THE HONEYMOON OF JAMES VI AND ANNA OF DENMARK

Amy Licence charts the lavish celebrations that followed the wedding between one of Scotland's most famous monarchs and his Scandinavian bride

- Amy Licence

In June 1589, James VI of Scotland celebrated his 23rd birthday. He was a baby-faced king, raised amid factional politics and had ruled in place of his mother the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots - since he was a year old. As the potential heir of the childless queen of England, Elizabeth I, James also knew how important it was to have a legitimate son. He had been criticised for his close friendships with various gentlemen of his court, especially the dashing Esmé Stuart, Duke of Lennox, so the presence of a young, fecund wife would go a considerable way to dispelling rumours of his homosexuality.

A PERILOUS VOYAGE

James' choice was the 14-year-old Anna of Denmark, a high-foreheaded, long-nosed beauty who was the daughter of the recently deceased Frederick II. She had the added advantage of being Protestant, the faith in which James himself had been raised. Her family also had considerable wealth. The marriage contract, sewn with numerous terracotta seals attached by ribbons, was signed in July. The young bride-to-be was ecstatic, declaring herself to be already in love and that it would be "death to her" to have the engagement broken off. James had no intention of doing so. On 20 August, they were married by proxy at Kronborg Castle, with the nobleman George Keith standing in for the Scottish king. Anna set about embroidering a number of shirts for her new husband, while ships were provisioned for her departure across the North Sea to Leith, the port above Edinburgh.