Less famous than their Tudor cousins, the Stuart monarchs survived a plot to blow up the government and the only governmental execution of an anointed king in English history to restructure the nature of the monarchy and eventually join England and Scotland into a new nation. Four generations of Stuart monarchs led the country from the personal monarchy of the Tudors into the constitutional monarchy and the establishment of Great Britain.
The son of Mary Queen of Scots brought the Stuarts to the English throne. After the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I, James was greeted with relief and excitement as a male monarch. But even with the publication of the King James Version of the Bible, the king’s popularity didn’t last. The Stuart belief in the divine right of kings led to battles with subjects and Parliament, resulting in plots to blow up the government and eventually to civil wars. James’ son Charles I brought things to the breaking point. How did the monarchy survive?
Historian Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger explores the personalities of the Stuart monarchs and their ongoing troubles with the English Parliament and method of government, shining a light on how each contributed to the result: a lasting constitutional monarchy and the establishment of Great Britain.
Lloyd-Stanger is author of The Tudors by Numbers, published in 2023. Her latest book, Courting the Virgin Queen: The Suitors of Elizabeth I, gets a late-August release in the United States.
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