A union made in my blood: hereditary right, Anglo-Scottish union, and the Jacobean manipulation of British history

Massey, Joseph B.R. (2022) A union made in my blood: hereditary right, Anglo-Scottish union, and the Jacobean manipulation of British history. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

When James VI & I succeeded to the English throne in 1603, his new position was justified as the result of the senior hereditary claim he inherited from Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. This thesis analyses how official and unofficial Jacobean works represented James’s inheritance of this hereditary claim. It explores whether objections previously made against James and his ancestors in the Elizabethan succession debates were subsequently resolved after James had secured the English throne, and whether this clarified the nature of the operation of the English succession. This thesis also analyses Jacobean representations of James’s hereditary claim to the Scottish throne and, indeed, whether Scotland’s monarchy was considered hereditary at all. Finally, it explores how these same ancestors were invoked to justify the Union of the Crowns and permanent Anglo-Scottish union as the legitimate outcomes of James’s combined hereditary claims to the thrones of England and Scotland. There has not yet been a thorough scholarly analysis of Jacobean representations of James’s hereditary claims to the English and Scottish thrones. Additionally, there has been limited scholarly analysis of the views of both James and his subjects on the relationship between his hereditary claims and Anglo-Scottish union. This thesis demonstrates that most Jacobean works—both official and unofficial—were not attempting to define how the English succession operated or address former objections against the hereditary claims of James and his ancestors, as they did not want to renew these former debates and risk James’s position being challenged. Additionally, the unwillingness of James’s Protestant subjects to publicly discuss his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, undermined his efforts to defend the hereditary nature of the Scottish crown. This thesis concludes that national and confessional identity ultimately determined how most English artists and writers represented James’s hereditary claim to the English throne, and its relationship to Anglo-Scottish union. James’s ancestry was used to anglicise both James himself and Anglo-Scottish union to appeal to an English audience, rather than relying solely on the legitimacy conveyed by hereditary right.