Few kings have been more savagely caricatured or grossly misunderstood than England’s first Stuart. Yet, as this new biography demonstrates, the modern tendency to downplay his defects and minimize the long-term consequences of his reign has gone too far. In spite of genuine idealism and flashes of considerable resourcefulness, James I remains a perplexing figure—a uniquely curious ruler, shot through with glaring inconsistencies. A flawed, if well-meaning, foreigner in a rapidly changing and divided kingdom, his passionate commitment to time-honored principles of government would, ironically, prove his undoing, as the shadow of the Thirty Years War descended upon Europe.