24 March 1603
Accession of James I

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After the death of Elizabeth I, James VI, king of Scotland, becomes James I of England, uniting both countries under one crown, although each retains its own Parliament and its own Church. Under an arrangement made in 1586, Elizabeth, who was childless, agreed to pass the crown to James because he was a Protestant descended from the sister of her father, Henry VIII.

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As the English flocked to line his triumphant route south, they saw a man of middle height with a reddish beard, a powerful rider so that his bandy legs (from rickets in childhood) were not evident. He rode buoyantly through his cheering subjects, exuding intense gratification. On the way he conferred honours and knighthoods on the gentry who came to bend the knee – 237 knighthoods and hundreds more in the next four months, to English astonishment. This was the beginning of the so-called 'inflation of honours' that characterised James's reign, reckoned by many to cheapen honours but by James to represent the royal bounty.

From A Century of Troubles by Stevie Davies (Channel 4 Books)

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