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ABOUT THIS BOOK

PUBLISHER: William Collins

ISBN: 9780008660857

RRP: £25.00

PAGES: 480

PUBLICATION DATE:
February 27, 2025

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Queen James: the Life and Loves of Britain’s First King

By Gareth Russell

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 – with a Scottish lord, a knight and George Villiers, ‘the handsomest man in the whole world’. He was infatuated three more times – with a Highland earl, a Welsh lord and an English spy.

We know so much about 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

Reviews of Queen James: the Life and Loves of Britain’s First King

'Books like this don't come along very often. Told with Gareth Russell's characteristic verve and exquisite eye for detail, it is a story so compelling and surprising that it feels as if it has been hiding in plain sight for 400 years. A stunning achievement and a must for history fans everywhere' Tracy Borman

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Gareth Russell

Gareth Russell is the author of a series of plays. In July 2011, his first novel Popular was published by Penguin, as the first in a new series of novels following the lives of a group of Belfast teenagers. It was published in German in 2014. A sequel to Popular, titled The Immaculate Deception, was published in November 2012. Both novels were subsequently adapted for the stage in Northern Ireland, followed by a final theatrical sequel, Say You’ll Remember Me, which received its first performance in 2016.

In August 2014, Russell’s first non-fiction book, The Emperors: How Europe’s Rulers were Destroyed by World War One, was published by Amberley Publishing. In 2017, his biography of English queen consort Catherine Howard was published, based on research undertaken between 2010 and 2016. It was published by Simon & Schuster in the US and Canada, and HarperCollins in the UK, Ireland, and most of the Commonwealth. It was a finalist for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography award in 2017, which was won that year by Edmund Gordon’s biography of Angela Carter. In 2019, his account of the Titanic disaster was published. It was named a Book of the Year by The Times and a Best History Book of 2019 by The Daily Telegraph.

In 2022, his biography of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was published. It was his second book to become a Times Book of the Year. In the same year, he was a main contributor to BBC Northern Ireland’s and Al Jazeera’s coverage for the death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and accession of Charles III.

In 2023, Russell’s The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of History at Hampton Court was published. It was named a BBC History Book of the Year.