ABSTRACT
At noon on Sunday, 27 March 1625 James I died. Mentally and physically he had been declining for years. The evening after he heard of the death of his friend, the Marquis of Hamilton, James complained of feeling ill. His servants assured him that there was nothing seriously wrong and by the following Saturday he seemed a lot better. Within a couple of days he relapsed, and on Thursday Bishop Williams gave him the last rites. Then, according to one story, the dying king called Charles to charge him to take care of Elizabeth and her family. 1 Since the royal doctors seemed unable to do anything Buckingham insisted that James take a potion mixed by his own medical man, a general practitioner from Essex, but the only effect this prescription had was to start a rumour that the duke had poisoned him. 2 The king’s death was a relief for the whole kingdom. James was old, pathetic and boring: Charles was young, seemed energetic and exciting, promising, like all new administrations, a better future. Thus the news of his accession was greeted everywhere with enthusiasm; the only ones, John Rous noted in his diary, who refused to take part in the celebrations were the papists. At Cambridge, despite a cloudburst during the ceremony proclaiming the new king, ‘the joy of the people,’ an observer noted, ‘devoured their mourning.’ One broadsheet hailed the new king as ‘Great Britain’s Charlemagne’, and the crowds cheered as on Sunday evening outside Theobalds and throughout London heralds proclaimed Charles I ‘Our only lawful, lineal and rightful liege Lord.’ 3
