James VI & I: First King of Great Britain

James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603. He was thirty-six years old, and had been a king for nearly all his life, negotiating the complex politics of his minority with some skill. James was a man of huge intellect and lofty ideals. His aims throughout his life were entirely laudable - peace at home and abroad, reconciliation in religion and good government at home. Unfortunately, his personal characteristics of trying to please everyone, being rather shifty about the truth, having an inflated view of his own brilliance and ability to convince others, and, most dangerous of all in a king, his lack of resolution to follow a policy through, meant that his reign was not so successful as it might have been. Nevertheless, he brought England and Scotland together in peace, promoted a church that the majority of his subjects could accept, and left an adult male heir - more than many of his predecessors had achieved..