John Chamberlain (letter Writer) - King James and The Court

King James and The Court

Though Chamberlain circulated among members of the upper gentry, he was never close to court circles, nor did he wish to be. In Notestein's words, "The reader of Chamberlain gains little respect for the Court of James I". Chamberlain's letters give well-informed reports on the greatest scandal of James's reign, the divorce and later conviction for murder of Frances Howard, Countess of Essex. Even before the countess's divorce from the Earl of Essex to marry Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, the king's favourite, Chamberlain reported that the countess had approached a "wise woman" to help her do away with her husband. On 14 October 1613, he noted both the divorce of the Essexes and the death of Robert Carr's friend Thomas Overbury in the Tower of London: "The foulness of his corpse gave suspicion and leaves aspersion that he should die of the pox or somewhat worse". Frances Howard married Robert Carr shortly after her divorce, with the king's blessing, the pair becoming the Duke and Duchess of Somerset. It emerged in 1615, however, that Overbury had been poisoned, and in 1616 the couple were found guilty of conspiring in his murder and locked in the Tower. Historians often quote Chamberlain's letters as a source for these events. His tone is one of shame and disgust at the court, but he reports the facts objectively, without gloating at the demise of the Somersets.

In an age when spies were everywhere and letters insecure in transit, Chamberlain was discreet in his comments about King James, the Scottish king who inherited the throne from Elizabeth I of England in 1603. However, it becomes clear from his letters that Chamberlain was not impressed by James. "He forgets not business," he wrote, "but he hath found the art of frustrating men's expectations and holding them in suspense". Chamberlain affords us more glimpses of James's character than any other contemporary source; his letters provide an insight into how people of his class viewed the monarch and the court.

Despite Chamberlain's disapproval of James, nowhere does he report the clumsy and gross figure depicted later in the seventeenth century by anti-Stuart historians, such as Anthony Weldon; nor does he ever imply that James's love for his male favourites was homosexual, though this may have been through prudence. Rather, he reports James's egoism, imperiousness, and lack of judgement. He tells us, for example, that during a sermon by the Bishop of London, James began interrupting so loudly that the Bishop could not continue; and when courtiers told James it was not the fashion to have a play on Christmas night, he retorted: "I will make it a fashion". Chamberlain also noted the officiousness of James, who liked to take a personal interest in scandals and court cases and was forever throwing people in the tower for speaking out of order. "I should rather wish him, " wrote Chamberlain, "to contemn these barking whelps and all their bawlings than to trouble himself with them, and bring these things to scanning, for it breeds but more speech, and to see silly men so severely censured begets commiseration". Chamberlain also provides valuable details of the king's habits. He reports, for example, that even when ill, James maintained his interest in country sports: "He is so desirous to see certain hawks fly, that he would not be stayed"; if he could not hunt, he would have his deer "brought to make a muster before him".

Chamberlain regarded James as extravagant, and a poor judge of men. In particular, he frowns at James's tendency to give away royal bounty and crown lands to his favourites when he was often unable to pay government officials. Chamberlain does not seem to admire any of the Howard family who came to power after the death of Robert Cecil in 1612, nor James's favourites Robert Carr, Duke of Somerset, and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.