The Cradle King (20 page)

Four days later, they were married in the same venue, ‘with all the splendour possible at that time and place’. The hall was decorated with tapestries, and the couple stood on a piece of red cloth, with two chairs covered in red damask. At 2 p.m. the Danes and Norwegians accompanied James from his lodgings to take him to his bride. When the couple arrived, James walked on to the red cloth, standing ‘with his hands on his hips’. Anna followed, to stand at his side. After some brief singing,
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the service, a standard homily on marriage, was conducted in French by the Leith minister David Lindsay, who described the bride as ‘a princess both godly and beautiful, as appeareth to all that knoweth her’.
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After plighting their troth, the marriage was blessed, and the bishop delivered an oration in Danish. As the couple left, the local bishop saluted James in Latin, wishing him good fortune in his new marriage and in his reign. ‘Hoc scio te ex corde precari’ (I know that you wish it from your heart), James replied. ‘Certe ex corde precatur’ (certainly he wishes it from his heart), said Maitland. ‘Hoc lubens accipio’ (then it is dear to me), replied the King.
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The wedding breakfast was perhaps less than spectacular: ‘a reasonable banquet being on such an accident,’ as one observer put it sniffily.
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Leading Nordic scholars such as Jacob Jacobssøn Wolf, Anders Sørensen Vedel, Halvard Gunnarssøn and Jens Nielssøn wrote eulogies in Latin, and were rewarded with lavish gifts.
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A month of celebrations followed, including a welcome day of hunting on the island of Hovedøya.
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On 22 December, the newlyweds set out for Denmark, to spend the first few months of their marriage at Elsinore’s then newly built Kronborg Castle.
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As James left, ‘he stood up in the sledge and bade all the people good night not only in Scots but also in Danish’.
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En route, he was ‘well entertained by the way in many of the priests’ houses’, and, according to David Calderwood (perhaps with wishful thinking), ‘he had occasion to consider and to take to heart the poverty of the ministers of Scotland, and to think upon some remeed [remedy]’.
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On 4 January, at Bohus, the King and his Queen danced, one of the very few times James is known to have indulged since his childhood displays for visiting dignitaries.
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Finally on 21 January, James and Anna reached Elsinore, sailing there in a small boat sumptuously furnished in red velvet. They were back in the world of courtly ceremony, and they entered the castle in a formal procession, with each Scottish councillor escorted by a member of the Danish Council. James was greeted by his mother-in-law, dowager Queen Sophia, the ten-year-old King Christian IV, Duke Ulrick, and Christian’s four regents.

James was to be based at Elsinore until early March,
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and the pervasive mood was alcoholic. Whether fairly or not, the Danes had gained an international reputation for their drinking, starting the day with the traditional Danish spirits
brœndevin,
moving on to German ale, and finishing off with Prussian beer. Ben Jonson claimed that the Danes were seeking to ‘drench | Their cares in wine’ but more importantly, according to Cornelius Hamsfort, court doctor to Anna’s father, Frederick II, drunkenness was deemed a sign of manliness. Frederick had been infamous for his drinking, indulging in a drunken fistfight at his sister’s wedding, and falling from his horse into a river: the oration at his funeral frankly admitted that drinking had shortened his life. If James’s baptism had spoken volumes about Scotland’s factional religiosity and strained international relations, then perhaps Christian’s 1577 baptism had done the same for the Danish national character: in a mock battle between the ancient Israelites and the Philistines, the Danes playing the Philistines were drunk enough to ignore history, and refused to yield to David and his men, instead beating up the Israelites, before the entire nobility piled in.
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The King of Scots soon acquired the habit, and Sir James Melville was only one of several who remarked on James’s increasingly prodigious taste for drink. The King, he recorded, ‘made good cheer and drank stoutly till the springtime’.
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Slowly, the drunken winter at Elsinore melted into spring. James and his entourage moved on to Copenhagen on 7 March, where more academic pursuits awaited him. He visited the Royal Academy, and imbibed learned discourse from Hans Olufsen Slangerup, the professor of theology, and Anders Christiensen, who, as professor of medicine, was an early teacher of modern practical anatomy. In conversation with the Bishop of Zealand, Povel Mathias, James insisted on his love for matters literary: he assured Mathias that ‘From my earliest days I have been addicted to the literary arts [addictus sum litteris] – and I should like to declare that today.’ To show his enthusiasm, he sent gifts to the Bishop to be bestowed on the University including seven large books, a gilded cup, and purses of money for some doctors who had given him a book, and for the Copenhagen hospital.
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From Copenhagen, James moved on to the village of Roskilde on 11 and 12 March, to visit the great cathedral that served as the burial place of the kings of Denmark. James listened to a Latin oration by Mathias, and debated with Niels Hemmingsen, the elderly leading Danish theologian. Much of the doctrinal discussion centred on Hemmingsen’s Calvinist-tinged Lutheranism (for which he had been removed from his office of Professor of the University of Copenhagen): a Danish account records that Hemmingsen ‘discussed, with acute perception, predestination. For he was completely a disciple of Calvin.’ The theologian made a huge impact on James: he confided to a local priest that meeting Hemmingsen stood alongside seeing a monument to Frederick II in Roskilde Cathedral, and witnessing the Danish churches free of idolatry, as one of the highlights of his visit.
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Moving on via Frederiksborg and Horsholm,
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James reached the island of Hveen in the Sont near Copenhagen on 20 March, home and laboratory to the great Danish astronomer Tygo (latinised as Tycho) Brahe. Brahe had become famous for his 1572 tract discovering the new star in Cassiopeia, and for his lectures at the University of Copenhagen, where he had promulgated his belief that astronomy could only improve through systematic and accurate observation. Anna’s father, Frederick II, had sponsored Brahe’s research by giving him the island of Hveen, on which Brahe built his observatory, Uraniborg. Brahe’s home and laboratory was now a popular attraction on the academic tourist circuit. His meteorological diary for 1590 records that, in addition to long-term guests such as the Dutch instrument maker Jakob van Langgren, Brahe welcomed a constant stream of visitors, both noblemen and academics, from Scotland, Germany, Denmark and Eastern Europe.
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James had a particular interest in Brahe, because the astronomer was a correspondent of both George Buchanan and Peter Young. Brahe had sent Buchanan his treatise
De nova stella,
when he learned that Buchanan was composing a poem on the subject; when Buchanan failed to acknowledge receipt (though the book in fact had arrived), Brahe sent another copy, this time with a poem enclosed. Young had met Brahe during the embassy to Elsinore in 1586, and later sent Brahe a portrait of Buchanan, much to Brahe’s delight, promising to follow it with his ‘life’ of Buchanan.
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Brahe’s diary records that the King of Scots visited on 20 March 1590, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. According to Brahe, James smiled at seeing a portrait of Buchanan in his library, although, if true, this presumably suggests James’s desire to please Brahe rather than a love for Buchanan.
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Reports tell us that James discussed various scientific matters with Brahe, including the Copernican system, and was apparently impressed enough with the Dane to promise him copyright over his writings in Scotland for the next thirty years (copyright was a pet peeve of Brahe’s: he had already won blanket copyright for his works in the Holy Roman Empire and France).
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Three years later, James made this arrangement formal in a document that praised Brahe’s learning, which he knew not merely from others’ accounts or from reading his published work: ‘I have seen them with my own eyes, and heard them with my own ears, in your residence at Uraniborg, during the various learned and agreeable conversations which I then held with you, which even now effect my mind to such a degree, that it is difficult to decide, whether I recollect them with greater pleasure or admiration.’
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At Uraniborg, Brahe threw a banquet for James, with musicians, entertainers, and plenty of wine, at which the company talked in Latin. James produced three English sonnets on Brahe,
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and left his mark at Uraniborg, presenting Brahe with two English mastiffs to guard the gates, and setting on the door a Latin epigram: ‘Est nobilis era Leonis | Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. | Jacobus Rex.’ (The Lion’s wrath is noble | Spare the conquered and overthrow the proud).
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James wrote the same lines in a hymn book belonging to King Christians tutor, Henrik Ramel, and it eventually became the motto on his twenty pounds coin.
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The King also composed a four-line Latin eulogy ‘in commendation of Tycho Brahe his works, and worth’, which Brahe proudly placed in his printed
Works.
An English version read,

What Phaeton dared, was by Apolle done

    Who ruled the fiery horses of the sun.

More TYCHO doth; he rules the stars above

    And is Urania’s favourite, and love.
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It appears, however, that James’s compositions were helped along by his Chancellor Maitland, a much more accomplished Latinist. Maitland too was inspired by the surroundings, and poured out Latin epigrams, on the Armada, the problems of the Pope, the ill fortunes of France, and Parma’s scheming with the Scots.
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He then moved on to another set, this time in honour of Brahe, with one on Uraniborg – ‘the Muses’ royal castle, jewel of the world, rivalling Olympus, | Nourishing house, your spirit’s equal to your name’. Maitland set his poems on the door of James’s bedchamber, where they were taken to be James’s, and remained for visitors to copy.
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Even as he was revelling in the high intellectual atmosphere, James was thinking ahead to his return to Scotland – which he envisioned in glorious terms. ‘I pray you,’ he wrote from Kronborg to the Kirk minister and Privy Councillor Robert Bruce on 19 February 1590, instructing him to ‘waken up all men to attend my coming, and prepare themselves accordingly.’ James had his reasons for wanting his homecoming to be spectacular. ‘For God’s sake, take all the pains ye can to toon our folks well, now against our homecoming; lest we be all shamed before strangers.’ He thought the homecoming ‘should be a holy jubilee in Scotland’. He asked Bruce to persuade the Provost of Edinburgh to kit out and send three or four ships to take him home, and to set top craftsmen to work getting the royal residences into shape. James signed off from both himself and his wife: ‘Thus recommending me and my new rib to your daily prayers, I commit you to the only All-Sufficient.’
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Maitland had wanted James to return to Scotland directly after the ceremony and before ‘the closing of the seas’ in winter, but he had quickly realised he was to be foiled in that ambition. Maitland had then opposed the trip to Denmark, knowing only too well ‘what occasion of expenses he should have in a foreign part’. German dukes were due to visit, which would mean ‘exorbitant charges’ to ensure that the King of Scots were not hopelessly outclassed. Maitland was by no means sure that James should even meet foreign princes: ‘interview of princes,’ he confided to Robert Bruce, ‘produces not oft the expected fruit, but breeds rather emulation, than increase of amity and good intelligence.’ Moreover, sailing home from Denmark would be longer and more dangerous than sailing home from Norway would have been. Foiled in all his ambitions, Maitland could now only turn his attentions to a campaign ‘to conserve his Majesty’s toucher [dowry]’ – to prevent James and his retinue from merrily spending all the financial advantage the marriage had brought, although he knew he could not save it all. By December, James had retrenched his retinue to fifty men,
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but even that was costly. The only remedy was ‘to haste his Majesty’s returning’: Maitland dealt with the Danes to expedite the preparation of the navy, and in mid-February nudged Robert Bruce to encourage the sending of Scottish ships and skilled mariners.
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By April 1590, the
Gideon
was patched, and it was time for James to present his Queen to Scotland. By now, Anna’s arrival was eagerly awaited: it was reported in mid-March that a messenger returning from Denmark reported ‘very confidently that the Queen of Scots is already discovered to be with child’, although a month later that rumour ‘is not so generally embraced as before it hath been’.
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James’s final engagement in Denmark was to attend the much-delayed marriage of Anna’s elder sister Elizabeth, his first choice as bride, to Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, on 19 April.
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Two days after the wedding, James and Anna, accompanied by a sizeable Danish embassy set sail in thirteen ships. The fleet arrived in the Firth of Leith on 1 May 1590, landing at about 2 p.m.