Very few official biographers still tenaciously maintain that
there is no "real" evidence that James's friendships
were merely intimate. The question of whether or not James
actually slept with his favourites is dealt with by Lady Antonia
Fraser in her biography of King James in an eminently reasonable
manner: "In sexual matters, it is generally better to assume
the obvious, unless there is some very good reason to think
otherwise." And for Lady Antonia Fraser anti-gay prejudice
is no good reason to think otherwise. Her biography is a
sympathetic reappraisal of James's personality and statesmanship.
She quite simply accepts James's homosexuality and never regards
it in itself as a detriment to either himself or his country,
though she reasonably regrets that his favourites were not always
the wisest of counsellors. Her assessment that most of James's
life was a "search to recapture the golden youthful quality
of his early passion" for Esmé Stuart, the only
bright spot in an otherwise bleak childhood deprived of
affection, is probably quite accurate, and she is certainly
correct that his dominant quality was "an inability to
resist love."
Be this as it may, Lennox, who according to a contemporary
description was a man "of comely proportion, civil
behaviour, red-bearded, and honest in conversation," brought
charming French manners, music, and gaiety into James's austere
Highland surroundings. Whether Lennox loved James for himself or
for his royal patronage we do not know, though inevitably there
is some fawning in all regal love affairs. Like Sir Francis Bacon
much later, Lennox rose to wealth and power and nobility, and
inevitably aroused the jealousy of others who coveted his
position. A conspiracy of nobles was formed against him, and in
1582 James was abducted by his would-be protectors, Lennox was
ordered to leave the country on pain of death, and the two lovers
never saw each other again.
In the meantime, James at least had been able to arrange for
George Gordon, sixth Earl of Huntley to marry Lennox's sister
Lady Henrietta Stuart in 1588. This marriage of convenience was
convenient because it made it easier for Huntley to be elevated
to the rank of Captain of the Guard, and he proceeded to lodge
himself in the King's own chamber (as bodyguard, of course).
Another Scots chronicler, Fowler, commenting on this irregular
barracking, concluded that "it is thought that this King is
too much carried by young men that lie in his chamber and are his
minions."
James was not particularly monogamous, and Fowler adds that
"the King's best loved minion" was Alexander Lindsay,
Lord Spynie, the boy nicknamed "Sandie" whom James
appointed as his Vice-Chamberlain. Another minion of the early
1580s was Francis Stewart Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, whom James
nonchalantly kissed and embraced in public, causing great
scandal. After a time, however, Huntley took advantage of the
King's kind generosity by plotting to capture and dethrone
James—for which he was convicted of treason and executed.
After his full recovery, Carr was appointed Gentleman of the
Bedchamber. A courtier wrote of their relationship:
Although Carr became a wealthy Confidential Secretary to James,
and eventually the Earl of Somerset, he never received excessive
power, and his love seems to have been quite genuine. Fate hath
its reversals, however, and later Carr also fell in love with
Lady Frances Howard, and James graciously arranged for their
marriage in 1613. Unfortunately Lady Frances conspired towards
the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury and many in her circle were
implicated, though scholars still are not sure who was guilty
besides Lady Frances. Carr was convicted by the courts and
sentenced to death, but James issued a royal pardon, and Carr was
sent off to the country to spend the remainder of his life in
disgrace and semi-poverty.
There is a great deal more to homosexual love than sex, but since
there is also more to it than purely spiritual friendship, it is
still necessary to cite contemporary gossip, such as the opinion
of a certain Francis Osborne:
It is eqully difficult to assess Buckingham's effect upon the
state of the nation, though on the surface his presence beside
James seems to have nearly caused a civil war. Like a Ganymede
"page of Jove's sweetest nectared carnival," Buckingham
inspired James to a series of drunken riotous feasts, and a fair
amount of corruption and debauchery. Buckingham not only received
high titles and wealth himself, but he raised up his entire
family through second-cousins-once-removed, easily ruining anyone
who got in his way. What he asked, James granted, and already by
1617 the national debit of England had risen to £726,000.
At the same time, however, Buckingham brought about a great deal
of reform and efficiency to the government, albeit the
centralization placed him at the centre, and modern historians
are increasingly recognizing that he quite probably eliminated
much more court corruption than he engendered.
Few people in offices of state had the integrity of a Sir Thomas
More—then as now—and other members of the nobility
would likely have done no better. In fact most of them were so
eager to steal James's favour away from Buckingham, solely for
motives of self-interest, that they began what was laughingly
referred to as "the mustering of minions." Every day
some aspiring Lord—notably Sir William Monson—would
hire a troup of handsome young ragamuffin boys, scrub their faces
clean with curdled milk, curl their hair, powder them and perfume
them, dress them in silk and lace, and lead them in dainty
procession around the throne in order to seduce the King's
favour. Marvellously delighted by this display of prime mignon
at first, James quite quickly not only grew weary with surfeit,
but realized that he was being made a fool of, and he gave
Buckingham orders to clear the court in 1618. This marked the end
of the riotous period and the beginning of a period when he would
mellow, and, eventually, slide into a state of depression.
(Though we must remember that this was a characteristic symptom
of the physical disease of porphyria which he almost certainly
suffered from, and not merely "psychological.")
In 1619 Queen Anne died, and James himself fell severely ill with
the gout. Although he had ceased living with his wife in 1606 or
1607, he nevertheless admired the Queen, and her death, along
with what he knew to be an illness from which he would never
recover, caused a sort of religious despair and a slight nervous
breakdown. During these melancholy days Buckingham daily attended
James, and their love deepened intensely. In 1620 James arranged
for the political marriage of Buckingham to Lady Catherine
Manners, and also, as he noted when he blessed their union,
because of his hopes that Buckingham would have offspring soon
"so I may have sweet bedchamber boys to play with me."
To make a painful end short, in 1625 King James died of the gout,
grief, and senility. Buckingham was removed from power, and sent
on foreign wars. From 1628 to 1640 James's son King Charles
himself dissolved Parliament, and tried to rule as an absolute
monarch, but in reality he was constantly in danger of being
forced to abdicate. Charles was powerless to help when
Buckingham, his dear friend and "uncle," was quite
falsely accused of treason for having botched a military
expedition to France. Buckingham and James were the convenient
scapegoats for public miseries which they may have slightly
aggravated but certainly did not cause, for they were neither
angels nor devils, but men like any other.
In 1628 Buckingham went to Portsmouth to try to pacify mutinous
sailors who were clamouring for their pay, and to somehow make
amends for the disastrous campaign of La Rochelle which had
aroused so much outcry in the country. One man in
particular—the disgruntled soldier John Felton—was determined to liberate the
nation from this supposed Antichrist.
In one Captain Mason's house on the morning of 23 August 1628,
as Buckingham left the breakfast room, Felton leaped forward and
stabbed him in the breast. In a scarcely audible voice Buckingham
said "The villain hath killed me!" and pulled the
dagger out of the wound. He staggered forward a few paces, then
collapsed in the hall, with blood gushing from the wound and from
his mouth.
Amidst the tremendous uproar of shouts and wailing, Felton
proudly boasted his responsibility for the murder. Upon hearing
of the calamity, King Charles I sobbed all night, while the
London mob exulted savagely and the streets were lit with
celebratory bonfires. Felton—though a hero to many—was
hanged at Tyburn on 29 November. His body was returned to
Portsmouth to hang in chains on the gibbet near modern Clarence
Pier; the last piece of this gibbet is supposed to have been
enclosed in the obelisk near the pier.
The site of the assassination is Number 10 High Street: the
oldest house in Portsmouth. It was recently occupied by a firm
of solicitors and not open to tourists, although a plaque above
the door commemorates the event. Buckingham died in the prime of
life, aged thirty-six; his heart and brain were placed in urns,
and buried at the Cathedral of Portsmouth, where there is also
a monument to him in the chancel. His body was entombed in the
Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey, hitherto reserved for
royalty, where it now resides beneath a recumbent bronze effigy
near the tomb of his beloved King James. On a tablet facing the
tomb is the famous (Latin) inscription describing him as
"THE ENIGMA OF THE WORLD."
One of the more curious relics of this enigmatic figure is a
series of streets near Charing Cross, London: GEORGE Court,
VILLIERS Street, DUKE Street, OF Alley (now York Street), and
BUCKINGHAM Street, on property which he sold on condition that
the streets be named after him. They mark the site of
Buckingham's London residence York House, of which only the Water
Gate remains, now an entrance to Victoria Embankment Gardens next
to the Embankment underground station. A large slate slab
explains its origin.
The magnificent Buckingham tomb is on James's left; on his right
is the tomb of Ludovic Stuart, Duke of
Richmond and Lennox, son of his early lover Esmé Stuart. King James was responsible for the
restoration and remodelling of the Henry VII
Chapel—perhaps partly to celebrate for eternity his love for Buckingham.
Go on to Sir Francis Bacon.
While riding through the bustling streets of London from 1603 to
1621, one was liable to hear the shout "Long live Queen
James!" King James I of England and VI of Scotland was so
open about his homosexual love affairs that an epigram had been
circulated which roused much mirth and nodding of the heads:
Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina
Jacobus—"Elizabeth was King: now James is
Queen."
James would have laughed his more prudish biographers to scorn,
for, like Oscar Wilde addressing the jury, in 1617 James
addressed the venerable Privy Council with an official
affirmation of his right to love men:
I, James, am neither a god nor an angel, but a man like any
other. Therefore I act like a man and confess to loving those
dear to me more than other men. 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.
What is the background to this astonishingly early defence of
homosexual love? First loves
When Jamie was a lean and lanky Scots lad of fourteen, he fell
in love with the elegant French courtier Esmé
Stuart—Seigneur d'Aubigny, Earl of Lennox. Or, as the Scots
chronicler Moysie would delicately put it, "he conceived an
inward affection to the Lord d'Aubigne, and entered in great
familiarity and quiet purposes with him." A more fervid
clergyman put the matter more bluntly: "the Duke of Lennox
went about to draw the King to carnal lust." As with the
less royal class of men and boys, I suspect that the princely lad
seduced the courtier.
Carr—straight-limbed and cunning
A rather strange episode marks the beginning of James's love for
perhaps his most devoted lover, Robert Carr. Carr was a handsome
Scots lad who came to England in 1603 to run beside the royal
coach as a page-boy. But the masters of court ceremony decided
that ordinary footmen would be more fashionable than the ancient
custom of running page-boys, so he was packed off to the
Highlands with £50 for his journey. Being a persevering lad,
Carr nevertheless returned to London in 1607 to seek his fortune,
and during his participation in a festival tilt he fell from his
horse and broke a leg. By happy chance—or kind
Fate—James was present at the tournament, and recognized the
former page, who handily fell off his horse directly in front of
the royal box. James ran out to the field—astonishing the
onlookers—and tenderly cradled Carr in his arms, withall a
touching moment. James ordered the finest medical attention for
Carr and often visited his bedside during the recuperation.
The Prince constantly leaneth on his arm, pinches his cheek, and
smoothes his ruffled garment. Carr hath all favours; the King
teacheth him Latin every morning [and Greek every night?]. I tell
you, this Scottish lad is straight-limbed, well-favoured, strong-
shouldered, and smooth-faced, with some sort of cunning and show
of modesty.
When James himself fell ill with the gout, Carr proved his
devotion by personally attending upon his every need and nursed
him back to health. James wrote to Carr, "I must confess you
have deserved more trust and confidence of me than ever man
did."
Buckingham—James's "wife"
But James was fickle, and soon found another favourite in George
Villiers, whose rise was spectacular. This son of a penniless
Leicestershire squire was introduced to James in 1614. It is now
believed that their first sexual union took place in August 1615
while they were spending a few days together at Farnham Castle.
Many years later, Buckingham wrote to James asking "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 jokingly called
himself James's dog, as in a letter addressed to "Dere Dad
and Gossope" (gossip, from godparent, meaning chum) and
closing "Your most humble slave and servant and dog
Steenie." He began as a royal cupbearer, and became a
Viscount in 1616, and the Earl of Buckingham in 1617. His
relationship with James resulted in the 1617 moral debate in the
Privy Council. Sir John Oglander testified before the Council
that
The King is wonderous passionate, a lover of his
favourites beyond the love of men to women. He is the chastest
prince for women that ever was, for he would often swear that he
never kissed any other woman than his own queen. I 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 Buckingham.
Despite the remonstrations of the Council, in 1618 Villiers
became a Marquess, in 1619 Lord High Admiral, and finally in 1623
the Duke of Buckingham. In 1623 Théophile de Viau (1590-
1626) in France addressed an obscene poem "Au marquis du
Boukinquan," relating that
Debauched young Hyacinthus
Just as Corydon fucked Amyntas,
So Caesar did not spurn boys.
Another fucks the Comte de Tonnerre.
And it is well known that the King of England
Fucks the Duke of Buckingham.
Buckingham was generally regarded as the most beautiful man in
Europe, with his dark chestnut curly hair, a pointed beard of
golden brown, clear skin, fine chiselled features, dark blue
eyes, and the graceful carriage of the ideal courtier. The King,
naturally enough, was George's constant companion, and his love
was without qualification, as he says in a letter to Buckingham:
I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts,
which are more than ever one man had, that were not only all your
people [i.e. Frenchmen and relatives] but all the world besides
set together on one side and you alone on the other, I should to
obey and please you displease, nay, despise them all.
A large number of love-letters from James to Buckingham,
extending over a period of nearly ten years, are some of the
earliest examples of what might be considered a homosexual
literary genre, since most love-letters between men before and
since that time have been either destroyed or suppressed. [See
my anthology My Dear
Boy: Gay Love Letters Through the Centuries.] They are quite
worthy of our attention, as is this excerpt from one of the last:
I desire only to live in the world for your sake, and I had
rather live banished in any part of the world with you, than live
a sorrowful widow-life without you. And so God bless you, my
sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to
your dear dad and husband.
James in these letters commonly addressed Buckingham as
"Only sweet and dear child," "Sweet Steenie
gossip" (Buckingham was nicknamed after St Stephen, who was
reputed to have had the face of an angel), "Sweet
heart" and "Sweet child and wife," and signs
himself "Thy dear dad," "Thy dear dad and
steward," and "Thy dear dad and husband." It seems
fairly clear that their relationship parallels modern gay
"dad/son" relationships.
In wanton looks and wanton gestures they [James and Buckingham]
exceeded any part of womankind. The kissing them after so
lascivious a mode in public and upon the theatre, as it were, of
the world prompted many to imagine some things done in the tyring
house [i.e. attiring or dressing room] that exceed my expression
no less than they do my experience.
The Mustering of the Minions
It is difficult at this distance to assess Buckingham's motives
or his personality. He was learned, witty, playful, a skilful
(though not diplomatic) politician, and a brave soldier. But he
also seems to have been pert, petulant, proud, disdainful—at
least according to his enemies, from whom is derived nearly all
the biographical evidence about him. There is no clear evidence
that his love for James was entirely selfish, and a good deal to
suggest that the love was reciprocal, albeit to a lesser degree
on Buckingham's part.
Enigma of the World
From the Privy Council debate in 1617 until 1622, England was in
a state constantly verging upon civil war, with James's love for
Buckingham being the most visible corruption for the ignorant and
the demagogues to attack. James finally decided to dissolve
Parliament in 1621, which actually precipitated his own loss of
power. The date coincides with the fall of Sir Francis Bacon
(who, according to the contemporary Sir Simonds' D'Ewes, was also
"intimate" with Buckingham).
CITATION: If you cite this Web page, please use the following form of citation:
Rictor Norton, "Queen James and His Courtiers",
Gay History and Literature, 8 January 2000, updated 9 January 2012 <http://rictornorton.co.uk/jamesi.htm>.
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