SOURCE: Bell, Sandra. “Writing the Monarch: King James VI and Lepanto.” In Other Voices, Other Views: Expanding the Canon in English Renaissance Studies, edited by Helen Ostovich, Mary V. Silcox, and Graham Roebuck, pp. 193-208. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999.

In the following essay, Bell argures that James's heroic poem Lepanto formed part of the king's statecraft.

A Political Controversy

James VI of Scotland entered the print market in an at tempt to shape the role of the monarchy in a rapidly changing Scottish nation. James's writings include the well-known prose treatises The Trew Law of Free Monarchies (1598) and Basilikon Doron (1599), both of which responded to the volatile political situation in Scotland by outlining the absolute and divine nature of the monarchy.¹ James's lesser known poetical collections—The Essayes of A Prentise, in the Divine Art of Poesie (1584), and His Maiesties Poeticall Exercises at vacant houres (1591)²—are counterparts...