This unpretentiously splendid study [King James VI of Scotland, I of England] is beyond praise, but deserves it anyhow. It is a different sort of book from Lady Antonia's earlier studies of Mary Stuart and Cromwell in that it relies for the most part on secondary sources and original documents more or less readily available. That is to say, it is modestly introduced as not being a work of original scholarship and research. But having written so brilliantly about the mother, Lady Antonia can hardly be expected to write amateurishly about the unfortunate son. She has used her knowledge and resources with extraordinary shrewdness to produce a book every bit as sympathetic as the long out-of-print biography by Charles Williams, and a good deal more professional, in the best sense.

Rather than aiming to present new facts about James (and perhaps there are not many to be unearthed...