While riding through the bustling streets of London from 1603 to 1621,
one was liable to hear the shout "Long live Queen James!" King James I
of England and VI of Scotland was so open about his homosexual love
affairs that an epigram had been circulated which roused much mirth and
nodding of the heads: Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina
Jacobus—"Elizabeth was King: now James is Queen."
Very few official biographers still tenaciously maintain that there is no "real" evidence that James's friendships were merely intimate. The question of whether or not James actually slept with his favourites is dealt with by Lady Antonia Fraser in her biography of King James in an eminently reasonable manner: "In sexual matters, it is generally better to assume the obvious, unless there is some very good reason to think otherwise." And for Lady Antonia Fraser anti-gay prejudice is no good reason to think otherwise. Her biography is a sympathetic reappraisal of James's personality and statesmanship. She quite simply accepts James's homosexuality and never regards it in itself as a detriment to either himself or his country, though she reasonably regrets that his favourites were not always the wisest of counsellors. Her assessment that most of James's life was a "search to recapture the golden youthful quality of his early passion" for Esmé Stuart, the only bright spot in an otherwise bleak childhood deprived of affection, is probably quite accurate, and she is certainly correct that his dominant quality was "an inability to resist love."
James would have laughed his more prudish biographers to scorn, for, like Oscar Wilde addressing the jury, in 1617 James addressed the venerable Privy Council with an official affirmation of his right to love men:
I, James, am neither a god nor an angel, but a man like any other. Therefore I act like a man and confess to loving those dear to me more than other men. You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, and I have George. What is the background to this astonishingly early defence of homosexual love?
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May the TRUTH SET YOU FREE so that YOU KNOW through CHRIST JESUS you are FREE to BE exactly who GOD created you to be.
Blessings and Peace,
Rainbow Pastor David
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