Stuart, James VI & I, Charles I, House of Stuart

In total, nine Stewart monarchs ruled just Scotland from 1371 until 1603. After this there was a Union of the Crowns under James VI & I who had become the senior genealogical claimant to all of the holdings of the extinct House of Tudor.

James the VI of Scotland and the I of England? 

Thus there were six Stuart monarchs who ruled both England and Scotland as well as Ireland (although the Stuart era was interrupted by an interregnum lasting from 1649–1660, as a result of the English Civil War).

Additionally, at the foundation of the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Acts of Union, which politically united England and Scotland, the first monarch was Anne of Great Britain. After her death, all the holdings passed to the House of Hanover, under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701. Are these engravings of King James (of James VI and I, House of Stuart, racially accurate? During the reign of the Stewarts, Scotland developed from a relatively poor and feudal country into a prosperous, fairly modern and centralised state.

They ruled during a time in European history of transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Monarchs such as James IV were known for sponsoring exponents of the Northern Renaissance such as poet Robert Henryson. After the Stewarts gained control of all of Great Britain, the arts and sciences continued to develop; many of William Shakespeare's best known plays were authored during the Jacobean era, while institutions such as the Royal Society and Royal Mail were established during the reign of Charles II.

Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scot 

James VI and I, House of Stuart, (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death.

The kingdoms of England and Scotland were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union.

He became King of Scotland at the age of thirteen months, succeeding his mother Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been compelled to abdicate in his favour.

Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. In 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, often using the title King of Great Britain and Ireland, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58. He based himself in England (the largest of the three realms) from 1603.

Lord Henry Darnley, House of Stuart

James began the Plantation of Ulster and of North America. Regents: James Stewart, Earl of Moray, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, John Erskine, Earl of Mar, James Douglas, Earl of Morton.

Mary, Queen of Scots, House of Stuart, (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was queen regnant of Scotland from 14 December 1542 to 24 July 1567 and queen consort of France from 10 July 1559 to 5 December 1560.

Mary was the only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scots. She was 6 days old when her father died and she was crowned nine months later. In 1558, she married Francis, Dauphin of France.

He ascended the French throne as King Francis II in 1559, and Mary became queen consort of France until she was widowed on 5 December 1560. Mary then returned to Scotland, arriving in Leith on 19 August 1561. Four years later, she married her first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Their union was unhappy and in February 1567, there was a huge explosion at their house, and Darnley was found dead, apparently strangled, in the garden.

John Erskine, Earl of Mar

She soon married the 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was generally believed to be Darnley's murderer. Following an uprising against the couple, Queen Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle on 15 June and forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, King James VI.

After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, Mary fled to England seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Mary had previously claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in the Rising of the North.

Perceiving her as a threat, Queen Elizabeth had her arrested. After 19 years in custody in a number of castles and manor houses in England, she was tried and executed for treason for her alleged involvement in three plots to assassinate Elizabeth. Elizabeth of Bohemia (19 August 1596 – 13 February 1662) was the eldest daughter of King James VI and I, King of Scotland, England, Ireland, and Anne of Denmark.

As the wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, she was Electress Palatine and briefly Queen of Bohemia. Due to her husband's short reign in Bohemia, Elizabeth is often referred to as the Winter Queen. With the demise of the Stuart dynasty in 1714, her descendants, the Hanoverian rulers, succeeded to the British throne.

Charles I, House of Stuart

Charles I, House of Stuart, (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.

Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles believed was divinely ordained.

 Many of his English subjects opposed his actions, in particular, his interference in the English and Scottish Churches and the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent which grew to be seen as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. Religious conflicts permeated Charles's reign.

His failure to successfully aid Protestant forces during the Thirty Years' War, coupled with such actions as marrying a Catholic princess, generated deep mistrust concerning the king's dogma. Charles further allied himself with controversial religious figures, such as the ecclesiastic Richard Montague, and William Laud, whom Charles appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of Charles' subjects felt this brought the Church of England too close to the Catholic Church.

Charles' later attempts to force religious reforms upon Scotland led to the Bishops' Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish Parliaments and helped precipitate the king's downfall. Charles' last years were marked by the English Civil War, in which he fought the forces of the English and Scottish Parliaments, which challenged the king's attempts to overrule and negate Parliamentary authority.

Henrietta Marie wife of Charles I

Whilst simultaneously using his position as head of the English Church to pursue religious policies which generated the antipathy of reformed groups such as the Puritans.

Charles was defeated in the First Civil War (1642–45), after which Parliament expected him to accept its demands for a constitutional monarchy.

He instead remained defiant by attempting to forge an alliance with Scotland and escaping to the Isle of Wight. This provoked the Second Civil War (1648–49) and a second defeat for Charles, who was subsequently captured, tried, convicted, and executed for high treason.

The monarchy was then abolished and a republic called the Commonwealth of England, also referred to as the Cromwellian Interregnum, was declared.

Convention uses the name "The English Civil War" (1642–51) to refer collectively to the civil wars in England and the Scottish Civil War, which began with the raising of King Charles I's standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642 and ended on 3 September 1651 at the Battle of Worcester. There was some continued organised Royalist resistance in Scotland, which lasted until the surrender of Dunnottar Castle to Parliament's troops in May 1652, but this resistance is not usually included as part of the English Civil War.

End of Part 2 of 7. The next blog 28/12/18. Revealing the true colour of King Charles II, House of Stuart, AKA the Black Boy piece by piece like a detective.