< Back Kings, Poets and Writers King James VI of Scotland and I of England King James VI of Scotland and I of England (Edinburgh 19 June 1566 – London 27 March 1625) was the first sovereign to rule, by way of dynastic union, over the three kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland at the same time. He ruled over Scotland with the name of James VI from 24 July 1587 - the year his mother Mary Stuart was forced to abdicate - until his death, and over England and Ireland, with the name of James I, from 24 March 1603, succeeding Elizabeth I, the last representative of the Tudor dynasty, who died unmarried and without children. James I is considered one of the most well-read kings in England and Scotland’s history. During his reign the cultural flourishing of the Elizabethan Age continued in literature, sciences and the arts (critics sometimes refer to this as the Jacobite Age, distinct from the Elizabethan Age proper). James himself was a talented scholar, author of political, religious and even medical works; and it is to his initiative that we owe the most important and popular English translation of the Bible, known as the King James Bible.