Can anyone make a good case for the Stuart kings?

Historians have generally not been kind in their assessment of Britain’s first two Stuart kings. Their political skills are regarded as meagre; their objectives malign; their one undisputed talent an unerring ability to alienate their subjects — with rebellion and civil war as the result. To his credit, Tim Harris, in his formidably large and well-researched new ‘study of the kingship’ of James I and Charles I, raises a voice in dissent. He is by no means blind to the Stuarts’ failings: James’s profligacy, and fondness for the sound of his own voice; Charles’s unbending self-righteousness and notorious aloofness from his subjects and even his own court. Yet he also makes a case for their virtues: their vision and courage; their high sense of duty; their accomplishments in the face of challenges that would have daunted even the greatest of the Tudors.

For the composite realm created when James of Scotland succeeded the childless Elizabeth in 1603 was an inherently unstable amalgam.