The passing of the English crown from Elizabeth I to James VI & I was welcomed by a nation hungry for change. But, writes Susan Doran, it wasn’t long before tensions began to rise between the incoming king and his new subjects
Early March 1603 found Sir Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I’s secretary of state, wracked by anxiety. The queen had become “ill disposed”, rapidly losing appetite and energy. It was reported that she could no longer “abide discourses of government and state”, but preferred to hear “old Canterbery tales”.
On 11 March, matters worsened dramatically. An abscess burst in the queen’s throat, causing consternation among her attendants and sparking fears that she might be dying. A week later, her demise seemed imminent.
Since Elizabeth had no named heir, the privy council had to act while she was still alive to prevent a power vacuum – or, worse still, a disputed succession. With Cecil at the helm, the council drafted a proclamation naming James VI of Scotland as the rightful king of England, and arranged for leading members of the nobility and political elite to sign it. Seemingly, no one objected. So, when Elizabeth died in the early hours of 24 March, all was ready. At 9am Cecil read out the proclamation at Whitehall announcing James’s accession, and a deputation of lords, bishops, judges and officials processed into the City of London to promulgate it again. That same proclamation would be read out in towns and cities across England.
Reactions to the news were mixed. In some quarters, there was almost disbelief. A few people expressed “dubtes of the authority of the said proclamacon”, before receiving further assurances that James’s accession was valid. For the most part, though, the proclamation was accepted “with great ioy and the generall aplause”, according to the mayor of Chester. The prevailing response was enormous relief that the transition had been managed efficiently and that James’s accession had passed unchallenged. For years, the spectre of a bloody war of succession had hung over the nation. Those fears had now been allayed. “God be thanked yt ys quietly and hapely setteled,” wrote one correspondent to Cecil, while the bishop of Chester was one of many to praise “the chiefe pillors of the state in preventinge so many dangers hang
