Death And Funeral Of James VI And I

James VI and I (1566–1625), King of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, died on 27 March 1625 at Theobalds, and was buried at Westminster Abbey on 7 May 1625.

At Theobalds

Although King James had become increasingly infirm, he continued to ride and hunt. In December 1624, Oliver Browne, an upholsterer and furniture maker, provided six portable chairs to use at the hunt, and six special chairs to lift him to and from his bed.

The King's final illness included a fever, described as a "tertian ague". He was attended by a physician, William Paddy, who came to Theobalds on 25 March, and told him the end was near. When King James was on his deathbed at Theobalds, it was said that Mary Villiers, Countess of Buckingham had arranged for his treatment with a plaster or poultice applied to his chest, stomach, and wrist. This angered his Scottish-born physician John Craig who rebuked her. For his speeches to the Countess, Craig was ordered to leave court. The Earl of Kellie, a Scottish courtier, described the rumour and the Duke of Buckingham's anger at it:

There has something fallen out here much disliked, and I for myself think much mistaken, and that is this. My Lord of Bukkinghame wishing mutche the Kings healthe caused splaister to be applyed to the Kings breast, after which his Majesty was extremely sick, and with all did give him a drink or syrup to drink; and this was which has spread such a business here and discontent as you would wonder, and Doctor Craig is now absented from court and Harry Gibb of the bedchamber is quarrelled for it (blamed), and my Lord Buckingham so incensed".

Buckingham's doctor, John Remington, is known to have attended James at Theobalds in March 1625. He gave the Duke's servant and barber John Baker a recipe for a drink called a julep or posset. After the king's death, Remington and other physicians including Matthew Lister disputed the provenance and composition of a medical plaster found on the body. Subsequently, George Eglisham amplified rumours by publishing the '' Forerunner of Revenge'', a pamphlet blaming Buckingham and his doctors for hastening the king's death.

James died on Sunday 27 March at noon. King Charles was proclaimed at the gate of Theobalds by the Knight Marshal, Edward Zouch. The Earl of Kellie advised that proclamations should speak of the " King of Great Britain", rather than putting one nation of the Union first, as in "England and Scotland" or "Scotland and England". The proclamation sent for reading at the Mercat cross of Edinburgh accordingly referred to the "late King of Grite Britane, France and Ireland". A messenger was sent to Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, at The Hague with money and black cloth to place her household in mourning.

A commission of Earls met in the council chamber at Whitehall Palace to determine the detail of the funeral and processions. After an autopsy, the king's coffin was placed on a carriage at Theobalds and brought to Denmark House on the Strand in the early hours of the morning. A torchlight procession through the streets of London was spoiled by foul weather.

Denmark House

The aristocrats at court were expected to follow the cortège from Theobalds or await the arrival of the body at Somerset House, then known as Denmark House. Instead, the Earls of Roxburghe and Morton went out of London to make merry with Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford at Moor Park. This "absurdity" caused comment and remark.

The body of King James lay in state at Denmark House. The rooms were draped with black cloth and the coffin covered with black velvet. A lifelike wooden effigy of the king was placed on top, dressed in royal robes. The room was lit with six silver candlesticks that Prince Charles had bought in Spain in 1623.

The King's former servants watched at Denmark House, and they became anxious that they might lose their positions and lodgings. It was thought that Charles would keep them on and let his old servants go. Easter Day was April 17. There was plague in London and Dover. John Donne preached at Denmark House on 26 April, in the Great Hall, as there was no chapel in the building. Two days before the funeral, the effigy was moved into a second space within Denmark House, the Great hall with a bay window, which was now decorated and draped in black like a funerary chapel, and Charles attended while the body was placed in the presence chamber.

Charles I stayed at Whitehall Palace where the chapel was draped with black cloth like the rooms at Denmark House. The Duke of Buckingham stayed in an adjacent room. Charles began to enforce stricter etiquette at the palace than his late father. Lucy, Countess of Bedford, compared the new formality to the court of Elizabeth I.

Holyrood Palace

In Scotland, rooms at Holyrood Palace were also draped with symbolic black cloth. The cloth was supplemented with wall paintings by James Warkman. In 1626 the cloth was given to the keepers of the palace and Warkman painted over the black decoration, but traces remain behind later panelling.

Funeral at Westminster

Black mourning cloth was provided for 9,000 people to attend the funeral. A number of servants, gunners, and former members of the household of Anne of Denmark petitioned the committee for an allowance of mourning livery, including Robert and John Wood who had kept the king's cormorants for 16 years. The hearse used in the Abbey was designed by Inigo Jones. A second fully articulated effigy for the Abbey was made by Maximilian Colt. Colt had made a wax death mask of the king's face at Theobalds to model these effigies. The wigs for the effigies were made by Daniel Parkin. The faces were painted by Colt and John de Critz, who also provided heraldic funerary hatchments and banners for Denmark House and the Abbey.

James VI and I was buried at Westminster Abbey on the evening before the funeral. Charles I was the chief mourner on the day of the state funeral. He walked from Somerset House to the Abbey. As the king's effigy was placed in Inigo Jones's hearse or catafalque in the choir of Abbey, the Catholic ambassadors left the building. John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, gave a two-hour sermon. John Chamberlain wrote that "all was performed with great magnificence, but the order was very confused and disorderly". He heard the ceremony cost over £50,000.

A diplomat from Tuscany, Alessandro Antelminelli ''alias'' Amerigo Salvetti of Lucca, described the procession from Denmark House and the funeral. Williams (whose sermon was published) and Donne both discussed King James as ''Rex Pacificus'' a peacemaking king, and a modern Solomon.

There was no monument for James at the Abbey, although he commissioned monuments for Elizabeth I, his mother Mary, Queen of Scots, and his own English-born daughters Mary and Sophia. The place of his interment was rediscovered by Dean Stanley in February 1869 in the vault containing the coffins of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. The body of his wife, Anne of Denmark, had been buried nearby on 13 May 1619. The antiquary John Dart saw a labelled urn containing the embalmed organs of Anne of Denmark in 1718, which he thought had been moved in 1674 during the reburial of the Princes in the Tower. A similar urn for King James was not found in 1869.

Attendants at the funeral

The chief mourner was Charles I. His supporters were the Earls of Arundel and Rutland. His train was carried by the Duke of Lennox, the Marquess of Hamilton, the Earl of Denbigh, and Lords Maltravers and Strange. The king's two attendants were Robert Kerr of the bedchamber and James Fullerton, Groom of the Stool. There were 14 Earls as assistants to the chief mourner.

The Earl of Nithsdale was an Earl Assistant. The other Scottish earls at the ceremony, not among the "close mourners", included; Linlithgow, Home, Wigton, Tullibardine, Roxburghe, Kellie, Buccleuch, Melrose, Annandale, and Lauderdale.''Progresses of James I'', vol. 4 (London, 1828), p. 1048.

References

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