Product Review

Whether as lawgiver, tyrant or matyr, James I has cast a long shadow over the history of Scotland. Conditioned by a childhood surrounded by the rivalries of the Stewart family, and by 18 years of enforced exile in England, he was to prove a king very different from his elderly and conservative forerunners. The author concludes that, despite the apparent power and glamour, James I's "golden age" had shallow roots: after a life of drastically swinging fortunes, James I was to meet his end in a violent coup, a victim of his own methods.