teashoesandhair:

HECK YES IT IS

This is a long post, by the way – you can press J to skip if you’re not interested in queer British monarchs and SECRET TUNNELS

The dude who commissioned the King James Bible – unsurprisingly, a dude who was a king and also named James – is perhaps the best example of all time of two phenomena, depending on how you look at it. Either he’s the greatest example of twisting doctrine to fit your own agenda, or he’s the perfect proof that the Bible hasn’t always been interpreted as being anti-homosexuality. I personally like to think the latter, but people have argued the former.

I do not have the time to go into massive detail here, but essentially, James I of England (and VI of Scotland) was very much into men. He liked them quite a lot. This was not a secret, and neither is it generally considered to be up for debate, although there are many Bible scholars and religious zealots today who still hold James I up as a pinnacle of modern virtue due to his role in ensuring that the word of the Bible could be understood by the masses. There are a shit ton of poorly constructed HTML websites written by crazy religious fundamentalists about how all allegations of his conduct with men were nothing but political propaganda, and punctuate their diatribes heavily with exclamation marks. There’s a point to be made about the sexual morals of the time and the subsequent use of James’ same-sex relationships as a political tool (see the poem by de Viau below) but there’s substantial evidence that these accusations were made based on real evidence rather than a simple smear campaign.

Here is the evidence – and yes, there’s a lot of it – that we have for James’ same-sex romantic dalliances:

• when James was 14, he grew close to the man who would later become the Earl of Lennox, whose name was Esmé Stuart. The exact nature of their relationship has never been confirmed, but even as it unfolded, James’ contemporaries were concerned about its nature. One clergyman is on the record as remarking ‘the Duke of Lennox went about to draw the King to carnal lust’, and it was often remarked that the two were openly physically affectionate, which was not hugely popular. Stuart converted from Catholicism to please James, and James made him first the gentleman of the bedchamber and then finally the Earl of Lennox. This pattern of bestowing titles upon his ‘favourites’ became a real point of contention at James’ court. Lennox was later exiled at the request of a bunch of salty old Scottish lords, and James was the definition of Not Happy. He became the definition of Even Less Happy when, after a few years of covert letters, Lennox had the audacity to pop his clogs in 1583. Rude.
• his next affair was with a young man named Robert Carr, who impressed the king in 1607 by falling off a horse and breaking his leg. That sounds like the best meet-cute ever, but the two had met briefly in 1603, when Carr had attempted to become a page-boy for the royal coach, and the whole “oh shit, I’ve had an equine mishap and fractured my tibia” incident brought them together in true rom-com style. A courtier wrote that Carr was granted ‘all favours’, with the king ‘teaching him Latin every morning’, which is definitely a euphemism. Carr, like Stuart before him, was made a gentleman of the bedchamber, writing in a letter that Carr ‘deserved more trust and confidence of me than ever man did’. This didn’t last, though. In 1615, James wrote a letter accusing Carr – who was now the Earl of Somerset – of rebuking his advances, writing that Carr had been ‘withdrawing yourself from lying in my chamber, notwithstanding my many hundred times earnest soliciting you to the contrary’. Shortly afterwards, it emerged that Carr’s wife – who James had arranged for him to marry at Carr’s request – had poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury, who had disapproved of the marriage. Carr was also implicated, and apparently attempted to blackmail the king by threatening to reveal their relationship in court, although this may well be nothing but rumour. Carr and his wife were found guilty and sentenced to death, but after seven years’ imprisonment in the Tower of London, James ultimately pardoned them and sent them off to the country in disgrace. Also rude.
• James’ most well-known affair was with George Villiers, who was a relatively poor and title-less man. He and James met in 1614 – which, you’ll notice, is around the time of James’ tiff with Robert Carr – and by 1615, Villiers had been made a knight, followed by the title of Duke of Buckingham in 1623. We know the most about James’ relationship with Villiers because several contemporary sources survive, including letters between the two men and satirical poems and statements written about them by their political detractors. For example, the poet Théophile de Viau wrote a poem in protest at Villiers’ dukedom:

  Apollo with his songs
  Debauched the young Hyacinthus,
  If Corridon fucks Amyntas,
  Caesar loved only boys.

  One man fucks the Baron of Bellegarde
  Another fucks the Count / Earl of Tonnerre.
  And this learned King of England,
  Did he not fuck the Duke of Buckingham?

  I have neither the status nor the rank
  Which makes a Marquis of a wench.
  And yet, you know I fuck
  As well as any Prince of royal blood.

  
  The original was in French, and definitely sounded 100% less immature. We also have many letters between James and Villiers, in which they address each other as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, as well as ‘sweet child’ and ‘dad’, which is honestly a bit creepy, but also somewhat homoerotic. For example, here is an example of some of the text from a letter written by James:

  I desire only to live in this world for your sake… I had rather live banished in any part of the Earth with you than live a sorrowful widow’s life without you… God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear dad and husband.

  Kinky. Here’s another example:

  I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had, that were not only all your people but all the world besides set together on one side and you alone on the other, I should to obey and please you displease, nay, despise them all.

  Villiers also wrote in a letter ‘sir, all the way hither I entertained myself, your unworthy servant, with this dispute, whether you loved me now… better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed’s head could not be found between the master and his dog’. Villiers and James were so close that Villiers was there in 1625 when James died of gout related illnesses, which really has to show something, because gout is unpleasant. James’ son, who became Charles I, also kept Villiers as a court favourite, but there’s no evidence that their relationship was anything other than mildly paternal. 

• gossip at the time certainly supposed that James’ relationships with these male favourites were sexual. As in the case of the poem quoted above, many people believed that James was falling prey to lascivious men who wanted nothing more than to be granted favour, titles and wealth, and who knew that the best way to do this was to allow James to take them as lovers (and fuck them, according to most contemporary gossips). One account states ‘in wanton looks and wanton gestures they exceeded any part of womankind. The kissing them after so lascivious a mode in public and upon the theatre, as it were, of the world prompted many to imagine some things done in the tyring house that exceed my expression no less than they do my experience.’

  And this is where the whole thing gets a bit squiffy, actually, because all the evidence thus far certainly seems to relate to some naughty bedroom antics – and the evidence that the two were sexually involved really stacks up, especially when you consider that there was a secret tunnel linking their bedchambers at Apethorpe Hall – but the degree of their afternoon delight remains a mystery, because – 

• James was vocally opposed to sodomy. He considered it as part of the specific list of ‘horrible crimes which ye are bound in conscience never to forgive’ as a king, singling it out as a crime that judges were never to pardon in any circumstance. However, it would be fallacious to accuse James of hypocrisy here, as many historians have done. The fact is that we don’t know that James would have been guilty of this perceived crime himself. In vocally opposing sodomy, he did not oppose any other form of sex act or relationship between men, so in theory, according to James, anything else goes. Given his reputation for piety (evidenced by THE GODDAMN KING JAMES BIBLE) it seems absolutely fair to assume that he was among those who have interpreted the Bible as being anti sodomy rather than anti homosexuality. This is further evidenced by his use of scripture to justify his relationships with 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.

  In other words, ‘men love each other IN THE BIBLE, they just don’t do things with their bottoms’. Which, when you think about it, is the kind of loophole that religious zealots are known for exploiting even today (’it doesn’t count as losing your virginity if it’s anal!’). So, the questions of whether or not James was overcompensating in his denouncement of sodomy or whether he truly believed that the Bible permitted same sex relationships within certain frameworks; whether he was sexually active with his male companions to any degree or whether he favoured a chaste bond devoid of sex (meaning that Villiers’ letters could be interpreted as a kind of sexual roleplay rather than a recounting of any particular sexual account) and whether or not he ever felt that his relationships with men were in any way juxtaposed or at odds with his religious convictions – all of this is open to conjecture.

So, tl;dr, the man who commissioned the translation of the Bible, which so many bigots and religious zealots now use to denounce homosexuality as a sin, used passages from that very Bible to justify and contextualise his own affairs with men. Awkward, Westboro Baptist Church. 

Sources: 

Rictor Norton, “Queen James and His Courtiers”, Gay History and Literature, 8 January 2000, updated 9 January 2012 <http://rictornorton.co.uk/jamesi.htm&gt;

Bergeron, David M (1999). King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire. Iowa: University of Iowa Press. 
Crompton, Louis (2006). Homosexuality and Civilization. USA: Harvard University Press.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7436409.stm – about the tunnel at Apethorpe Hall! See also: http://www.icon.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=546:gay-royal-lovenest-restored&catid=1:news-desk&Itemid=15