In recent years there has been a substantial growth of interest in the history and literature of Jacobean England. Amongst the most important texts produced in that period were the writings of King James VI and I himself. Harvard University Press published The Political Works of James I, edited by Charles Howard McIlwain, in 1918. That volume has become quite a scarce book. Moreover, an examination of the text which McIlwain printed reveals a number of peculiarities. In James' longest work, the Basilicon Doron, marginal comments or summaries which were included in early editions were omitted by McIlwain. He based his edition of James' writings on a single source – the king's Workes of 1616 – and he introduced a good many misreadings into that version. For instance, on a surprisingly large number of occasions he strangely read the long ‘s’ of seventeenth-century script as an ‘f’. In consequence, such non-existent words as ‘trustieft’, ‘Papifts’, ‘feueritie’, ‘iustneffe’, ‘aduife’, and ‘feruants’ are scattered through his edition.

The present volume is intended to present more accurate texts of James' writings than McIlwain made available. Where appropriate, the Workes of 1616 has been used as copy-text, but in every case it has been compared with other early versions of the king's writings. McIlwain made no attempt to track down James' sources. I have traced the sources of most direct quotations, but have not tried to verify or decipher all the references in James' writings.