Good History!

I recently picked up and re-read a wonderfully engaging piece of historical biography by Otto Scott. The book in question is called James I: The Fool As King. Back when I was still a subscriber to Chalcedon Report, Otto was one of my favorite columnists. I was sorry when he and Rushdoony parted ways and he no longer wrote for CR.

If you want to gain a good understanding for the political arena of today, reading this book is one way of doing so. James I had a profound and negative impact on human government and in many ways is one of the prime architects of monolithic government intrusion. What is most interesting to me is that his views of government were formed deliberately to destroy the Reformation views he was taught by his tutor, George Buchanan, and to derail the personal liberty from government tyranny that the Reformation set in motion.

In addition to giving us insight into James I of England's life, Mr. Scott does a lot to strip Mary, Queen of Scots, of her glamour and mystique and reveals her as the conniving, murderous, and adulterous woman that she was. Elizabeth I is seen as the ultimate pragmatist who couldn't understand the religious passions or the logical outcomes of these passions led to. She was caught between the Vatican and pro-Catholic forces who would see her made illegitmate and de-throned in favor of her cousin, Mary Stuart, and the Reformed Christians who threatened the extent of royal prerogative by their insistence that the Crown govern only by consent of the people, and in subjection to God's Law. All in all, it was a fascinating read.