James VI and I
Seumas VI agus I
King of Scots · King of England · King of Ireland
1566 – 1625
Biography
King of Scots from infancy after his mother's forced abdication, he survived a violent regency and a series of kidnappings to grow into a learned, theological, and politically subtle monarch. On Elizabeth I's death in 1603 he inherited the English throne by his Tudor descent — the first ruler of all the British Isles — and styled himself King of Great Britain. He authorized the translation of the Bible that bears his name and survived the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate him in Parliament.
Events
Elizabeth I died childless on 24 March 1603 with the words "my cousin of Scotland" reportedly her last designation of an heir. Her great-grandnephew James VI of Scotland — descended from Henry VII through his daughter Margaret Tudor — inherited the English and Irish crowns the same day, uniting the three British kingdoms under a single monarch for the first time. Each kept its own parliament, courts, and church.
Also there: Elizabeth I, Margaret Tudor
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