ESC: English Studies in Canada

man higher and drag him lower than whatever may pass as motives for the knights-errant described in her second and third chapters. In the absence of these elements of psychological realism, the social ideal represented by Arthur’s world is merely a dim shape without colour or vitality, rather like a stained-glass window with no light behind it. m au reen h a l sa l l / McMaster University Letters of King James V I & J, ed. G. P. V. Akrigg (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984). xxii, 546. $38.50 It is surprising that until the appearance of this edition there existed no well edited representative collection of the letters of King James V I and I, but surprise is diminished when one considers the Herculean labour neces­ sary for the undertaking. G. P. V. Akrigg has had not only to gather together previously printed letters scattered through a great number of publications from the seventeenth century to the present but he has also had to search out holograph originals and scribal copies in numerous public and private archives in Great Britain, on the European continent, and in American collections. Among the many thousands of documents bearing the king’s signature he has had to sort out those that can properly be regarded as letters from the much larger number of miscellaneous state papers. He has had to deal with letters not only in English but also in Scots, Latin, and French. The result is a well chosen selection of 227 letters; 54 have never before been printed, while others, carelessly transcribed or expurgated by earlier editors such as J. O. Halliwell, are accurately printed for the first time. Most are taken from holograph originals. As the editor points out, some are evidently secretarial drafts, but a high proportion show every sign of being James’ own composition. The quality of the editing is exemplary. Akrigg clearly had a hard decision to make between old and modem spelling, but there is no reason to doubt that his decision in favour of modernization was sensible in this case. In addition to a judicious and well balanced intro­ ductory survey of the king’s life and analysis of his character and corres­ pondence, the editor has provided translations of the Latin and French letters, useful headnotes on the context of each letter, concise and well informed annotation wherever further explanation is needed, a glossary, and a finding-list of other letters by James already in print. The volume is attractively designed and produced, and printed with an admirable accu­ racy not all presses today achieve. 105 Chronologically the selection of letters ranges from James’ boyhood in the mid 1570s until near the time of his death in 1625. It includes, in addition to single and small groups of letters to divers persons, a good representation from the major correspondences maintained by James during the various periods of his life: among others, those with Queen Elizabeth, Robert Cecil, later Earl of Salisbury, and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Each of these has its own interest. In James’ letters as King of Scotland to his cousin, Queen Elizabeth, can be studied his attempts to secure his succession to the English throne as well as the continued payment of his English annuity, despite the temporary awkwardness caused by Elizabeth (whom he addresses as “dearest sister” ) in signing the death warrant of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. The correspondence with the chief English secretary of state, Cecil, begins secretly partly in code (decoded where possible by the editor) before James’ accession to the English throne and continues after 1603 with instructions on many matters of government sent from the king’s hunting lodges at Royston and Newmarket. While the Cecil correspondence, often addressed facetiously to “my little beagle,” is specially important, the most notorious of the king’s letters are the ones to the royal favourites, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and Buckingham, particularly those ad­ dressed to the latter as “sweet Steenie” from a king who sometimes signs himself “your dear dad and husband.” For the king’s immediate family, there are letters to Queen Anne and princes Henry and Charles...