Chapter 2 - THE ACCESSION OF KING JAMES I AND ENGLISH RELIGIOUS POETRY

Summary

WHEN King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England in 1603, many English poets felt that the event marked the beginning of a new cultural climate, one in which religious verse would be highly valued. His accession encouraged some poets to switch from writing secular verse to sacred or philosophical, and others to publish religious poetry that, while written during the earlier reign, could now be published to a more receptive climate. The result was an outpouring of religious verse in the years 1603–05. This chapter will focus on the optimism among writers that James would patronise religious and philosophic verse as never before. We see such great hope expressed in Academiae Oxoniensis (1603), a neo-Latin collection of panegyrics; John Davies of Hereford's Microcosmos (1603); Joshua Sylvester's translation of du Bartas' Les Sepmaines, William Leighton's Vertue Trium-phant (1603) and in the writings of Sir John Harington. Although the hopes of these poets were often frustrated, as James' patronage fell far short of expectations, their poetry is worthy of notice for the way it reflects the interaction between royal taste and national culture.

Queen Elizabeth died early on the morning of 24 March 1603; later the same morning James was proclaimed king of England. Messengers sped to the Scottish court at Edinburgh, and on 26 March James was informed by Robert Carey, Lord Hunsdon, of his new position.