‘Elizabeth was king,






Then James was queen.’ – English author (1603)





James Stuart, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland did not always love wisely, but he never failed to do so boldly.



He fell in love three times – once with George Villiers, ‘the handsomest man in the whole world’ – and he was infatuated three more times – including with a Highland earl and an English spy.


We have so much on the six wives of Henry VIII, why not the six loves of James I?


This groundbreaking new book puts James – genius, liar, spendthrift, idealist, witch-hunter – and the men he loved at the centre of one of the most dramatic stories in British royal history.


Beginning with the brutal and mysterious murder of his father in 1567, James’s life encompassed kidnapping, witchcraft trials, torture, his mother’s beheading, poison, political radicalism, religious fundamentalism, a queen’s alleged abortion, passionate sex, strong love, stronger hate, espionage, brothels, and a decade-long love affair that ended in assassination.


It is unquestionably one of the most gripping stories in British history, retold in Gareth Russell’s Queen James with scholarship, biographical insight and wit.