Talks & Lectures Gareth Russell – Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britain’s First King

Elizabeth was king, Then James was queen’ – English author (1603)

James Stuart, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland did not always love wisely, but he never failed to do so boldly. He fell in love three times – once with George Villiers, ‘the handsomest man in the whole world’ – and he was infatuated three more times. We have so much on the six wives of Henry VIII, why not the six loves of James I?

This groundbreaking book (released in the 400th anniversary year of his death) puts James – genius, liar, witch-hunter – and the men he loved at the dramatic centre of British royal history. Featuring his father’s mysterious murder, kidnapping, witchcraft trials, his mother’s beheading, poison, espionage, and a love affair that ended in assassination, it is one of the most gripping stories in British history, retold in Russell’s Queen James with scholarship, biographical insight and wit.

Gareth Russell is an historian and broadcaster. His books include Young and Damned and Fair, The Ship of Dreams, Do Let’s Have Another Drink and The Palace. He is the host of the podcast Single Malt History with Gareth Russell and he divides his time between Belfast and London.