Early Modern English and Scottish monarchs were expected to be cultured creatures, presiding over distinguished courts, patronizing writers, and even, in some cases, demonstrating their learning by writing their own poems or translating classical authors in addition to invoking the rhetoric of power in their speeches and letters. Most of them measured up to that expectation; one went far beyond it. The literary output of James VI of Scotland and I of England is unparalleled by any monarch in the British Isles. In quantity and range it is quite staggering: James the political polemicist, James the new David (with his translation of the Psalms), James the theologian, James the noted author of political theory as well as practicing politician, James the speech-and letter-writer on a vast scale, and James the poet-king and writer of poetic theory.

All of these features naturally attracted the attention of contemporaries. In particular...