A small but handy volume consisting of a lengthy analysis and then the letters themselves, plus the poem "Phoenix" which many a historian thinks was meant to be about James' first love, Esme Stuart. The other Jamesian writings as well as letters to him are what few letters of his to Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset survive, plus the far better preserved correspondence between him and Buckingham, where we also have Buckingham's letters.
Esme Stuart, whom James made Earl of Lennox, is something of the outlier here, because the other two were young when James was in his 40s and 50s, whereas here James was a teenager (13 or 14, depending on the source) when distant cousin Esmé came into his life, and 16 when Esmé was forcibly taken away from him, while Esmé was a married man in his 30s with wife and kids, all of whom remained in France during his time with James.
As Bergeron points out, the other difference is that due to James' horror show of a childhood - four different regents, very strict and abusive teachers, one dead and one imprisoned parent, both of whom were presented to him as awful, he was a love starved teenager, and Esmé Stuart basically become everything to him. His first love, yes, but also his replacement parent. This intermingling of the erotic and the parent/child is something James later reproduces with Buckingham where he repeatedly in his letters intermingles husband/wife and father/child comparisons and signs himself "your Dad" (thus proving the Dad designation is that old in English) as often as anything else, and not just in the letters he writes to Buckingham and Charles both when they're on tour on their disaster trip to Spain. It's Freudian as hell but understandable under the circumstances.
Esmé, like all of James' later favourites, quickly became hated and resented by the nobility, but the Scottish way of dealing with this wasn't impeachment or pamphlets, it was kidnapping James at knife point and kicking Esmé out of the kingdom. He returned to France where he died not that long thereafter. It's all very heartbreaking from James' pov - and contributed to his life long justified paranoia re: conspiracies against him - , but it's worth bearing in mind Esmé when in power had not been an innocent lamb. He'd gotten rid of the Earl of Morton, the then current Regent, by a very obviously trumped up charge that Morton had been involved in the murder of James' late father, the unlamented Darnley, and had him executed. Given all the political murders in Scotland in that era, it's more a miracle Esmé wasn't killed himself.
Also: the constant turnover of Regents and the fact during James' childhood and youth Scotland had become near ungovernable and that kidnapping the young King at knife point was a thing is important to remember, as the fact that when James, in his late 30s, became King of England, he left behind a Scotland where he had been in the undisputed ruler and where the nobility had stopped their murderous power games illustrates his reputation as a weakling who was totally under his fave's thumb which he had until the 20th century is not deserved. He didn't solve all of Scotland's problems - from a monarchical pov - notably not the ascendency of the Kirk which, far more than the nobles, became THE alternative power in Scotland especially once James was off in England -, but he had done what his mother did not manage, taken a country ridden with murderous feuding and civil war like conditions and deep internal divisions and unified it. That James imagined he could pull off that hat trick again with both England and Ireland and unify all three under his rule had something to do with that.
Back to homoerotic desire. As an example of how homophobia far beyond James' lifetime shaped James' image, Bergeron quotes a disapproving 20th century historian, McElwee, who wrote upon the entry of Robert Carr into James' life: (James began)to treat Carr in public with the same exaggarated, gross affection as in private, and what had already been a little odd in a sixteen year-old-boy when he was worshipping at the shrine of Esmé Stuart, became grotesque in the milddle-aged man. He appeared everywhere with his arm around Carr's neck, constantly kissed and fondled him, lovingly feeling the texture of the expensive suits he chose and bought for him, pinching his scheeks and smoothing his hair. (The sources for this, are the trio of vengeful Stuart memoirists: Anthony Weldon, who was fired by James after talking trash about the Scots in print, Arthur Wilson, who was Bob of Essex' secretary, and Francis Osborne, who was Master of the Horse to the Earl of Pembroke, one of the leaders of the anti Somerset faction.)
In his big write up, Bergeron also quotes amply from Overbury's letters, making a case for Oberbury being seen as competition by James in a way Frances was not. Also, Overbury definitely threatens Somerset in these letters: All I intreet of you is, that you will free me from this place, and that we may part friends Drive me not to extremities, lest I should say something that you and I both repent. And if Carr/Somerset does not comply, then people shall know what words have passed betwixt us heretofore of another Nature than these.
Question: given that Overbury himself claims to have written Carr's first few love letters to Frances before Carr really fell in love with her, what are the chances he wrote some to James as well, and that's one of the things he's threatening to reveal?
Anyway, as I said, most of the James/Somerset letters are gone, courtesy of Francis Bacon, but one written after their enstrangement has already started but before Carr/Somerset got arrested still survives. This is when the anti Somerset alliance has launched George Villiers, future Buckingham, and a panicked Somerset is blocking George Villiers' appointment to the bedchamber and throwing jealous tantrums, which given he himself hasn't shown up for bedchamber duty for a while, James finds most unjust. First he ressures Carr of his continued affection:
I must ingenuously confess ye have deserved more trust and confidence of me than ever man did: in secrecy above all flesh, in feeling and unpartial respect, as well to my honnour in every degree as to my profit.
Then he gets to the problem from his pov: (T)his strange frenzy took you, sp powdered and mixed with strange streams of unqietness, passion, fury and sinsolent pride, and (which is worst of allL) with a settled kind of induced obstinancy as it chokes and obscures all these excellent and good parts that God hath bestowed upon you. For although I confess the greatness of that trust and privay betwixt us will very well allow unto you an infinitely great liberty and freedom of speech unto me, yea even to rebuke me more sharply and bitterly than every my master durst do, yet to invent a new art of railing upon me, nay to borrow the tongue of the devil, that cannot come within the compass of any liberty of friendship. (...) I leave out of this reckoning your long creeping back and withdrawing yourself from lying in my chamber, notwithstanding my many hundred times earnest soliciting you to the contrary, accounting that but as a point of ukindness. Now whether all your great parts and merits be not accompanied with a sour and distateful souce, yourself shall be judge.
Once Carr/Somerset is out of the picture, Buckingham reigns supreme and will do so for the remainder of James' life, not least because he handles the various attempts to dislodge him by dangling a new handsome guy in front of James the way Buckingham himself was dangled to remove Somerset ever so much better. (Reminder, he doesn't throw jealous tantrums, he does nothing about the young men, he goes after their sponsors instead.)
Now, Buckingham's initial attraction was that he must have been sex on legs, as evidenced by the fact far more people than James raved about his physical attractions. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the guy who went into exile with young Charles the technically II, later came back and was Chancellor until ousted, and who wrote the first defining history of the Civil War, has of course known Buckingham in his time as Charles' favourite, years later, and still describes him as the handsomest man of the kingdom. William Laud, who became Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I. and had started out as Buckingham's chaplain, records a dream about the then Duke of Buckingham coming to his bed. And absolutely no one at the time seems to have been in doubt as to the nature of the relationship between Buckingham and James. Writes one John Oglander, who as opposed to the trio of angry memoirists is actually pro James: (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 a dalliance over his beautiful spouse as I have seen King James over his favourites, especially the Duke of Buckingham.
When Queen Anne agreed to promote him, she supposedly warned the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, that Buckingham could become a second Somerset but that they'd find it far harder to dislodge him, and Abbot just declared nah, Buckingham is such a nice modest young man, he'll just do as he's told. Of course, Abbot was wrong and Anne was right. She still doesn't seem to have hated Buckingham the way she disliked Carr. It's worth pointing out that this, as well as Charles' affection for Buckingham and even a part of James' feelings (see above re: the intermingling of the erotic with the family) might also have had something to do with the loss of Henry, James' and Anne's oldest son. Anne never got over it. Charles seems to have had a good relationship to his older brother as opposed to resenting him for being the golden boy and fave; when Henry was sick and dying, Charles brought him a bronze horse Henry had liked to play with as a boy, to cheer him up, and Charles still had that horse three decades later when on the run from Parliament. So the charming, dashing George Villiers might have been a bit of an adopted son/brother to deal with the loss of Henry, which was still relatively fresh when he showed up, in addition to everything else.
This intermingling of the erotic and the parent/child is something James later reproduces with Buckingham where he repeatedly in his letters intermingles husband/wife and father/child comparisons and signs himself "your Dad" (thus proving the Dad designation is that old in English) as often as anything else, and not just in the letters he writes to Buckingham and Charles both when they're on tour on their disaster trip to Spain. It's Freudian as hell but understandable under the circumstances.
Also thank you for repeating this and thus reminding me that I meant to tell cahn that Catherine and Potemkin also mingled husband/wife and parent/child comparisons. Catherine addresesd him as "Father and husband" a lot in her letters, and she was 10 years older than he was! He called her "Matushka", but that's the technical, deferential term for the czarina in Russian, so jury still out on Freudian implications. :P
However, as time went on, Potemkin spent more and more of his time on campaign (often in the Crimea) and Catherine was all "I have NEEDS!", she started taking younger lovers. Without giving up Potemkin. She would have one official lover (maîtresse en titre, as it were) in addition to Potemkin, and she would be having sex with him but also channeling her maternal needs* into him. And they all definitely used language wherein Catherine was the mother, Potemkin was the father, and Current Lover was their child.
Meanwhile, Potemkin was having sex on the side too, including with his nieces.
* Remember that Elizaveta took Paul away from Catherine at birth, and mother and son never bonded. And Paul identified with his murdered father and blamed his mother for his death. So she had a lot of unmet needs to channel there.
Oh, speaking of endearments, one thing I meant to report when I wrote up August III was this bit. Between the unclear pronoun references and the fact that my reading is not what I would expect, I'm not 100% sure of my reading, so can you double check me, selenak?
Friedrich Christians Briefe beweisen eine ungewöhnliche Anhänglichkeit und Liebe zum Vater, der eher verschlossen war und sich scheute, seinen Gefühlen Ausdruck zu geben. Die in seinen Briefen oft geäußerte Bitte, Friedrich Christian möge auf seine Gesundheit achten, machen den Eindruck einer Convenance. Gleiche Fürsorge brachte er den jüngeren Kindern entgegen, später auch der Frau Friedrich Christians, Maria Antonia, die er, wie es zwischen dem Ehepaar üblich war, mit "Alte" anredete. Maria Antonia nahm diese Bezeichnung von einem polnischen Lied, das sie in einem Brief an ihren Mann zitierte und ihn im Postskriptum "stary“ (Alter) nannte und mit "Twoja stara" (Deine Alte ) unter schrieb.
My reading is that Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia, the married couple, refer to each other as "Alter"/"Alte", and Friedrich August (i.e. August III), starts also using "Alte" for his daughter-in-law Maria Antonia. But that seems weird, so am I wrong about August III using it, and only the married couple were using it? [ETA: The last time I got so confused by pronouns in this book that I had to ask you to check my reading, it turned out the author was thoroughly confused and stating historically impossible things, so that's why I was confused. There was no reading that made sense.]
In any case, I was reminded of MT using this nickname for FS. We speculated it was because he was several years older than her, but it might have just been a period-typical nickname for married couples? (Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia are less than 2 years apart.)
My reading is that Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia, the married couple, refer to each other as "Alter"/"Alte", and Friedrich August (i.e. August III), starts also using "Alte" for his daughter-in-law Maria Antonia.
Nope, it's confusingly phrased, but my reading is the last "er" in the crucial sentence refers to Friedrrich Christian, not August III.
We speculated it was because he was several years older than her, but it might have just been a period-typical nickname for married couples?
Could be, since MT and FS aren't likely to know Polish songs. But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.
Re: Catherine and Potemkin, yes, in this case the Russian habit has to be considered - I remember all those novels and movies with "Mütterchen" for the Czarina and "Väterchen" for the Czar, so while Catherine never made Potemkin the Czar, she could have transfered this.
Nope, it's confusingly phrased, but my reading is the last "er" in the crucial sentence refers to Friedrrich Christian, not August III.
Okay, thank you! I wasn't sure if you could actually have "er" switch referent in the same sentence like that--usually German authors I read go out of their way to not do that because it's confusing! (This translator confused me a number of times with pronouns, I think it's a feature of him specifically.)
But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.
It's Freudian as hell but understandable under the circumstances.
Oof. Yes on both counts.
but he had done what his mother did not manage, taken a country ridden with murderous feuding and civil war like conditions and deep internal divisions and unified it.
Ah! Thank you for continually giving me context :D
Question: given that Overbury himself claims to have written Carr's first few love letters to Frances before Carr really fell in love with her, what are the chances he wrote some to James as well, and that's one of the things he's threatening to reveal?
Ooh! That would be interesting...
So the charming, dashing George Villiers might have been a bit of an adopted son/brother to deal with the loss of Henry, which was still relatively fresh when he showed up, in addition to everything else.
Except Buckingham. Mind you, we don't know nearly as much about his early life as we do about the royals, because he was the second son of a second son, really obscure gentry, but he comes across as solidly confident, with a great instinct for building up a network (reminder, he had his entire family marry into high nobility as the price for any favours they wanted from him, which meant that the Villiers clan became so completely linked with the traditional noble families that even with so many later hating his guts, he could rely on not all working against him simply out of self interest, fearing because of the family connection they would share in his downfall. Buckingham also had the ability that many a favourite lacked, never losing sight of the need to keep his monarch happy and close. (Favourites who fall usually neglect their monarch, ask Struensee. But not Moltke.) Where he just overestimated his own abilities was in foreign politics.
(Digby the envoy to Spain, Earl of Bristol: Tell me about it!)
As an example of how James was dissed pre 20th century, there's famously Sir Walter Scott, writing in 1822: He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, wehre conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, ye toften neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated.
And Macauly, he of the Victorian Fritz biography, disses likewise: The indignation by his claims and the scorn excited by his concssions went on growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive His cowardice, his childishness his pedantry, his ungainly person and manners, his provincial person and manners, his provincial accent made him an object of derision. Even in his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently unkingly. (..) It was no light thing that, on the very eve of the decisive struggle between our kings and their parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagaogue.
Modern historians: Behold the homophobia. Okay, let's talk favourites. James was hardly the only royal who had them. So did Elizabeth. Hers, like his, profited financially from this, big time; in fact, Elvis!Essex having monopolies was a huuuuge problem brought up in one of her last parliaments. We will grant you that the Tudors, especially Elizabeth and her ghastly Dad, had the hang on coming across as simultanously royally dignified and of their people in the way most of the Stuarts never managed, who came across as either too informal (James I and VI) or too stiff and remote (Charles I and James II), with Charles II pretty much the only one achieving the right balance. But moving on to "dominated by his favourites" politically; in fact, James was pretty consistent in his policies, and the one time he changed them, near the end of his life when Buckingham and Charles had joined forces with Parliament on Rah Rah Rah War With Spain!, he did so not because Buckingham batted his eyelashes at him but because he could see there was no support for his reconciliatory policy left.
And finally, about that. Sir Walter, you and Macauly are 19th century guys buying into the whole awesomeness of war thing in combinataion of "naturally, Britain will always win". May we, living after two devastating world wars, remind you that the last decade of Elizabeth's reign when she was at war with Spain nearly bankrupted the country? Which isn't surprising, because it nearly bankrupted Spain, too, having to fight her and the Netherlands, and Philip had near all of South America to exploit, while Britain hadn't yet gotten that lucratively into the colonial gain. In fact, Elizabeth herself could count, she knew war was expensive, and that's why she greenlighted acts of piracy but refused to go to war for as long as she could until Philip launched the Armada. James making peace with Spain once she died was possible for him because he and Philip III. were not the ones who had started that war and so had no face to lose by the fact there was no real winner, but if she could have done it the same way, she probably would have.
Now, you seem to think that if James had gone to war against Spain at any point after making peace with them, especially once the 30 Years War had kicked off, this would have been a good thing for Britain, and also he would have won, because in your 19th century minds, England always does. Never mind the fact that when Charles and Buckingham did got to war after his death, they got their asses kicked, first by Spain, and then by France. Thing is, the British army and navy both were nothing to write home about. Partly because of the decades of peace, partly because of the general corruption, but in fact the Brits would not get a reputation for having a fearsome fighting force until the New Model Army under Fairfax and Cromwell comes into being, and years of Civil War change it into a lean mean fighting machine, and also by that time the American wealth gets pumped into Britain on a large scale. What James had at his disposal during his reign would not have fared any better than those same guys did once he'd breathed his last. Also, where would they have been fighting? Helping his daughter and son in law to recover the Palatinate and Bohemia? How would James have supplied British troops on the freaking continent, surrounded by Habsburg ruled territory, in the early years of the Thirty Years War? Or, if you want James to have attacked the Spanish coast the way Charles and Buckingham tried to as a rerun of the Elizabethan Age's Greatest Hits - what are your reasons to believe his navy would have done any better, with pretty much the same (lack of) command staff at his disposal? And finally, what exactly would have been gained for all the expense that putting GB on a war footing would have incurred? As opposed to the Armada situation, England wasn't under threat. Nor were their colonies. War with Spain inevitably means no trade with Spain, which means loss of money. Also: the Thirty Years War as it was was an unholy bloody mess devastating Europe. We don't think it would have ended any sooner if GB had thrown in their unprepared fighting men, such as there were, as well. It just would have gotten even more people killed.
Mind you, there are things you can really critisize James for. But not "unmanly tears" (this is so 19th Century Stiff Upper Lip Talk! Both in the Renaissance and in Baroque times, men crying was not seen as shameful - note Walter Raleigh, for example, repeatedly refers to crying in his letters from the Tower, and none of the Victorians thought he was less of a dashing hero for it) or his idea that pan-European peace in general and England/Spain peace in particular was a good thing.
(Not letting his daughter return to England after she and her husband got kicked out of Bohemia was harsh, and I can understand Elizabeth the Winter Queen going from "best Dad ever!" in her early letters to him just after her marriage to "my father has ever more hurt than helped us" a decade later. But: future Charles I had always been a sickly child. And during James' life time, he wasn't yet married, nor did he reproduce. Which means that if Charles had died while Elizabeth and her husband were in England, Elizabeth would have become Queen - and Frederick, the guy who had just started a cross European war by accepting the Bohemian Crown and who had proved his complete lack of military skills or ability to maintain a useful network of allies, would have become King. I can understand why James would do everything to avoid that prospect.)
Now, if I had to make a case against James, his obsession with witchcraft would certainly feature. He wasn't so blind (especially in his later years) that the posssibility of false testimony didn't occur to him, and he had some later cases investigated for that reason, but still, the man wrote an entire book to encourage the persecution of witches, which it duly did, and his idea that the storms that disrupted Anne's and his ships when they were about to marry each other had been conjured by a coven cost eight women their lives. Which was only the beginning. And you can argue he had as bad a taste in boyfriends as Heinrich (as in, the brother of Fritz).
(Here's a competition: Kalckreuth & Kaphengst vs Somerset & Buckingham!)
Not to mention that his idea of how to treat kid' Charles' stutter and walking problems were as barbaric as the medical regime kid future F1 was put under, with Charles lucking out what once he was in England, his appointed caretakers were Robert and Elizabeth Carey who actually had way more sensible ideas and put a stop to the other ones. ANd while we're talking family, given James himself was repeatedly kidnapped in his youth, I can see why he thought the heir of the throne had to be especially guarded and that he would only entrust him to people he really really trusted to do that, i.e. the Earl of Mar and his wife (who had been James' own governess and apparently the sole person kind to him in his childhood), but he could have been more understanding about Anne's desire to raise her own son. All not great traits! And none get critiqued by the Victorians.
Kalckreuth: I ended up a Field Marshal, Somerset ended up in prison and then while out of it, still disgraced! Also, I could have had Fritz and nobly chose Heinrich, while he had to marry the Howard girl, a marriage that was instrumental to his downfall. There is no comparison.
Somerset: I guess we're not mentioning your bonkers attempt to make a pass at Mina as a way to keep Heinrich when he was truly sick of you, then. I may have made mistakes, but my wife loved me so much that she never once attempted to blame me, on the contrary, she insisted on exonorating me during every interrogation. I don't see any of the unfortunate women you ended up marrying doing that for you, Kalckreuth.
Buckingham: It's a severe insult to my financial acumen to compare me to Kaphengst. Yes, I spent a lot of money, but I also found ever new avenues to generate it, and I made my entire family rich. Meanwhile, he pissed away all that Heinrich gave him and ended up broke.
Kaphengst: Yeah, well, I never was impeached or accused of having poisoned Heinrich, was I? I didn't get murdered, only to have my murder greeted by near universal cheer in the entire country! My having a good time only affected me. And okay, Heinrich and his art collection and his plans to visit Paris. But still! I object to this comparison!
Lehndorff: Speaking entirely without bias and objectively, I vote Kalckreuth and Kaphengst being the worst.
Fritz: If Kaphengst and Kalckreuth didn't turn out like Somerset and Buckingham, it's only because I kept the lot of them, Henri and his boytoys, far, far away from power. That's why I did it. For Prussia. Not because I needed therapy via roleplay or anything. My impeccable taste, on the other hand...
I was pleased to discover that Carr was the son of Kerr of Ferniehurst, and Janet Scott of Buccleuch, his parents' marriage having been arranged as part of a series of attempts to end the Kerr-Scott feud, which had seen his great-grandfather Walter Scott of Buccleuch literally stabbed in the street by Kerrs in 1552. This makes him the grandson of William Scott of Kincurd, and thus of the marriage immortalised by Dorothy Dunnett at the start of The Disorderly Knights, with: On the day that his grannie was killed by the English, Sir William Scott the Younger of Buccleuch was at Melrose Abbey, marrying his aunt.
Said Grannie was, naturally, a Kerr killed by Kerrs.
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cahn
David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-14 08:52 am (UTC)Esme Stuart, whom James made Earl of Lennox, is something of the outlier here, because the other two were young when James was in his 40s and 50s, whereas here James was a teenager (13 or 14, depending on the source) when distant cousin Esmé came into his life, and 16 when Esmé was forcibly taken away from him, while Esmé was a married man in his 30s with wife and kids, all of whom remained in France during his time with James.
As Bergeron points out, the other difference is that due to James' horror show of a childhood - four different regents, very strict and abusive teachers, one dead and one imprisoned parent, both of whom were presented to him as awful, he was a love starved teenager, and Esmé Stuart basically become everything to him. His first love, yes, but also his replacement parent. This intermingling of the erotic and the parent/child is something James later reproduces with Buckingham where he repeatedly in his letters intermingles husband/wife and father/child comparisons and signs himself "your Dad" (thus proving the Dad designation is that old in English) as often as anything else, and not just in the letters he writes to Buckingham and Charles both when they're on tour on their disaster trip to Spain. It's Freudian as hell but understandable under the circumstances.
Esmé, like all of James' later favourites, quickly became hated and resented by the nobility, but the Scottish way of dealing with this wasn't impeachment or pamphlets, it was kidnapping James at knife point and kicking Esmé out of the kingdom. He returned to France where he died not that long thereafter. It's all very heartbreaking from James' pov - and contributed to his life long justified paranoia re: conspiracies against him - , but it's worth bearing in mind Esmé when in power had not been an innocent lamb. He'd gotten rid of the Earl of Morton, the then current Regent, by a very obviously trumped up charge that Morton had been involved in the murder of James' late father, the unlamented Darnley, and had him executed. Given all the political murders in Scotland in that era, it's more a miracle Esmé wasn't killed himself.
Also: the constant turnover of Regents and the fact during James' childhood and youth Scotland had become near ungovernable and that kidnapping the young King at knife point was a thing is important to remember, as the fact that when James, in his late 30s, became King of England, he left behind a Scotland where he had been in the undisputed ruler and where the nobility had stopped their murderous power games illustrates his reputation as a weakling who was totally under his fave's thumb which he had until the 20th century is not deserved. He didn't solve all of Scotland's problems - from a monarchical pov - notably not the ascendency of the Kirk which, far more than the nobles, became THE alternative power in Scotland especially once James was off in England -, but he had done what his mother did not manage, taken a country ridden with murderous feuding and civil war like conditions and deep internal divisions and unified it. That James imagined he could pull off that hat trick again with both England and Ireland and unify all three under his rule had something to do with that.
Back to homoerotic desire. As an example of how homophobia far beyond James' lifetime shaped James' image, Bergeron quotes a disapproving 20th century historian, McElwee, who wrote upon the entry of Robert Carr into James' life: (James began)to treat Carr in public with the same exaggarated, gross affection as in private, and what had already been a little odd in a sixteen year-old-boy when he was worshipping at the shrine of Esmé Stuart, became grotesque in the milddle-aged man. He appeared everywhere with his arm around Carr's neck, constantly kissed and fondled him, lovingly feeling the texture of the expensive suits he chose and bought for him, pinching his scheeks and smoothing his hair. (The sources for this, are the trio of vengeful Stuart memoirists: Anthony Weldon, who was fired by James after talking trash about the Scots in print, Arthur Wilson, who was Bob of Essex' secretary, and Francis Osborne, who was Master of the Horse to the Earl of Pembroke, one of the leaders of the anti Somerset faction.)
In his big write up, Bergeron also quotes amply from Overbury's letters, making a case for Oberbury being seen as competition by James in a way Frances was not. Also, Overbury definitely threatens Somerset in these letters: All I intreet of you is, that you will free me from this place, and that we may part friends Drive me not to extremities, lest I should say something that you and I both repent. And if Carr/Somerset does not comply, then people shall know what words have passed betwixt us heretofore of another Nature than these.
Question: given that Overbury himself claims to have written Carr's first few love letters to Frances before Carr really fell in love with her, what are the chances he wrote some to James as well, and that's one of the things he's threatening to reveal?
Anyway, as I said, most of the James/Somerset letters are gone, courtesy of Francis Bacon, but one written after their enstrangement has already started but before Carr/Somerset got arrested still survives. This is when the anti Somerset alliance has launched George Villiers, future Buckingham, and a panicked Somerset is blocking George Villiers' appointment to the bedchamber and throwing jealous tantrums, which given he himself hasn't shown up for bedchamber duty for a while, James finds most unjust. First he ressures Carr of his continued affection:
I must ingenuously confess ye have deserved more trust and confidence of me than ever man did: in secrecy above all flesh, in feeling and unpartial respect, as well to my honnour in every degree as to my profit.
Then he gets to the problem from his pov: (T)his strange frenzy took you, sp powdered and mixed with strange streams of unqietness, passion, fury and sinsolent pride, and (which is worst of allL) with a settled kind of induced obstinancy as it chokes and obscures all these excellent and good parts that God hath bestowed upon you. For although I confess the greatness of that trust and privay betwixt us will very well allow unto you an infinitely great liberty and freedom of speech unto me, yea even to rebuke me more sharply and bitterly than every my master durst do, yet to invent a new art of railing upon me, nay to borrow the tongue of the devil, that cannot come within the compass of any liberty of friendship. (...) I leave out of this reckoning your long creeping back and withdrawing yourself from lying in my chamber, notwithstanding my many hundred times earnest soliciting you to the contrary, accounting that but as a point of ukindness. Now whether all your great parts and merits be not accompanied with a sour and distateful souce, yourself shall be judge.
Once Carr/Somerset is out of the picture, Buckingham reigns supreme and will do so for the remainder of James' life, not least because he handles the various attempts to dislodge him by dangling a new handsome guy in front of James the way Buckingham himself was dangled to remove Somerset ever so much better. (Reminder, he doesn't throw jealous tantrums, he does nothing about the young men, he goes after their sponsors instead.)
Now, Buckingham's initial attraction was that he must have been sex on legs, as evidenced by the fact far more people than James raved about his physical attractions. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the guy who went into exile with young Charles the technically II, later came back and was Chancellor until ousted, and who wrote the first defining history of the Civil War, has of course known Buckingham in his time as Charles' favourite, years later, and still describes him as the handsomest man of the kingdom. William Laud, who became Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I. and had started out as Buckingham's chaplain, records a dream about the then Duke of Buckingham coming to his bed. And absolutely no one at the time seems to have been in doubt as to the nature of the relationship between Buckingham and James. Writes one John Oglander, who as opposed to the trio of angry memoirists is actually pro James: (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 a dalliance over his beautiful spouse as I have seen King James over his favourites, especially the Duke of Buckingham.
When Queen Anne agreed to promote him, she supposedly warned the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, that Buckingham could become a second Somerset but that they'd find it far harder to dislodge him, and Abbot just declared nah, Buckingham is such a nice modest young man, he'll just do as he's told. Of course, Abbot was wrong and Anne was right. She still doesn't seem to have hated Buckingham the way she disliked Carr. It's worth pointing out that this, as well as Charles' affection for Buckingham and even a part of James' feelings (see above re: the intermingling of the erotic with the family) might also have had something to do with the loss of Henry, James' and Anne's oldest son. Anne never got over it. Charles seems to have had a good relationship to his older brother as opposed to resenting him for being the golden boy and fave; when Henry was sick and dying, Charles brought him a bronze horse Henry had liked to play with as a boy, to cheer him up, and Charles still had that horse three decades later when on the run from Parliament. So the charming, dashing George Villiers might have been a bit of an adopted son/brother to deal with the loss of Henry, which was still relatively fresh when he showed up, in addition to everything else.
Endearments
Date: 2024-01-14 04:14 pm (UTC)This intermingling of the erotic and the parent/child is something James later reproduces with Buckingham where he repeatedly in his letters intermingles husband/wife and father/child comparisons and signs himself "your Dad" (thus proving the Dad designation is that old in English) as often as anything else, and not just in the letters he writes to Buckingham and Charles both when they're on tour on their disaster trip to Spain. It's Freudian as hell but understandable under the circumstances.
Also thank you for repeating this and thus reminding me that I meant to tell
However, as time went on, Potemkin spent more and more of his time on campaign (often in the Crimea) and Catherine was all "I have NEEDS!", she started taking younger lovers. Without giving up Potemkin. She would have one official lover (maîtresse en titre, as it were) in addition to Potemkin, and she would be having sex with him but also channeling her maternal needs* into him. And they all definitely used language wherein Catherine was the mother, Potemkin was the father, and Current Lover was their child.
Meanwhile, Potemkin was having sex on the side too, including with his nieces.
* Remember that Elizaveta took Paul away from Catherine at birth, and mother and son never bonded. And Paul identified with his murdered father and blamed his mother for his death. So she had a lot of unmet needs to channel there.
Oh, speaking of endearments, one thing I meant to report when I wrote up August III was this bit. Between the unclear pronoun references and the fact that my reading is not what I would expect, I'm not 100% sure of my reading, so can you double check me,
Friedrich Christians Briefe beweisen eine ungewöhnliche Anhänglichkeit und Liebe zum Vater, der eher verschlossen war und sich scheute, seinen Gefühlen Ausdruck zu geben. Die in seinen Briefen oft geäußerte Bitte, Friedrich Christian möge auf seine Gesundheit achten, machen den Eindruck einer Convenance. Gleiche Fürsorge brachte er den jüngeren Kindern entgegen, später auch der Frau Friedrich Christians, Maria Antonia, die er, wie es zwischen dem Ehepaar üblich war, mit "Alte" anredete. Maria Antonia nahm diese Bezeichnung von einem polnischen Lied, das sie in einem Brief an ihren Mann zitierte und ihn im Postskriptum "stary“ (Alter) nannte und mit "Twoja stara" (Deine Alte ) unter schrieb.
My reading is that Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia, the married couple, refer to each other as "Alter"/"Alte", and Friedrich August (i.e. August III), starts also using "Alte" for his daughter-in-law Maria Antonia. But that seems weird, so am I wrong about August III using it, and only the married couple were using it? [ETA: The last time I got so confused by pronouns in this book that I had to ask you to check my reading, it turned out the author was thoroughly confused and stating historically impossible things, so that's why I was confused. There was no reading that made sense.]
In any case, I was reminded of MT using this nickname for FS. We speculated it was because he was several years older than her, but it might have just been a period-typical nickname for married couples? (Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia are less than 2 years apart.)
Re: Endearments
Date: 2024-01-14 05:19 pm (UTC)Nope, it's confusingly phrased, but my reading is the last "er" in the crucial sentence refers to Friedrrich Christian, not August III.
We speculated it was because he was several years older than her, but it might have just been a period-typical nickname for married couples?
Could be, since MT and FS aren't likely to know Polish songs. But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.
Re: Catherine and Potemkin, yes, in this case the Russian habit has to be considered - I remember all those novels and movies with "Mütterchen" for the Czarina and "Väterchen" for the Czar, so while Catherine never made Potemkin the Czar, she could have transfered this.
Re: Endearments
Date: 2024-01-14 05:35 pm (UTC)Okay, thank you! I wasn't sure if you could actually have "er" switch referent in the same sentence like that--usually German authors I read go out of their way to not do that because it's confusing! (This translator confused me a number of times with pronouns, I think it's a feature of him specifically.)
But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.
Interesting!
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-15 06:07 am (UTC)Oof. Yes on both counts.
but he had done what his mother did not manage, taken a country ridden with murderous feuding and civil war like conditions and deep internal divisions and unified it.
Ah! Thank you for continually giving me context :D
Question: given that Overbury himself claims to have written Carr's first few love letters to Frances before Carr really fell in love with her, what are the chances he wrote some to James as well, and that's one of the things he's threatening to reveal?
Ooh! That would be interesting...
So the charming, dashing George Villiers might have been a bit of an adopted son/brother to deal with the loss of Henry, which was still relatively fresh when he showed up, in addition to everything else.
:( Everyone's got so much trauma!
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-15 08:38 am (UTC)(Digby the envoy to Spain, Earl of Bristol: Tell me about it!)
As an example of how James was dissed pre 20th century, there's famously Sir Walter Scott, writing in 1822: He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, wehre conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, ye toften neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated.
And Macauly, he of the Victorian Fritz biography, disses likewise: The indignation by his claims and the scorn excited by his concssions went on growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive His cowardice, his childishness his pedantry, his ungainly person and manners, his provincial person and manners, his provincial accent made him an object of derision. Even in his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently unkingly. (..) It was no light thing that, on the very eve of the decisive struggle between our kings and their parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagaogue.
Modern historians: Behold the homophobia. Okay, let's talk favourites. James was hardly the only royal who had them. So did Elizabeth. Hers, like his, profited financially from this, big time; in fact, Elvis!Essex having monopolies was a huuuuge problem brought up in one of her last parliaments. We will grant you that the Tudors, especially Elizabeth and her ghastly Dad, had the hang on coming across as simultanously royally dignified and of their people in the way most of the Stuarts never managed, who came across as either too informal (James I and VI) or too stiff and remote (Charles I and James II), with Charles II pretty much the only one achieving the right balance. But moving on to "dominated by his favourites" politically; in fact, James was pretty consistent in his policies, and the one time he changed them, near the end of his life when Buckingham and Charles had joined forces with Parliament on Rah Rah Rah War With Spain!, he did so not because Buckingham batted his eyelashes at him but because he could see there was no support for his reconciliatory policy left.
And finally, about that. Sir Walter, you and Macauly are 19th century guys buying into the whole awesomeness of war thing in combinataion of "naturally, Britain will always win". May we, living after two devastating world wars, remind you that the last decade of Elizabeth's reign when she was at war with Spain nearly bankrupted the country? Which isn't surprising, because it nearly bankrupted Spain, too, having to fight her and the Netherlands, and Philip had near all of South America to exploit, while Britain hadn't yet gotten that lucratively into the colonial gain. In fact, Elizabeth herself could count, she knew war was expensive, and that's why she greenlighted acts of piracy but refused to go to war for as long as she could until Philip launched the Armada. James making peace with Spain once she died was possible for him because he and Philip III. were not the ones who had started that war and so had no face to lose by the fact there was no real winner, but if she could have done it the same way, she probably would have.
Now, you seem to think that if James had gone to war against Spain at any point after making peace with them, especially once the 30 Years War had kicked off, this would have been a good thing for Britain, and also he would have won, because in your 19th century minds, England always does. Never mind the fact that when Charles and Buckingham did got to war after his death, they got their asses kicked, first by Spain, and then by France. Thing is, the British army and navy both were nothing to write home about. Partly because of the decades of peace, partly because of the general corruption, but in fact the Brits would not get a reputation for having a fearsome fighting force until the New Model Army under Fairfax and Cromwell comes into being, and years of Civil War change it into a lean mean fighting machine, and also by that time the American wealth gets pumped into Britain on a large scale. What James had at his disposal during his reign would not have fared any better than those same guys did once he'd breathed his last. Also, where would they have been fighting? Helping his daughter and son in law to recover the Palatinate and Bohemia? How would James have supplied British troops on the freaking continent, surrounded by Habsburg ruled territory, in the early years of the Thirty Years War? Or, if you want James to have attacked the Spanish coast the way Charles and Buckingham tried to as a rerun of the Elizabethan Age's Greatest Hits - what are your reasons to believe his navy would have done any better, with pretty much the same (lack of) command staff at his disposal? And finally, what exactly would have been gained for all the expense that putting GB on a war footing would have incurred? As opposed to the Armada situation, England wasn't under threat. Nor were their colonies. War with Spain inevitably means no trade with Spain, which means loss of money. Also: the Thirty Years War as it was was an unholy bloody mess devastating Europe. We don't think it would have ended any sooner if GB had thrown in their unprepared fighting men, such as there were, as well. It just would have gotten even more people killed.
=> James was smarter than all of you.
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-15 03:34 pm (UTC)Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-15 04:07 pm (UTC)(Not letting his daughter return to England after she and her husband got kicked out of Bohemia was harsh, and I can understand Elizabeth the Winter Queen going from "best Dad ever!" in her early letters to him just after her marriage to "my father has ever more hurt than helped us" a decade later. But: future Charles I had always been a sickly child. And during James' life time, he wasn't yet married, nor did he reproduce. Which means that if Charles had died while Elizabeth and her husband were in England, Elizabeth would have become Queen - and Frederick, the guy who had just started a cross European war by accepting the Bohemian Crown and who had proved his complete lack of military skills or ability to maintain a useful network of allies, would have become King. I can understand why James would do everything to avoid that prospect.)
Now, if I had to make a case against James, his obsession with witchcraft would certainly feature. He wasn't so blind (especially in his later years) that the posssibility of false testimony didn't occur to him, and he had some later cases investigated for that reason, but still, the man wrote an entire book to encourage the persecution of witches, which it duly did, and his idea that the storms that disrupted Anne's and his ships when they were about to marry each other had been conjured by a coven cost eight women their lives. Which was only the beginning. And you can argue he had as bad a taste in boyfriends as Heinrich (as in, the brother of Fritz).
(Here's a competition: Kalckreuth & Kaphengst vs Somerset & Buckingham!)
Not to mention that his idea of how to treat kid' Charles' stutter and walking problems were as barbaric as the medical regime kid future F1 was put under, with Charles lucking out what once he was in England, his appointed caretakers were Robert and Elizabeth Carey who actually had way more sensible ideas and put a stop to the other ones. ANd while we're talking family, given James himself was repeatedly kidnapped in his youth, I can see why he thought the heir of the throne had to be especially guarded and that he would only entrust him to people he really really trusted to do that, i.e. the Earl of Mar and his wife (who had been James' own governess and apparently the sole person kind to him in his childhood), but he could have been more understanding about Anne's desire to raise her own son. All not great traits! And none get critiqued by the Victorians.
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-17 01:42 am (UTC)(Here's a competition: Kalckreuth & Kaphengst vs Somerset & Buckingham!)
This one made me laugh. :)
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-17 07:23 am (UTC)Somerset: I guess we're not mentioning your bonkers attempt to make a pass at Mina as a way to keep Heinrich when he was truly sick of you, then. I may have made mistakes, but my wife loved me so much that she never once attempted to blame me, on the contrary, she insisted on exonorating me during every interrogation. I don't see any of the unfortunate women you ended up marrying doing that for you, Kalckreuth.
Buckingham: It's a severe insult to my financial acumen to compare me to Kaphengst. Yes, I spent a lot of money, but I also found ever new avenues to generate it, and I made my entire family rich. Meanwhile, he pissed away all that Heinrich gave him and ended up broke.
Kaphengst: Yeah, well, I never was impeached or accused of having poisoned Heinrich, was I? I didn't get murdered, only to have my murder greeted by near universal cheer in the entire country! My having a good time only affected me. And okay, Heinrich and his art collection and his plans to visit Paris. But still! I object to this comparison!
Lehndorff: Speaking entirely without bias and objectively, I vote Kalckreuth and Kaphengst being the worst.
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-18 02:06 am (UTC)Fritz: If Kaphengst and Kalckreuth didn't turn out like Somerset and Buckingham, it's only because I kept the lot of them, Henri and his boytoys, far, far away from power. That's why I did it. For Prussia. Not because I needed therapy via roleplay or anything. My impeccable taste, on the other hand...
Fredersdorf: :)
Henri: *cough*
Glasow*cough*Biche: Woof!
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-19 12:41 am (UTC)Buckingham: It's a severe insult to my financial acumen to compare me to Kaphengst.
Kaphengst: Yeah, well, I never was impeached or accused of having poisoned Heinrich, was I?
Hee!
And I love Lehndorff getting the last word!
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-22 08:15 pm (UTC)Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-19 12:39 am (UTC)Heh. Okay, I guess... I'm glad there's one guy who wasn't just completely traumatized :)
=> James was smarter than all of you.
HEE. Yeah! Go James!
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-17 08:59 am (UTC)Said Grannie was, naturally, a Kerr killed by Kerrs.
Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-17 02:25 pm (UTC)Re: David Bergeron: King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire - I
Date: 2024-01-19 12:43 am (UTC)