, morganatically, Frances Baird (
d.
1708). He also had illegitimate issue.
5
Maurice (1621–drowned 1654).
6
Louise Hollandine, Abbess of Maubisson, Pontoise (1622–1709).
7
Louis (1623–1624).
8
Edward (1625–1663); he married Anne (1616–1684), daughter of Charles I de Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers and Mantua, and had issue.
9
Henrietta Maria (1626–1651); she married Sigismund Ragotski, Prince of Siebenbürgen, Transylvania (1623?–1652).
10
John Philip Frederick (1627–killed 1650).
11
Charlotte (1628–1631).
12
Sophia; she married Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, and became the mother of George I (
see here
, under George I).
13
Gustavus Adolphus (1632–1641).
Elizabeth became Queen Consort of Bohemia upon the accession of her husband to the throne of Bohemia on 27 August, 1619, and
was crowned as such on 7 November, 1619, at Prague Cathedral, Bohemia. She was driven into exile with her husband in 1620 after he was deposed, and was afterwards known as ‘the Winter Queen’. There is no foundation in the rumour that, after Frederick’s death, she married secondly William Craven, Earl of Craven. She died on 3, 12, 14 or 23 February, 1662, at Leicester House, Leicester Fields, London, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
4  
Margaret
She was born on 24 December, 1598, at Dalkeith Palace, Scotland, and died in March, 1600, at Linlithgow Palace, Fife. She was buried in Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh.
5  
Charles I
(
see here
).
BOOK: Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy
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