Queen James

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

! Corinthians 13: 11-13 King James Version

When I began in ministry some of my conservative Christian colleagues insisted that the King James Bible was the only truly God-inspired English version of scripture to use. By 2011, the four hundredth anniversary of the "authorized" version commissioned by King James 1st of England, also King James 6th of Scotland, I couldn't stir up interest among our ministerial, mostly evangelicals, to hold a joint service in which we celebrated the remarkable achievement the KJV represents. 

They would all be shocked and appalled to know that there is a book with the title Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britain’s First King by Gareth Russell about the monarch's intimate and almost certainly sexual relationships with men, even though he was married to a woman. There is now a BBC documentary, Queen James, which explores the same historical theme.

It stands to reason that there have been LGBTQ2S persons amongst royalty in different ages and that their orientations would need to be explored with some discretion beyond the conventions and expectations of the time. 

This King James was a religious person who wanted to hold an ecumenical conference to address the destructive conflicts between Catholics and non-Catholics in the realm. He was a superstitious man who persecuted witches in Scotland in a horrible manner that was anything but Christian. 

He was something of a pacifist and his refusal to enter the Thirty Years War in Europe,  became a factor in him being dubbed ‘Queen James' because he was perceived as weak by his detractors. He was the target of Guy Fawkes and the infamous Gunpowder Plot and he narrowly escaped death. He was a patron of William Shakespeare. 

Verily I say unto you, doth this not all sound fascinating? 

BBC won't let me watch and the library doesn't have the book but I'm still intrigued. 

mes,