From the age of thirteen until his death, the life of King James VI of Scotland and I of England (1566–1625) was characterised by close relationships with a series of male favourites.
The influence James's favourites had on politics, and the resentment at the wealth they acquired, became major political issues during his reign. The extent to which the King's relationships with the men were sexual was a topic of bawdy contemporary speculation.
James certainly enjoyed the company of handsome young men, sometimes shared his bed with his favourites and was often passionate in his expressions of love for them. James was married to Anne of Denmark, with whom he fathered eight children. He railed fiercely against sodomy. In Basilikon Doron, he addressed to his son that "...so is there some horrible crimes that yee are bound in conscience neuer to forgiue : such as...Sodomie..."
Most historians and commentators today affirm that, given the evidence, James's relationships with some or all of his favourites were sexual. Others regard the evidence as more ambiguous, and needing to be understood in terms of 17th century forms of masculinity.
The question of James' sexuality might be considered less important than the political consequences of the power and status he granted his favourites. However, particularly since the late 20th century, historical analysis and commentary on James's personal life has raised important questions about how early modern same-sex relationships (whether sexual or friendship-based) were structured and understood, and the extent to which modern categories of sexuality can be applied to historical figures.
Views on James' relationships and sexual behaviour Views of modern historians Until the late 20th century, historians' accounts were often biased by prevailing negative social attitudes towards same-sex relationships. Historians could not avoid the implication that James was attracted to men. Some would refer — usually obliquely and certainly judgmentally — to possible sexual interactions with his favourites. Moral condemnation by historians of James's homoerotic attraction was often part of a wider characterisation of him as a bad or weak king. From the 1980s, positive reassessments of James's reign coincided with growing public acceptance of homosexuality. The issue of James' sexuality began to be separated from questions about his character, judgement and reign. By the late 20th century, the consensus was to see the relationships between James and his favourites as sexual. However, in the 1990s, a counter — or at least problematising — view arose, with some academics arguing that many of the key points of evidence cited in favour of the relationships being sexual — such as James sharing a bed or exchanging kisses with his favourites — were behaviours that in James' time were widely seen as public tokens of friendship.
Summarising the views of more recent historians, social historian Emma Dabiri stated in 2017 that now few historians and biographers doubt that James was "either gay or bisexual". John Matusiak's 2015 biography James I: Scotland's King of England views James as "homosexual", although is unsure about the "precise extent of the king's sexual involvement with Lennox". Keith Coleman's 2023 biography James VI and I: The King Who United Scotland and England, sees James's relationships with Somerset and Buckingham as sexual, adding that his relationship with Lennox probably also was. Steven Veerapen, author of 2023's The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I, also views James's relationships with his favourites as sexual, describing the king as, in modern terms, bisexual, with a "strong preference for men".
Along with most recent historians, Gareth Russell's opinion is that "James and Villiers were indeed passionate lovers". Benjamin Woolley, biographer of Villiers, says the language the King and Villiers used with each other in their letters "clearly shows a very deep, complex, probably sexual relationship between them". Reviewing James's letters and poems and focusing on desire rather than actions, David M. Bergeron sees James's relationships with Lennox, Somerset and Buckingham comprising a "special intimacy, including, but not restricted to, homoerotic desire", with James's letters to his male favourites as "signs of erotic desire [and] same-sex love".
Contemporary accounts
It was generally believed by James's contemporaries that his relationships with his favourites were sexual and "[t]he impression that James and his favorites were engaged in sex was widespread".
"Gossip and concerns over deviant sexuality" was not new (similar denouncements were made of Queen Elizabeth I's favourites) but, according to Cezara Bobeica, "Under James, the novelty was the exponential increase of such accusations of sodomy". Commentary on James's "erotic interactions with his favourites" was not always speculative but, rather, as Michael B. Young notes, was based on observation of James "hugging, falling upon the necks of, and kissing his favourites in public."
Contemporaries observed James's interactions with his favourites and commented on them in their journals, letters and reports. For instance, commenting generally, Albert Fontenay wrote that James's "love for favourites is indiscreet and wilful"; and John Hacket wrote that James would, from his mid-teens, "clasp someone[...] in the Embraces of his great Love", and that this began first with Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox. Commenting on James's public affection towards Stewart, Sir Henry Widdrington recorded that James "can hardly suffer him out of his presence, and is in such love with him, as in the open sight of the people, oftentimes he will clasp him about the neck with his arms and kiss him". Others commented that James was "carried away" by, or in the "possession" of, Stewart. David Moysie wrote in his memoirs that James, "having conceived an inward affection to [Stewart], entered in great familiarity and quiet purposes with him" (David Harris Willson notes that "great familiarity and quiet purposes" bears a "special connotation in the Scots idiom of the time" to sexual interactions). Similarly, Thomas Fowler reported that James "kissed [the Earl of Huntly] at times to the amazement of many", adding that "It is thought this King is too much carried by young men that lie in his chamber and are his minions".
Concerning James and Robert Carr's interactions, Thomas Howard reported that James "leans on [Carr's] arm, touches his cheeks, smooths his ruffled garment". Of James and his favourites – and especially George Villiers – the diarist John Oglander recorded that James "loved young men, his favourites, better than women, loving them beyond the love of men to women. I never 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 the Duke of Buckingham". The Venetian ambassador also reported that James had given Villiers "all his heart, who will not eat, sup or remain an hour without him and considers him his whole joy". Following one masque, at which Villiers and James's son Charles danced and impressed the King, the ambassador reported that James, while showing affection to Charles, "honoured the marquis [i.e., Villiers] with marks of extraordinary affection, patting his face".
Similar sources also commented on what drew James's attention in the men around him, namely effeminate appearances. Thomas Howard commented that James "does admire good fashion in clothes" and "dwells on good looks and handsome accoutrements", citing Robert Carr as an example of someone successful in catching the King's attention because he "changed his tailors and tiremen many times, and all to please the Prince". Carr, Howard described, was "straight-limbed, well-favoured, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced". The French ambassador Tillières reported James's passion was for men with beautiful faces, preferably without facial hair. Later in the century, the royalist historian the Earl of Clarendon wrote of James, "yet, of all wise men living, he was the most delighted and taken with handsome persons and with fine clothes"; and that Buckingham's "first introduction into favour was purely from the handsomeness of his person", on whom the King showered honours and wealth on because "of the beauty and gracefulness and becomingness of his person".
Knowing to whom James was attracted, rival factions within the Jacobean court "sought influence with the king by promoting handsome young men whom they hoped would gain his favour". A former favourite of James, James Hay, for instance, "dangled [Robert Carr] under the king's nose[...] in an attempt to undermine" those who currently had the ascendancy with him." In turn, William Herbert and the Archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot "exploited [George Villiers's] charms to displace the previous royal favourite, Robert Carr" (to do so, Villiers made himself more effete, "clean-shaven, and with his long, elegant legs prominently displayed"); and Villiers's "rivals at court sought his downfall by tempting James with other pretty young men". For instance, in 1618 the Howard family tried to use Sir William Monson to topple and replace Villiers (Monson's backers wanted to "set[...] up this new idol" and took "great pains in tricking and pranking him up, besides washing his face every day with posset-curd") and, in 1622, Lionel Cranfield tried to do likewise using Arthur Brett, though both attempts failed.
Insinuations about James's sexual acts with other men followed him throughout his life. Comments were made in a variety of sources other than reports and diaries. In 1592, anonymous verses written against James were discovered, calling him a "bougerer" and alleging he had no physical interaction with his wife, leaving her all night .Roderick J. Lyall, "James Halkerston", "Edinburgh and the Court of James VI", Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 247. Curtis Perry, in a 2000 article on "The Politics of Access and Representations of the Sodomite King in Early Modern England", states that "[S]odomitical images of James I [were] promulgated in manuscript verse libels, mean-spirited memoirs, and political pamphlets written by disgruntled contemporaries". While some of these are suspect as they were written by those opposed to James's favourites to slander them, particularly through a literary convention attributing all kinds of evils to them (which is Perry's concern in his article), other sources are more trustworthy as they are less susceptible to such literary conventions.
When James ascended the English throne in 1603, an epigram circulated in London: "Elizabeth was King: now James is Queen". According to the Italian historian Gregorio Leti the epigram was written on the door of his cabinet and was a pasquinade referring to the unusual natures of both Elizabeth and James.Gregorio Leti, La vie d'Olivier Cromwel (Amsterdam: Desbordes, 1730), pp. 161–162. The Puritan diarist Simonds d'Ewes wrote in 1622 of his concern that "the sin of sodomy" had become "a sin in the prince as well as the people". The following year, Huguenot poet Théophile de Viau observed from France that "it is well known that the king of England / fucks the Duke of Buckingham". A poem called To Buckinghame references sodomy in its "buck-in-game" pun, with one version proclaiming at the end of the poem that the king loves the favourite "Solely, for your looke".