Nice piece. Another of the great ‘what ifs’ of British history - what might have happened (or not happened) had James’s eldest son Henry not died, leaving the priggish, thin-skinned Charles to succeed.
Indeed, James was very interested in the supernatural - which was one of the reasons that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth the way he did. Note too at the denouement, the symbolism depicted in the ‘unity’ of the Scots and English lords.
It was both a work of flattery and subtle political propaganda.
The play was one of the Bard’s shortest, written so because James had a notoriously short attention span.
There's an excellent new book about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. One of the most interesting points, to me, about James I was his determination to keep out of continental wars.
It has often intrigued me that Scotland and England were officially two separate realms for roughly a century (apart from the brief Commonwealth period) in spite of sharing a sovereign, and that the United Kingdom of Great Britain came about to a large degree due to Scotland virtually bankrupting itself over a disastrous misadventure in Panama!
With that in mind I have wondered myself whether Scotland's yearning for 'independence' would not be better mitigated and satisfied by a re-division of the Crowns.
The late Queens funeral and the Coronation srvice at St Giles were splendid.
They already have their own religion and their own legal system. The departure of the court from Edinburgh with James has long festered as the most unkindest cut of all in Scottish cultural history.
An observer said that ‘he apprehends clearly, judges wisely and has a retentive memory’. He was also very witty, ‘but delivered his droll remarks in a grave and serious voice’, in Ackroyd’s words (a very Scottish form of wit).
There is a story that Elizabeth asked James when he was still just King of Scotland to punish Ruairidri of Harris IIRC who was attacking English ships in the North Channel. James rebuked the Highlander who fell to his knees and begged forgiveness
``That I did raise my hand against the murderer of your mother'' That reads better if you imagine it given deapan too...
Charles I was a personally brave, sober and pious man who well saw what would come of the discordancy that followed the Rebellion.
His speech in Westminster Hall was almost prophetic.
If he fell it was because he had opposed to himself currents of thought and action no King of England had ever known before. Such a collapse in deference to the legitimate King of England was almost unknown.
One struggles now to reclaim to Early Modern notion that Rebellion was a foul sin even before it was a crime. No rightly crowned King (Henry VI was declared a usurper) could have expected to be resisted like Charkes was by the Rebels.
Added to that he was unable or still more unwilling - to use the methods that Cromwell later used against Political dissent.
Cromwell was no better at ruling through Parliament than Charles was, remember. Only he was more ruthless.
Re: I must heartily and respectfully disagree. Charles I was a personally brave, sober and pious man
He may well have been a good guy personally but that does not mean he was a good ruler. Over here Jimmy Carter was a good Christian man-- but a rather poor president. In fact leaders need a certain hard core SOB aspect to their nature. And even a rightful monarch should be able to inspire his people to follow his lead-- just asserting Dieu Et Mon Droigt does not work.
If Charles had been a good king there would have never been a English Civil War which deposed him. You can say similar things about Louis XVI in France and Nicholas II in Russia-- both were also good guys personally, but made an utter botch of their rule, leading to disastrous results.
Of course it is arguable but I think the progress of the Civil Wars and Protectorate shows that keeping The Puritan/Parliamentary Party and the Episcopal/Royalist party bound within the head of Zeus would have been beyond the ability of any statesman.
The eruption would have come sooner or later.
Cromwell only achieved his Peace of Calgacus by fire and sword in Scotland and Ireland, and extra Parliamentary repression in England - precisely what Charles was being accused of planning in 1639 by his Parliamentary enemies.
We can never be certain, of course, but I suspect history is markedly less deterministic than we imagine. In the case of Charles, by attempting to force an episcopate on the Scottish Church, and then backing down, he demonstrated an enfeebled tyranny. This weakness merely enboldened his enemies. We see the same feebleness when he truned up at the House of Commons and the birds had flown.
A bit of targetted Cromwellian ruthlessness, and an effective intelligence service, would have saved the Nations a good deal of inconvenience.
Well, I only argued that Louis XVI was a decent guy personally. Unfortunately he was weak willed and whoever had his ear last determined his choices.
France was beset with problems in the mid 17th century too (see: the Fronde) But Louis XIV took command and transformed his nation even if there was a cost to that and not everything worked out.
I don’t approve of it, but to the victor the spoils. What I meant was, the Irish fought as insurgents, popping up and surprising the enemy then melting back into the population and the remoter parts of the country. The way an established army deals with that is to hunt them down, burn down their homes and destroy their farms. It’s a horrible thing to do, but it is how you respond if you want to win. Similar thing with the Boer War, where the British army was outclassed by a smaller force using insurgent tactics and so Kitchener shamefully herded the Boer families into concentration camps - all so that British diamond and gold dealers could get even richer.
A bit peripheral to the main focus of this entertaining historical account, but perhaps more relevant to the overarching themes of this substack:
Did you know that in 1964 the Bank of England approved a new design for the ten-shilling note (which they expected to be issued as a 50-pence note after decimalisation), and the historical figure that was meant to feature on the reverse was Sir Walter Raleigh?
Just think of the uproar that would greet any such suggestion nowadays! It's one of those anecdotes that seem to symbolise how much this country has changed in sixty years.
"James’s refusal to bow to radical Protestant pressure would help spur the American project. He had said of the Puritans that ‘I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse’, and indeed it was his refusal to concede which led, in 1620, to a number of them founding an even more influential colony, at Plymouth. And here, indeed, Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick, could meet and make laws themselves"
One has to wonder what would have happened if James's eldest son Henry Frederick had lived to take the throne instead of Charles. Henry was apparently a pretty hardcore Protestant . So unlike with Charles, there would likely not have been the Puritan discontent that lead to quite nasty events.
James is one of those figures in our history who mean different things to a man at different ages. In my bachelor days I used to seethe at the thought of his complacency during the Continental Wars of Religion.
As I got older I appreciated the merciful benignity of his carefully cultivated self-interest which, while it may have 'circumscribed his virtues', equally 'confined his crimes' which is a better elegy than many statesmen achieve.
P.S.
I think, Mr West, you would enjoy David Hackett Fischer's book Albions Seed (if you haven't already read it).
I think it speaks to a number of the themes which you take an interest in and interrogate so well on this blog.
We can also give James credit for sponsoring the definitive English Bible. Though it has some errors of translation, it is one of the great masterworks of our language, and the basis of English-speaking Christianity.
Talking of flags, the Gunpowder Plot seems to me to be almost like a false one. Motive? Frighten the king - who as you say, was no ardent Protestant - into taking repressive measures against the perpetrators and to provide an illustration to a wider audience of the danger posed by Papists. How convenient that they were caught with barrels of gunpowder in the cellars underneath parliament! What are the chances? Apparently one of the malcontents blabbed about the plot a few days beforehand, but the whole thing could have been a set up from its beginning (in Antwerp I think) when this odd bunch of ‘terrorists’ led by hothead Guido Fawkes first began to conspire.
did I mention that I went to a Gunpowder Plot experience last year, there were about 18 people, and we were told that it would kill hundreds or maybe thousands, and at the end we had to vote on whether to inform the authorities - only me and one other person chose to. Bad news for Prevent.
Just checked Wikipedia, the plot might have been conceived in the Spanish Netherlands, but it was firmed up during meetings of the plotters in a series of London taverns…what could possibly go wrong?
I have nothing to add but my appreciation. Thank you for another compelling history lesson, which sparks hours of enjoyable fun on the internet. Reading about John Felton I was reminded of the tasteless adulation for modern murderers. And reading of Rizzio's assassination reminded me of being a young child on a Holyrood summer holiday visit with mum and dad, who were both ghoulishly keen to see the spot where he died (I think largely because they were fans of Ian Holmes' acting! Didn't he play Rizzio in one of those lavish films? Or is this another false memory!)
I said to a friend the other day that historians who can write appealingly and well about history and contemporary society are not numerous and we were both very glad to have you in their number. Long may you thrive, Ed!
The Stewarts wisely feared assassination: Scotland was turvulant, violent and had a tradition of regicide. Wasn't there a scandal about James himself killing a man in a homosexual encounter?
Witches, of course. Prostestants were obsessed and didn't do evidence. The Inquisition had , amongst its many reforms, dropped witchcraft as a crime.
Mary was Scottish not French, she had lived in France and up to the time of the horrible Knox, Scotland was Catholic. That was an auto-da-fe that sadly didn't happen.
Surely the Architect of Stonehenge can claim to be the First Briton given the all Island nature of the construction?
Witches were burned in Catholic Bavaria, the devoutly Catholic Elector Maximilian of Bavaria taking a hand in the torture of suspected witches.
The Scottish Reformation didn't begin with Knox, though he was involved in the 1546 murder of the Scottish Catholic leader Cardinal Beaton (whom the conspirators dragged from his bed where he had been canoodling with his mistress). The Reformation swept through Scotland like a forest fire, needing little help from Knox.
Knox left the Catholic Church because he believed it was wrong in teaching we could earn salvation by doing good works.
Actually, that isn't Catholic doctrine - though, to this day, many (most?) Catholics imagine that it is.
Well, neither is Faith and Works, as it concerns the invidual's salvation.
But whatever prompted the individual to make the leap to Protestantism (a terrifying leap even emotionally in the 16th century), the underlying cause was probably disillusionment - caused by the spectacle of a worldly or debauched clergy, a lukewarm laity and a medieval Catholic culture that had often lost spiritual meaning and dwindled into mere custom and folklore.
This disillusionment led many Catholics to reject all Catholic doctrines that aren't stated explicitly in the Bible.
A dangerous move, as some very basic Christian doctrines - the Trinity, the nature of the Lord's Supper - aren't stated explicitly in the Bible.
Not to rehearse an old argument, but just in case you (or anyone reading) were not familiar with the opposing view, Nicene Christians hold that the Trinity is explicitly invoked in a number of places in the Bible.
In the Gospels we read its most emphatic statement in Matthew 28:19. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:" It is also described in 1 John 5:7. " "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.".
The Trinity is also explicitly in the Epsitles, being set forth in the 'Grace' at the end of Second Corinthians - "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all"
We also believe that it is foretold both Typologically, in the Old Testament in incidents such as the meeting of Abraham with the three figures by the Oaks of Mamre in Genesis 18, and Prophetically as in Isaiah 48:16 "Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me".
The Epistles are, we must remember, older than the Gospels however the Typological and Prophetic view of the Old Testament is in fact older than either of them.
Many Moderns, of course reject this interpretaion for a number of reasons but that puts them outside what has been orthodox Christianity since the time of Christ and his contemporaries.
Re: Darnley was tall, well-educated and an expert in the manly arts of swordsmanship - he was also drunk and violent, and eventually murderous.
On paper he was a good match: he had English royal (Tudor) blood on his mother's side and Scottish royal blood on his father's. In fact, while Mary was childless he had pretty good claim to be the nearest heir. But yeah, in terms of his behavior he was a fatal mistake.
Good anniversary spot!
Nice piece. Another of the great ‘what ifs’ of British history - what might have happened (or not happened) had James’s eldest son Henry not died, leaving the priggish, thin-skinned Charles to succeed.
Indeed, James was very interested in the supernatural - which was one of the reasons that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth the way he did. Note too at the denouement, the symbolism depicted in the ‘unity’ of the Scots and English lords.
It was both a work of flattery and subtle political propaganda.
The play was one of the Bard’s shortest, written so because James had a notoriously short attention span.
yes it was written for a royal performance. presumably the director's cut is lost forever.
Henry was obviously temperamentally better suited to the role than his poor brother....
There's an excellent new book about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. One of the most interesting points, to me, about James I was his determination to keep out of continental wars.
I reviewed the book here:
https://marqueg68.substack.com/p/buckinghams-bio
It has often intrigued me that Scotland and England were officially two separate realms for roughly a century (apart from the brief Commonwealth period) in spite of sharing a sovereign, and that the United Kingdom of Great Britain came about to a large degree due to Scotland virtually bankrupting itself over a disastrous misadventure in Panama!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSEthIilgk&pp=ygUXbWFzYW1hbiBzY290dGlzaCBwYW5hbWE%3D
very funny that they chose to colonise the most hellishly hot place on earth too.
Can I interest you in some wool blankets
With that in mind I have wondered myself whether Scotland's yearning for 'independence' would not be better mitigated and satisfied by a re-division of the Crowns.
The late Queens funeral and the Coronation srvice at St Giles were splendid.
They already have their own religion and their own legal system. The departure of the court from Edinburgh with James has long festered as the most unkindest cut of all in Scottish cultural history.
Given that their own religion appears to be Islam that's more of a unifer given Londonistan's emergence....
An observer said that ‘he apprehends clearly, judges wisely and has a retentive memory’. He was also very witty, ‘but delivered his droll remarks in a grave and serious voice’, in Ackroyd’s words (a very Scottish form of wit).
There is a story that Elizabeth asked James when he was still just King of Scotland to punish Ruairidri of Harris IIRC who was attacking English ships in the North Channel. James rebuked the Highlander who fell to his knees and begged forgiveness
``That I did raise my hand against the murderer of your mother'' That reads better if you imagine it given deapan too...
Today is also 400 years Charles I became King.
If you listen to the revolutions podcast and read https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forgotten-Slave-Trade-European-Slaves
Charles I does not come over as very intelligent.
I have started my own free substack first post here
https://reginaldaster.substack.com/p/a-boomerang-murder-in-bogota
I've seen lists of English monarchs ranked by competence and Charles is near the bottom, keeping company with Henry VI and Edward II.
He was a terrible monarch, until the last week of his life, when he was inspiring one.
I must heartily and respectfully disagree.
Charles I was a personally brave, sober and pious man who well saw what would come of the discordancy that followed the Rebellion.
His speech in Westminster Hall was almost prophetic.
If he fell it was because he had opposed to himself currents of thought and action no King of England had ever known before. Such a collapse in deference to the legitimate King of England was almost unknown.
One struggles now to reclaim to Early Modern notion that Rebellion was a foul sin even before it was a crime. No rightly crowned King (Henry VI was declared a usurper) could have expected to be resisted like Charkes was by the Rebels.
Added to that he was unable or still more unwilling - to use the methods that Cromwell later used against Political dissent.
Cromwell was no better at ruling through Parliament than Charles was, remember. Only he was more ruthless.
Re: I must heartily and respectfully disagree. Charles I was a personally brave, sober and pious man
He may well have been a good guy personally but that does not mean he was a good ruler. Over here Jimmy Carter was a good Christian man-- but a rather poor president. In fact leaders need a certain hard core SOB aspect to their nature. And even a rightful monarch should be able to inspire his people to follow his lead-- just asserting Dieu Et Mon Droigt does not work.
If Charles had been a good king there would have never been a English Civil War which deposed him. You can say similar things about Louis XVI in France and Nicholas II in Russia-- both were also good guys personally, but made an utter botch of their rule, leading to disastrous results.
Of course it is arguable but I think the progress of the Civil Wars and Protectorate shows that keeping The Puritan/Parliamentary Party and the Episcopal/Royalist party bound within the head of Zeus would have been beyond the ability of any statesman.
The eruption would have come sooner or later.
Cromwell only achieved his Peace of Calgacus by fire and sword in Scotland and Ireland, and extra Parliamentary repression in England - precisely what Charles was being accused of planning in 1639 by his Parliamentary enemies.
'The eruption would have come sooner or later.'
We can never be certain, of course, but I suspect history is markedly less deterministic than we imagine. In the case of Charles, by attempting to force an episcopate on the Scottish Church, and then backing down, he demonstrated an enfeebled tyranny. This weakness merely enboldened his enemies. We see the same feebleness when he truned up at the House of Commons and the birds had flown.
A bit of targetted Cromwellian ruthlessness, and an effective intelligence service, would have saved the Nations a good deal of inconvenience.
I would disagree about Louis XVI he had various problems which made his situation tricky (France was bust).
Charles I needlessly made things worse by the Bishops Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishops%27_Wars One of the biggest
unenforced errors in history. I would strongly recommend listening to the revolutions podcast.
Well, I only argued that Louis XVI was a decent guy personally. Unfortunately he was weak willed and whoever had his ear last determined his choices.
France was beset with problems in the mid 17th century too (see: the Fronde) But Louis XIV took command and transformed his nation even if there was a cost to that and not everything worked out.
Very true.
" Louis XVI was a decent guy personally. Unfortunately he was weak willed and whoever had his ear last determined his choices."
Cromwell was a cruel, ignorant savage. Ask the Irish!
He did what he had to do when fighting an insurgency.
He was the insurgent!
I don’t approve of it, but to the victor the spoils. What I meant was, the Irish fought as insurgents, popping up and surprising the enemy then melting back into the population and the remoter parts of the country. The way an established army deals with that is to hunt them down, burn down their homes and destroy their farms. It’s a horrible thing to do, but it is how you respond if you want to win. Similar thing with the Boer War, where the British army was outclassed by a smaller force using insurgent tactics and so Kitchener shamefully herded the Boer families into concentration camps - all so that British diamond and gold dealers could get even richer.
Charles I was a good connoisseur of painting and a keen reader of Shakespeare before it was fashionable to be one.
His political intelligence was, however, minimal.
A bit peripheral to the main focus of this entertaining historical account, but perhaps more relevant to the overarching themes of this substack:
Did you know that in 1964 the Bank of England approved a new design for the ten-shilling note (which they expected to be issued as a 50-pence note after decimalisation), and the historical figure that was meant to feature on the reverse was Sir Walter Raleigh?
Just think of the uproar that would greet any such suggestion nowadays! It's one of those anecdotes that seem to symbolise how much this country has changed in sixty years.
even if you went back to 2002 and the 100 Greatest Britons. Imagine how fake and orchestrated that would now be
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_Britons
Gosh, 2002! I remember it well.
"James’s refusal to bow to radical Protestant pressure would help spur the American project. He had said of the Puritans that ‘I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse’, and indeed it was his refusal to concede which led, in 1620, to a number of them founding an even more influential colony, at Plymouth. And here, indeed, Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick, could meet and make laws themselves"
One has to wonder what would have happened if James's eldest son Henry Frederick had lived to take the throne instead of Charles. Henry was apparently a pretty hardcore Protestant . So unlike with Charles, there would likely not have been the Puritan discontent that lead to quite nasty events.
A good piece - timely and fair.
James is one of those figures in our history who mean different things to a man at different ages. In my bachelor days I used to seethe at the thought of his complacency during the Continental Wars of Religion.
As I got older I appreciated the merciful benignity of his carefully cultivated self-interest which, while it may have 'circumscribed his virtues', equally 'confined his crimes' which is a better elegy than many statesmen achieve.
P.S.
I think, Mr West, you would enjoy David Hackett Fischer's book Albions Seed (if you haven't already read it).
I think it speaks to a number of the themes which you take an interest in and interrogate so well on this blog.
it's a great book. probably one of the best I've read
We can also give James credit for sponsoring the definitive English Bible. Though it has some errors of translation, it is one of the great masterworks of our language, and the basis of English-speaking Christianity.
Talking of flags, the Gunpowder Plot seems to me to be almost like a false one. Motive? Frighten the king - who as you say, was no ardent Protestant - into taking repressive measures against the perpetrators and to provide an illustration to a wider audience of the danger posed by Papists. How convenient that they were caught with barrels of gunpowder in the cellars underneath parliament! What are the chances? Apparently one of the malcontents blabbed about the plot a few days beforehand, but the whole thing could have been a set up from its beginning (in Antwerp I think) when this odd bunch of ‘terrorists’ led by hothead Guido Fawkes first began to conspire.
5/11 was an inside job :)
did I mention that I went to a Gunpowder Plot experience last year, there were about 18 people, and we were told that it would kill hundreds or maybe thousands, and at the end we had to vote on whether to inform the authorities - only me and one other person chose to. Bad news for Prevent.
Just checked Wikipedia, the plot might have been conceived in the Spanish Netherlands, but it was firmed up during meetings of the plotters in a series of London taverns…what could possibly go wrong?
I have nothing to add but my appreciation. Thank you for another compelling history lesson, which sparks hours of enjoyable fun on the internet. Reading about John Felton I was reminded of the tasteless adulation for modern murderers. And reading of Rizzio's assassination reminded me of being a young child on a Holyrood summer holiday visit with mum and dad, who were both ghoulishly keen to see the spot where he died (I think largely because they were fans of Ian Holmes' acting! Didn't he play Rizzio in one of those lavish films? Or is this another false memory!)
I said to a friend the other day that historians who can write appealingly and well about history and contemporary society are not numerous and we were both very glad to have you in their number. Long may you thrive, Ed!
James VI and I was certainly a skilled politician, but rather let down by his personal weaknesses.
Sadly, the political problems facing him in England, were insoluble.
This was enjoyable and informative. Appreciate it, Ed.
Love your histories.
The Stewarts wisely feared assassination: Scotland was turvulant, violent and had a tradition of regicide. Wasn't there a scandal about James himself killing a man in a homosexual encounter?
Witches, of course. Prostestants were obsessed and didn't do evidence. The Inquisition had , amongst its many reforms, dropped witchcraft as a crime.
Mary was Scottish not French, she had lived in France and up to the time of the horrible Knox, Scotland was Catholic. That was an auto-da-fe that sadly didn't happen.
Surely the Architect of Stonehenge can claim to be the First Briton given the all Island nature of the construction?
Witches were burned in Catholic Bavaria, the devoutly Catholic Elector Maximilian of Bavaria taking a hand in the torture of suspected witches.
The Scottish Reformation didn't begin with Knox, though he was involved in the 1546 murder of the Scottish Catholic leader Cardinal Beaton (whom the conspirators dragged from his bed where he had been canoodling with his mistress). The Reformation swept through Scotland like a forest fire, needing little help from Knox.
Knox left the Catholic Church because he believed it was wrong in teaching we could earn salvation by doing good works.
Actually, that isn't Catholic doctrine - though, to this day, many (most?) Catholics imagine that it is.
Do you mean that Knox's initial impetus for leaving the Roman Church?
Because he also rejected the the Mass, Purgatory, Prayers for the dead and even Episcopacy itself.
It was not a trifling disagreement!
Well, neither is Faith and Works, as it concerns the invidual's salvation.
But whatever prompted the individual to make the leap to Protestantism (a terrifying leap even emotionally in the 16th century), the underlying cause was probably disillusionment - caused by the spectacle of a worldly or debauched clergy, a lukewarm laity and a medieval Catholic culture that had often lost spiritual meaning and dwindled into mere custom and folklore.
This disillusionment led many Catholics to reject all Catholic doctrines that aren't stated explicitly in the Bible.
A dangerous move, as some very basic Christian doctrines - the Trinity, the nature of the Lord's Supper - aren't stated explicitly in the Bible.
Not to rehearse an old argument, but just in case you (or anyone reading) were not familiar with the opposing view, Nicene Christians hold that the Trinity is explicitly invoked in a number of places in the Bible.
In the Gospels we read its most emphatic statement in Matthew 28:19. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:" It is also described in 1 John 5:7. " "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.".
The Trinity is also explicitly in the Epsitles, being set forth in the 'Grace' at the end of Second Corinthians - "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all"
We also believe that it is foretold both Typologically, in the Old Testament in incidents such as the meeting of Abraham with the three figures by the Oaks of Mamre in Genesis 18, and Prophetically as in Isaiah 48:16 "Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me".
The Epistles are, we must remember, older than the Gospels however the Typological and Prophetic view of the Old Testament is in fact older than either of them.
Many Moderns, of course reject this interpretaion for a number of reasons but that puts them outside what has been orthodox Christianity since the time of Christ and his contemporaries.
1 John 5:7 is also translated as "the Spirit, water and blood testify..."
Early manuscripts of Matthew 28:19 include a non-trinitarian baptismal formula.
2 Corinthians 13:14 is variously interpreted.
In other words, the doctrine of the Trinity can only be proven by statements of the Church, not from the written Word alone.
Re: Darnley was tall, well-educated and an expert in the manly arts of swordsmanship - he was also drunk and violent, and eventually murderous.
On paper he was a good match: he had English royal (Tudor) blood on his mother's side and Scottish royal blood on his father's. In fact, while Mary was childless he had pretty good claim to be the nearest heir. But yeah, in terms of his behavior he was a fatal mistake.