Expect spies, kidnappings, assassinations, and much more in Gareth Russell's "The Six Loves of James I."
What was your inspiration behind your most recent book?
Truthfully, it came from sheer greed for the story on my part. I had previously researched an aspect of King James’s life for a previous book of mine – “The Palace,” which is about the history of Hampton Court Palace, outside London, and the people who have lived there over the centuries. I was so fascinated by the bright colors and sharp edges of James that I knew that I wanted to write more about him.
When it came to decide ‘what next,’ the answer was easy for me – James.
What does Reading Rainbow mean to you?
The joy of a full picture.
It’s not about applying 21st-century standards, which is a claim you often hear when someone writes about a historical individual who wasn’t straight. When you allow homosexuality or bisexuality to really breath in this story, you can do two glorious things. The first is that you can interpret the sources properly and fairly, without feeling that you need to ignore certain parts or come up with convoluted conclusions. There are letters to James from the Duke of Buckingham, in which Buckingham writes that he can’t wait to feel James’s legs pinned in his arms again – and some historians once tried to argue that it was platonic. Reading without shame or fear allows you to read the past clearly.
The second thing that it means for me is that you get to incorporate all of a person’s personality into their biography. In James’s case, a Christian who believed in absolute monarchy, loved men, was sexually intimate with them, quarrelled with Parliament, and didn’t seem to know what a budget was. It’s a glorious, troubling, human contradiction.
Why do you feel representation of a variety of people is so important when it comes to writing books?
Because it’s the truth. Another British monarch once said that truth is the daughter of time. I like to think that’s true. With enough time, the truth comes out. A history with a variety of people missing is a history that’s incomplete.
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
I wanted to do something different, so I decided to center the book on King James, with a focus on the men he loved over the course of his life – from the charming but duplicitous Patrick Gray when he was eighteen through to his final love affair with “the most handsome man in England” George Villiers. It’s very much James’s story, but shaped by six love affairs, which I don’t think have received their fair share of attention in the past. They shaped him personally and they politically mattered.
What can fans expect from your book?
We start off with a murder at a royal dinner party and things escalate from there. There are spies, kidnappings, assassinations, plotting, handsome Highland chiefs, English dukes, and Welsh lords, witch-hunts, heartbreak, scandal, blackmailing, and appearances from Elizabeth I, Pocahontas, Shakespeare, and a scientist who lost his nose in a duel.
Above all, however, it’s a biography of a flawed but passionate man who had a huge impact. I feel lucky to write James’s story – you couldn’t make it up. It’s as if “Outlander” met “Wolf Hall,” and I hope that I’ve done it justice.
What’s up next for you in the bookish world?
Next, I’m off to Versailles and the fall of the French monarchy.
