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Statue of James I
James (r. 1603-1624) became King of Scotland at the age of one in 1567. His Catholic mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, was cast aside in favour of James, and her realm was placed in the charge of the Scottish nobles. As the closest Protestant male relative to Elizabeth I, James inherited the English throne in 1603, becoming the first Stuart king of England and uniting England and Scotland under a common ruler. Like Elizabeth, he faced Catholic schemes against his life, including the Gunpowder Plot (1605). He also sponsored the publishing of the King James Bible (1611).
The statue of James I of England, built in stone by John Clark in 1620, sits on the walls of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. James visited the library in 1605, declaring, “If it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library.” The statue portrays the king sitting on his throne, crowned and with books in both hands, paying tribute to his patronage of learning and education. Above the James is the motto “Beati Pacifici” (“Blessed are the peacemakers”).
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Original image by Howard Stanbury. Uploaded by Michael McComb, published on 16 April 2025. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution. This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
