1603: Scotland's King James VI became James I of England. Within a fortnight, the royal court moved to London. He promised to return to Scotland often but only made the journey once, in 1617.
James' accession is intriguing. It seems to have been cooked up by Robert Cecil who gave out the story that the dying Queen Elizabeth had consented to it by making a crown gesture with her hands when Cecil asked if she wanted the King of Scots to succeed her. That was his story anyway and there had been a lot of secretive communication going on between him and James in the last years of Elizabeth's life which could have resulted in a charge of high treason if these had come to light. He certainly benefited from arranging James' succession by keeping his post as Secretary of State and being created Earl of Salisbury. No-one seemed to recall that the Stuart succession contravened the terms of Henry VIII's Act of Succession (1544) which had barred the Scottish descendants of his sister Margaret from succeeding to the English throne. That Act had never been repealed but Cecil somehow ensured there would be no objections from Parliament. The new king had good cause to be grateful to him.
That the son of a woman who had been executed for plotting against his predecessor should then peaceably succeed her was quite remarkable. Cecil had ensured the union of the two Crowns and the future creation of Great Britain. At the very least he had ensured that the English throne passed to its senior claimant.
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (1563-1612):
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