Susan Doran is Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She has written sixteen books about the Tudors. From Tudor to Stuart (published in 2024) is the result of over eight years of research on the transition from Elizabeth I to James I and the early part of his reign, 1603 to 1612, where her history ends.
Part I of Doran’s book deals with the death of Elizabeth I and her legacy, background information about James up to 1603, two conspiracies that threaten James before he is crowned, and James’s careful management of his coronation and his presentation of himself and Queen Anna to his new subjects. Part II covers Queen Anna and their children, James I’s court and courtiers, his relationship with his privy council whose power was reduced because of a newly created department, the royal bedchamber, filled only with Scots. James brought people from Scotland into his court. When parliament failed to support his programs, he sometimes went to the courts to gain his objectives without their participation. Part III covers the ongoing struggle between Protestants and Puritans and the continuing presence of Catholics and recusants. The next to last chapter provides details about James’s efforts to promote a union of England and Scotland with one set of laws and the economic and social integration of the Scottish and English people. There was resistance to this project by people in both countries, and the union was not accomplished. Doran’s final chapter deals with the intricate maneuvers James took to assure peace between England and Spain as well as other powers in Europe.
An article by Michael Corrie Questier, The Reputation of James VI and I Revisited from The Journal of British Studies, published in 2022 points out problems associated with predominantly negative depictions of James I in the past. Questier argues that a “persistent Anglocentricity” has given an inaccurate picture of James I.(953) He further notes that critical scholarship of James I failed to place him in a European context where some of his undesirable behavior was not uncommon.(957). Questier urges historians to shift “away from seeing early modern government in anachronistic and modern terms – in other words, as if it were primarily about administrative efficiency and balanced budgets.”(953) Questier quotes Susan Doran writing in 2014 as one of the historians contributing to the negative image of James. Questier states: “Susan Doran could claim in 2014 that James’s ‘future English subjects possessed strong evidence that he was devious, duplicitous and capable of treachery.’ He was handicapped by ‘the general perception of him as weak and untrustworthy’ leading to ‘anxieties about his fitness to rule over England.’” (966).
These sentiments are not expressed in From Tudor to Stuart. In the chapter which covers some background information about James prior to 1603, Doran writes “James had developed into an accomplished and effective adult ruler. His political maneuverings with the Kirk and nobility brought domestic peace to Scotland as did his policy of ensuring that his government was broadly based. The king was also successful in his foreign policy. The terms of the Anglo-Scottish Treaty of Berwick had made him and Elizabeth formal allies but did not oblige either of them to enter the other’s wars.” (41) Doran relates how Sir Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I’s trusted advisor, maintained communication with James VI of Scotland during the last weeks of Elizabeth’s life. Cecil believed James’s hereditary connection as a great-great-grandson of Henry VII and his experience as King of Scotland made him the best candidate to replace Elizabeth after her death. Cecil and others thought that James would have the least difficulty being accepted by the people of England, and his accession would go smoothly.
In a general comment about historiography, Doran explains, “For many years, historians of England treated 1603 as a watershed moment. Their books either ended with Elizabeth’s death or began with James’s accession. In part, this division was a legacy of nineteenth-century accounts that projected the causes of the English Civil War back into James’s reign. James I was held responsible for transforming divine right theories into absolute principles and practices, while the Jacobean house of commons was thought to have ‘seized the initiative’ and begun to claim some form of parliamentary sovereignty.”(465) She notes that “Historians have long moved away from this interpretation.”(465)
Questier’s article argues that critical historians in the past failed to see James’s commitment to peace in “the Anglo-Spanish peace-making of 1604-05.”(962). In Doran’s last chapter, The Habsburgs and the Dutch (430-464), she carefully describes how James was able to achieve peace with France, Hapsburg Spain, and maintain good relations with Protestant countries including the Dutch. Henry IV valued James’s commitment to peace with France, but although France and Spain had negotiated a peace treaty, Henry wanted James to continue to support the resistance of the United Provinces to the Spanish Netherlands. James skillfully managed to achieve peace with Spain, maintain his friendly relations with France, and give himself room to permit English subjects to freely choose to join forces to help the United Provinces. James clearly saw that peace with Spain was a priority because Spain was too powerful to have as an enemy, and the costs of war were not in the best interests of England’s people. Similarly, maintaining a peaceful relationship with France, the country with Europe’s largest population was also good for England, and Scotland had had a positive relationship with France for years. In this section Doron provides numerous examples of the existence of bribes and lavish gifts in the process of European diplomacy. The modern critics of James must take the realities of Early Modern diplomacy into consideration.
In her conclusion, Doron argues that the despite the significant differences in personal style between Elizabeth and James, in the end little had changed between England in 1603 when Elizabeth died and 1612 when Doran’s history ends. “James did not introduce any radical overhaul of the administration or governance of the realm.”(471) “England remained firmly Protestant. Although James was more Calvinist in his theological beliefs [than Elizabeth], he, no more than she, would allow predestination doctrines to become fully part of the Church’s official teachings.”(472) “Both monarchs understood the royal supremacy to mean they had the right and duty to impose uniformity of religious practice on their subjects.”(473) “Both Elizabeth and James denied that they were making windows into their subjects’ souls, claiming instead that they allowed freedom of conscience.”(473) Local control through “commissions of peace and the work of JPs continued to grow.” (474) Doron ends her history by stating that in a later part of his reign “James was far less sure-footed, but that is the subject of another book.”(476) Readers like me must go elsewhere to learn the rest of James’s history.