Understanding King James VI & I Conference
banner
kingjamesconf.bsky.social
Understanding King James VI & I Conference
@kingjamesconf.bsky.social
Conference to mark the Quatercentenary of King James VI&I's death

9-11 July 2025, Glasgow (Scotland)

https://understandingjames.wixsite.com/kingjamesconf
The ‘Wall of Jameses’ votes have been counted and the winner is… Nicholas Hilliard’s Lyte Jewel (c.1610-11)!!! (Modelled here by our speaker @emilyhay.bsky.social)
July 11, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Thank you to our speakers and attendees for making the conference so special! Wonderful to hear from so many scholars who work on or are intrigued by James VI & I… We hope you will keep the momentum going and we look forward to seeing what the future of Jacobean studies holds!
July 11, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Finally, we have the Biographers Roundtable.

Laura Stewart talks with Alex Courtney, Steven Reid, Clare Jackson and Steven Veerapen about what inspired them to write about King James, how they feel about the man himself, and how they see scholarship moving forward…
July 11, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Jennifer Ng argues that James’s Gentlemen of the Bedchamber were central to Jacobean diplomacy. Bedchamber spheres and spaces infiltrated the court with sites of reconciliation, and created paths to peaceful negotiations abroad…
July 11, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Amilia Gillies explores how James handled and responded to various ‘scandals’ between 1614-21. His involvement in the Suffolk and Lake cases reveal James’s role as an administrator of justice in these overlooked years…
July 11, 2025 at 11:20 AM
DAY THREE, PANEL TWO - Court Dynamics

Georgianna Ziegler looks at one remarkable letter from Esther Inglis to the king in 1620, which points to the openness of the pre-accession royal city that she remembered…
July 11, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Ashlyn Cudney joins us online to discuss the issues and opportunities involved in teaching James VI/I as a queer king. She suggests that teaching James in the context of queer theory enables students to become active participants in the narrative-making process…
July 11, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Megan Shaw joins us online from New Zealand to discuss the adoption of the Villiers kin into the royal family. Crucially, this was reinforced when Villiers - duke of Buckingham - married Katherine Manners and James became a ‘gossip’ or godfather to the couple and their children…
July 11, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Elizabeth Rébeillé-Borgella discusses James’ relationship with his first favourite, Esmé Stuart, duke of Lennox. She argues that their short relationship was so successful because it was based on ‘reciprocity, loyalty and love’…
July 11, 2025 at 9:58 AM
DAY THREE, PANEL ONE - Influential Relationships

Laura Leslie dissects James’s childhood relationship with his ‘Deddy’ and ‘Minny’, the earl and countess of Mar. His time with the Mars’ was a formative and underappreciated aspect of James’ reign…
July 11, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Next, Laura Bauld talks us through James in the Burrell Collection and curating LGBT+ histories.
July 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Kate Anderson talks us through the accessibility measures of the NGS exhibition, including these two recreations of James's jewels for visually impaired visitors.
July 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Our panellists discuss attracting target audiences, new scholarship on James and provide a wonderful insight into the choices and challenges behind the scenes of the curatorial process. So great to hear about recreating James's world for audiences through material culture.
July 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Witches?🧙 MQS? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Our panelists discuss how we might recenter & reevaluate popular perceptions of James, objects and material culture, including the process of creating the current National Galleries Scotland exhibition and Glasgow Life's film on their 1618 James portrait.
July 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
DAY TWO - Heritage and Curation

Our first of two roundtables focuses on James's representation in the heritage sector, discussing our panelists' experience as curatorial professionals, popular presentations of James and how we might reshape these in the future.
July 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
And now, time for questions after three stimulating talks!
July 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Our final speaker on the panel, Vanessa Barcelos joins us online from Miami, providing a close reading of James' pamphlet, 'A Counterblaste to Tobacco', as active racial discourse against indigenous Americans.
July 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Next up, Alexander Courtney talks us through James' pamphlet 'The True Lawe of Free Monarchies' as an intervention into Scottish domestic politics and religion and a response to his various adversaries...
July 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
DAY TWO, PANEL THREE - James' Writings

Luca Tenneriello shares his experiences translating James' famous treatise Basilikon Doron into Italian...
July 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
DAY TWO - Coin Workshop

Cameron Maclean leads a wonderful session on James’s coinage in Scotland and England at the Hunterian - Kelvin Hall.

A fantastic workshop showing the range of ways that coins were used to represent the king 👑
July 10, 2025 at 2:27 PM
DAY TWO - Book Workshop

Our own Alexandra Plane leads a wonderful session on Jacobean books in University of Glasgow Library. A fantastic workshop showing James's learning influences, library and writings 📖👑
July 10, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Hanna Mazheika talks us through the relationship between James and the Reformed nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. She questions how far James’s influence was about to reconcile religious factions in eastern Europe…
July 10, 2025 at 10:44 AM
DAY TWO, PANEL TWO - Foreign Policy and Diplomacy

Rima Greenhill explains the complex relationship between James and the Russians during his English reign…
July 10, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Ashley Brown suggests that the relationship between James and the Scottish universities was ‘an exercise in patience’…once again, there was a high degree of tension!
July 10, 2025 at 10:29 AM
DAY TWO, PANEL ONE - Loci of Control

Joe Ellis talks us through the political efficacy of James’s royal progresses. ‘The political’, he suggests, was a monarchs capacity to police a spatial framework, and his subjects ability to negotiate a place within it…
July 10, 2025 at 10:29 AM