The Basilikon Doron was written in 1599 by James VI and I as a set of instructions for his eldest son Henry, the heir apparent, who was but five years old at the time. The King had seven copies printed and distributed these among trusted members of his court, considering the book his metaphorical will and testament to his heir, as well as the canonical reference point to be used for nearly any question naturally passing from a son struggling with the heavy burden of sovereignty to his experienced father. James advises his son in an epistle dedicatory to regard the book as a treasure and not to lose or forget it, as though it were a stand-in parent of sorts: "Receiue and welcome this Booke then, as a faithfull Praeceptour and counsellour vnto you: which, because my affaires will not permit mee euer to bee present with you, I ordaine to bee a resident faithfull admonisher of you."
That James wouldn't be entirely accessible to his son (either while ruling or, of course, in the grave) is fine enough a reason for such a text, as is the plain fact that information of import fares a great deal better in writing than in speech --especially as complexity and length grow. But a possibly unforeseen cause for this very worthy work is the guidance of people in general, both in its contemporary context and for later ages. I say possibly unforeseen because four years after the original septuple-print, the Basilikon Doron was republished and widely sold, though whether this was due to one of the safekeepers leaking the text or the monarch's own decision to make the work public is unclear. Making things muddier is James' second epistle dedicatory, "To The Reader", which awkwardly apologizes for and attempts to justify any unfriendly political or religious slants perceived by his subjects with the excuse that after all, the text was only meant for his son, as a ruler. If James never intended the work to reach beyond a few select sets of eyes, however, why speak to the public at all, much less condescend to reason with it? And yet still, perhaps it was merely the king's good nature and earnest desire to be ascertainable that drove the dedicatory.
In any case, what's left to us, either deliberately or by happy accident, is a piece of real education the likes of which has just about been wiped out of human activity; a pearl of that process of the passing of the torch from one generation to the next, these days feebly and inadequately performed more often by television and happenstance than conscious parenting. James' instructions exhibit the sound structuring of real and honest thought, the scaffolding of primary sources indicative of thorough, fluent scholarship, and even the gentle consideration of the reader's human frailties that belies a genuine fatherly love. What greater thing could a young ruler want than a compendium of answers to his nagging midnight questions as to what he should do, neatly compiled and with a bibliography, even, produced by a fine predecessor? "What do you get for the kid who's got everything," right? This. This book. You cannot gift someone experience, or wisdom, or fortitude, or humility, indeed, but you can meaningfully describe them; you can reason through great nets of choices, you can point out what you've seen work and what you've seen fail, you can recite the best ideas, and if done well, you can produce a thing of lasting value.
For the value of the Basilikon Doron does last, and we need not be kings to appreciate it. There is, as ought to be expected, some measure of the publish date's context that sticks out from the sense like straightpins in a shirt: the forced fusion of scholarship with religion steals some portion of our show, as does a smattering of specificities now irrelevant through fashion, from jousting to codpieces. But neither time nor station block James' advice from relevancy. The text is essentially a primer on how to study, how to reason, how to choose one's friends, and how to conduct in public and in private in the interest of being a competent human (which I suppose could make a useful definition of a king, for our purposes, if the alternatives are "contentedly ignorant farmer", "drunken minstrell", "tunnelvisioned computer fungineer" etc). James gave his son a splendid gift, and gave us perhaps an even greater one, for if we've the leisure and consideration to understand and apply guidance meant for rulers, have we not trod in some part on the hard-worked backs of those who came before us to reach our lofty hammocks?
This text offers more, however, than merely being taken straight, though there's sufficient tonnage of such to warrant its reading. In tandem with Samuel Pepys' diary, which itself spurned my initial interest in the Basilikon Doron, I am satisfied the work is a true organizational trunk of study in the following domains: European (as well as specifically British) History (and therein the Restoration and Reformation), Monarchy, and English and French as well as Classical Literature. A major problem of (predominantly Western, I think, though I've nothing other than suspicion to suggest things are better anywhere else) intellectual life these days is the tendency to teach by niche interest, declining to convey either the existence or utility of properly-constructed trees. Topics are presented without context, without relation to their predecessors or issue, and so everything is "new"; a shrub in a sad and dusty scrubland, instead of a fresh branch on one of the many well-known trees in a flourishing and ancient forest. Occasionally one finds a text, however, that by its references provides the bigger picture --not important just for being bigger, but for being comprehensive and correctly done. If you follow the links, as it were, of Pepys and Stuart, you will plant and well-populate your knowledge of the mentioned domains. There are few things more satisfying than researching some unknown aspect of a work and finding discussion of the very reference and source in question, owing to the strength of the relationships.
The cause of due interest and enthusiasm well-established, then, I hope, let's examine what follows those dedicatories after all. The Basilikon Doron is "devided", as it announces in its title page, into three parts: the first part, "Of a King's Christian Dvetie Towards God"; the second, "Of a King's Dvetie in His Office"; and the third, "Of a King's Behavior in Indifferent Things".
I. The First Booke
The marriage of church and state of the period makes the first book's thick reliance on the bible unsurprising; Henry was being trained to function not only as a political leader, but as a religious one as well, and as such he would've been expected to exhibit cultivated, authoritative belief in god. Constant catfights of varying size and effect in Western Europe between Catholics, Protestants, and Puritans at the time made the role especially fraught, but James refrains from making much sectarian pronouncement, for the most part. Rather, and certainly for our purposes, the bible's role in the Basilikon Doron is as a definitive text with which to work towards useful scholarship, and as a general moral compass. The king's first and oft-repeated counsel is to exercise humility, even in the knowledge of greater-than-average capability, for this only means the capable are obliged to work that much better and harder:
"A moate in anothers eye, is a beame into yours: a blemish in another, is a leprouse byle into you: and a veniall sinne (as the Papifts call it) in another, is a great crime into you. Thinke not therefore, that the highnesse of your dignitie, diminisheth your faults (much lesse giueth you a licence to sinne) but by the contrary your fault shall be aggrauated, according to the height of your dignitie; any sinne that ye commit, not being a single sinne procuring but the fall of one; but being an exemplare sinne, and therefore drawing with it the whole multitude to be guiltie of the same."
In order to arrive at the correct course of action, then, James proposes two necessary components: firstly, to study, and secondly, to humbly "pray for the right understanding". This easily transmutes to "think about it" with the god blinders removed --for the prayer herein suggested is little else than the consideration of one's own fallibility and patterns of wrongness covered by Dunning-Krueger. In the same vein, the king points out that a thinking person fits their head to reality, rather than attempting to fit reality to their own head:
"But aboue all, beware ye wrest not the word to your owne appetite, as ouer many doe, making it like a bell to sound as ye please to interprete: but by the contrary, frame all your affections, to follow precisely the rule there set downe."
Scripture itself is summarized as two imperatives: there is a command to do and a prohibition against the contrary. The king is careful to remind his son that one without the other is useless; doing the right thing doesn't make right that which isn't, nor vice-versa. These points are just about mundane enough, I'd say, to be overlooked and forgotten by the majority of folks otherwise professing to want to study and do good work. As for an example of one who follows both dictums, James proposes himself. Did your father ever tell you to approach such broad horizons exactly as he had? I grant it's possible, but the certainty of the plain statement is marvelous, especially if we take the "never meant to be publicly published" view of the text.
What follows is an ordered and well-explained charting of the bible. This tree happens to be neither balanced nor binary, but it exemplifies the sorts of constructions featured in the text: simple, succinct, and informative enough to serve as a launching pad. There's also a legend of sorts for using it (and clues for moving outside the scope of the given tree). Check out Ask Jeeves James:
"Would ye then know your sinne by the Lawe ? reade the bookes of Moses con- taining it. Would ye haue a commentarie thereupon ? Reade the Prophets, and likewise the bookes of the Prouerbes and Ecclesiastes...Would yee know the doctrine, life, and death of our Sauiour Christ ? reade the Euangelists. Would ye bee more particularly trained vp in his Schoole ? meditate vpon the Epistles of the Apostles."
Not just what, but also how to read is covered. A simple rule, self-evident and yet so unspoken, undershared, glossed over, and self-esteemed away that the man would doubtless be branded a child pornographer were he writing today: enjoy what's easily comprehensible, but pay special attention to the parts you don't understand! Assume problems of meaning originate in your own head! Of course, we'll have to temper these maxims with the sad reflection of our current circumstances, in which we cannot rely on the basic fact of a thing's being published as evidence of any sort of soundness, correctitude, or authority. Quite the contrary, actually; whereas a book, and especially an old one, had meaning in itself in centuries past, by now a book (and for definitions of "old" that go back less than forty or fifty years) by its nature is suspect. James distinguished, at least, between works "that may best serue for your instruction in your calling" and "foolish curiosities vpon geneaologies and contentions, which are but vaine, and profite not". Even with a much smaller pool of published material to work with, the prince wouldn't be able to read everything; one's stuck having to choose, and hopefully the harder choices are indeed rooted in subject and scope, rather than sanity and trustworthiness. Nevertheless, if and once the problem of literary identification is settled, the importance of insisting on comprehension of the confusing and attributing error first to oneself can't really be understated.
Tailing study, James' conception of thought in the form of prayer is described as "nothing else, but a friendly talking with God". Evidently some people move through life without the anatomical development (or environmentally-supported enlightenment) required for recognizing that thought does not involve an external third party; they're stuck living in a bicameral mind. It'd make sense, then, to consider the process of thinking about what you've read as a "friendly talking with God". It'd more readily be called talking with your own conscience, but either the royal brain structure hadn't quite fully evolved or else the argument for thought as part of study was cloaked in nonsense by wilful stupidity (or political expediency). Such considerations aside, James counsels to praythink when quietest, and always before bed as a daily check-in of sorts. He warns against supplanting honest and frank reflection with formalities ("bee neither ouer strange with God, like the ignorant common sort, that prayeth nothing but out of bookes"), and also against lazily approaching the process without due consideration and respect ("nor yet ouer homely with him, like some of the vaine Pharisaicall puritanes, that thinke they rule him vpon their fingers").
If you achieve what you're after through study and thought, suggests James, it's upon you to be thankful; if you don't achieve it, you must be patient and work harder or better for it. If even so it doesn't work out the prince's commanded to let it go. It'd seem the turn-of-the-Seventeenth-century "it's not for you" is articulated thusly: "that which yee aske is not for your weale". In tandem with the best practices of greeting success and failure in stride, James advises his son to keep his conscience clear, "which many prattle of, but ouer few feele", with the admirably logical reasoning that while he's alive and at leisure, the prince may address any blemishes therein, but he shouldn't want to see his list of deeds ugly on his deathbed.
The call to keep the conscience clear isn't a vague prosaicism here; James identifies two typical diseases, in fact, that he sees as infecting conscience. The first, "leaprosie", he describes as atheism, though on further reading this resolves to a plain "senselessness of sinne" and careless security. Trusting without verifying, in a word, that happy waking ignorance of self and surroundings that keeps most people practically asleep even when their eyes are open. So long as we're dealing with flesh-eating afflictions in the abstract sense, the prevention's the same as the cure, and here it's described as regular, systematic review. James says to take the time every single day to review all the last day's actions and to look for problems both in doing what shouldn't have been done and in omitting what should've been done. Search for these problems, he advises, search for their solutions, do it thoroughly and regularly, and especially do not let yourself off the hook for recurrent problems. These seemingly minor maxims made extraordinary by modern neglect are then crowned by James (by way of Horace) with stoic splendour: "Remember therefore in all your actions, of the great account that yee are one day to make: in all the dayes of your life, euer learning to die, and liuing euery day as it were you last; Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum ."
The second disease of the conscience is superstition, "when one restraines himselfe to any other rule in the seruice of God, then is warranted by the word". Further described as the source of heresy, this ailment speaks to the inutility and potential harm of investing authority in the wrong places. "Yee must neither lay the safetie of your conscience vpon the credit of your owne conceits, nor yet of other mens humors". Instead, James says, that safety must be based on knowledge, identified for his purposes as Scripture, but easily understood as primary source material (like, say, the very text in question). The king offers anabaptists and papists, respectively, as exemplars of trusting too much in one's own authority, or the authority of annointed men, which maps rather neatly, I think, to menalone and pantsuits. History does not merely repeat, it metastasizes; for what else are these atrocities of our age but the same imbalances, split, stretched, and translated over the centuries and social preoccupations?
In concluding the first of the Basilikon Doron's three books, James rests with a few concentrated thrusts: do what is right, not what is fashionable, and do good work because it is good, not as a chip in a bargain, to get something out of it.
II. The Second Booke
Themes of personal responsibility, thoroughness, and good sense follow the first book into the second, where James describes approaches to carrying out the duties of majesty. These duties principally consist of establishing and executing the law, and Henry is expected to lead by example in both pursuits, as people cannot help but mimic their masters monkey-style. Just so, Henry should follow the example of good kings, and know the bad examples of tyrants, and for distinguishing the characteristics and practices of these, James leans heavily on classical authors, arguing from Aristotle and Plato that governments should fear their people, not people their governments; from Xenophon that a good king's greatest honor is to invest his capabilities into facilitation of the welfare of his people; from Cicero that the good king's private interests are accessory to the interests of his subjects, which are to come first, and so forth.
James argues a while for small government, beseeching his son to hold parliaments only when necessary for the establishment of new laws, because "few Lawes and well put in execution are best in a well-ruled common weale." He advises Henry to be especially careful, when coming to power, to administer and execute laws thoroughly and regularly, as tyrants operate by initial displays of (what people would perceive as) saintliness, pardoning with a large brush and turning a blind eye to concrete wrongs. Beware the Quinquennium Neronis, James says; as Henry would ascend the throne(s) by hereditary right rather than in precario, without proper title, so there would be no need to placate the people with overindulgence of crime. The king insists on strict justice during his son's initial reign in part because of his own difficulties when coming to power:
But in this, my ouer-deare bought experience may serue you for a sufficient lesson: For I confesse, where I thought (by being gracious at the beginning) to win all mens hearts to a louing and willing obedience, I by the contrary found, the disorder of the countrie, and the losse of my thankes to be all my reward.
It's true, you know. Leadership that consists of flattening power structures by its very definition is not leadership, and the nonsense is palpable to even the lowliest peon. Once the prince has thoroughly demonstrated his ability and will to tightly uphold the law, he may then "mixe Iustice with Mercie", considering such elements as past offenses in his judgements.
Some crimes, however, are unconditionally unforgivable, in James' mind. The list of these is fairly interesting in itself as a window to the culture and mores of the time and place. What were the platforms, the plea agreements, the mulas of the time? Witchcraft, wilful murder, incest ("especially within the degrees of consanguinitie"), sodomy, poisoning, and false coin. James admits he'd also like to put slander against the royal family on the list too, but he acknowledges his own bias. In administering justice for these and lighter crimes, James says, "care for the pleasure of none, neither spare ye anie paines in your owne person, to see their wrongs redressed". Oh brave old world, that has such simple and straightforward notions of justice in it.
James is well aware that people can't well be ruled, judged, nor even much considered without an understanding of their faults and tendencies. He just about writes off the Highlanders (and especially the Highlander islanders) as barbarians not worth attempting to comprehend. As for his other subjects, James describes their vices by estate, in the tripartite sense of the Ancien Regime, in a lengthy passage that reads something like an airing of greivances, though a potentially useful one: the clergy are prone to avarice, pride, ambition, and imagined democracy, wherein they fancy themselves public tribunes, "leading the people by the nose, to beare the sway of all the rule". These vices, he warns, are liable to make the Scottish clergy, or at least its more agitated elements (particularly the puritans), overcritical of Henry, as they were of James himself. To fight against this, James counsels the preferential promotion of clergymen who know their place, hopefully culminating in the restoration of the first estate to the Scottish parliament, which James says he hopes to at least initiate during his reign.
Of the nobility comprising the second estate, James says their principal vice is "a fectlesse arrogant conceit of their greatness and power", and as evidence by way of fallout he points to the abundant feuds endemic to this group. He advises the holding of the nobility to the very letter of the law, especially those whom the prince loves best. Indeed the partial treatment of the personally favored is a main node of conflict --but how often do those responsible acknowledge this? Aside from being intolerant of feuds and exercising fairness, James suggests cracking down on guns to ease the ills of the second estate. There's cause to believe the man truly detested them, in fact, as he refers to them as "Gunnes and traiterous Pistolets" here and mightily disdains their use in hunting (one of his favorite activities) while describing proper kingly leisure later on.
As for the third estate, the burghers, James divides the group into merchants and craftsmen, both of which he finds guilty of holding too much esteem in their self-perceived quality and worthiness of profit. Their prices are too damned high, and at the wrong times, and for the wrong reasons! The merchants "transport from vs things necessarie; bringing backe sometimes vnnecessary things, and at other times nothing at all...", and the craftsmen "thinke, we should be content with their worke, how bad and deare soeuer it be, and if they in any thing be controlled, vp goeth the blew-blanket". What's worse, the merchants are the hole through which the night of "false coine" comes in. The remedy for each is the same: insist on internationally competitive prices for goods, and invite foreign merchants and craftsmen to participate in the market. No other subject but that of puritans and papists gets the king quite so riled up as the third estate's habits, and yet his advice is sound. It's certainly more sensible than many responses to successful market participants both before and after the time.
Once the people's problems are out of the way, James can get to instructing his son about handling the people themselves. Well, mostly. There are still problems. Commoners left to their own devices are wont to talk a lot of trash about their government, even if it's a just one. As such, James advises the holding of holidays and spectacles within reason, and insists upon visiting the principal parts of Scotland once a year to stay in touch with and in sight of the masses. If Henry acquires other crowns, James bids him visit these once every three years, and to set up councils of men from these very countries in their own lands, judging "principal matters" himself when visiting.
The prince is further reminded that subjects won't only need protection against each other, but from foreign powers as well, "And therefore warres vpon iust quarrels are lawful: but aboue all, let not the wrong cause be on your side". In relation with other princes, of paramount importance is to stand by all of one's promises, to be "plaine and trewthfull" in diplomacy, and to treat all treason and rebellion against them as though it were against oneself. Wouldn't you like to be this man's friend? I would.
Warcraft is explicitly stated as laying outside the scope of this work, moreover, James acknowledges the ample material already published in the field. Besides, war is better learned by direct experience than study, he says (and indeed, if being led into battle you'd likely rather follow he who knows because he's bled for it than he who "knows" because he's read others' accounts and prescriptions for the bleeding). Armed not with a strategy manual, then, but lines ready to embolden a future king's heart with courage, he says: "Let first the iustnesse of your cause be your greatest strength; and then omitte not to vse all lawfull meanes for backing of the same." Henry is to remember that money is Neuus belli; the muscle of war. He's also held to consider that irredeemable mistakes can be made in war, which makes the enforcement of discipline and order a top priority.
The duty of the king within his own court is introduced by way of another division between thought and action. To rule well, Henry must have some way to mean what he says, and to do it, "for it is not ynough that ye haue and retaine (as prisoners) within your selfe neuer so many good qualities and vertues, except ye employ them." As for doing, he'll have to construct his court, a task rife with opportunities for seemingly small blunders that compound over time. James describes the ideal: in the first place, he'll need young lords to grow with. There's no better method of choosing the young, he says, than simply picking those of the right age, whose families are rather known for virtuousness. These must then be balanced with older, experienced men capable of advising. In either case, legacy is important, and those members of the Jacobean court with further years of service or promising offspring to offer should be duly considered. This is the only type of favor permitted; otherwise, through the abuse of gifts or calculated deals, Henry is likely to run into the same problems his father had in his minority, when the court was arranged by bribe and brown-nosing to no great benefit. James explains, in this particularly lengthy section, that his minority court required continuous shuffling to accommodate his father's tangle of deals, and he was left with men whose goal was to ingratiate themselves with the most favored court members, rather than than to serve the king. Though it's not altogether clear how he would've done things differently, as a child, the stress on these points shows the guyman thought that a well-chosen court assembled from the start is crucial.
Servants for offices of the crown and estate must be chosen with extra care; while other appointments largely affect the daily cheer or gloom of the private court, these have direct and significant impact on the whole of his people, so bad choices mean misery even outside closed castle doors. James labors to entirely rip out anything like partiality to schmoozers in his son:
"Choose then for all these Offices, men of knowen wisedome, honestie, and good conscience; well practised in the points of the craft, that yee ordaine them for, and free of all factions and partiali- ties; but specially free of that filthie vice of Flatterie, the pest of all Princes, and wracke of Republicks"
...wherein the prince is sure to be caught, as though his hand were in the cookie-jar, at some point during his rule, righteously tsked by a father well-acquainted with the youthful designs of self-indulgence. The choice of clerks and other money-receivers is expected to be tricky too, primarily because these men must be transparent, and happily so. James advises impromptu, personal review of these positions, to keep them honest, and avoid "mis-thriuing in money matters". In each of these offices integral to the functioning of the realm, a native of the land is preferable over any foreigner, the latter of which, he says, is sure to "stirre vp sedition". In any case Henry's court members should "know no father but you, nor particular but yours". And as Henry is to expect frankness, honesty, and loyalty from his court, he is expected to treat them justly. If people payed a tenth as much attention to the friends they made or the employees they hired as James advises, there'd be far more functional relationships, and far fewer buckets filled with crabs.
Of all those comprising Henry's future courtly company, the king promises his wife will be the "principall blessing". And "because I know not but God may call me, before ye be readie for Mariage; I will shortly set downe to you heere my aduice therein", James says. The well-informed choice of a bride is paramount, as the union will prove either "the greatest earthly felicitie or misery", and the prince should endeavor to "prepare himself" by keeping his body clean, because it belongs to his future wife, and besides, Henry has a duty to populate posterity with legitimate sons. That preparation must also include careful study of potential matches to ascertain their ability to serve "the three causes [wherefore Mariage was first ordeined by God]": the "staying of lust", the "procreation of children", and "that man should by his Wife, get a helper like himselfe". She should possess beauty, riches, and advantageous friendships by alliance; James calls these "the three accessories", blessings which if abused will become curses. To bolster and make good use of these, then, these Henry must look for strong traits of fecundity, wisdom, and honesty. Once she's been chosen, his wife should be strictly limited to the economic affairs of the house, having no involvement in governmental administration, her attendants and other company must be chosen for their chastity, and at no point is Henry to be angry at the same time as his wife, lest they create a positive feedback loop. If Henry has children, James advises him not to coddle them; to love them, but to show it "as the gentlenesse of their nature will deserue". As feuds are certain otherwise, Henry is also advised to keep the principles of primogeniture intact. Have you selected your chosen family because they're nice to you? And are you nice to the family you're stuck with because you're supposed to be? Did you ever consider that these are strategic choices, and treating them otherwise merely employs the "strategy" of ignorance, spelling, alllmost-guaranteedly, your doom?
In all relationships, the king is to set the example.
"And as your company should be a paterne to the rest of the people, so should your person be a lampe and mirrour to your company: giuing light to your seruants to walke in the path of vertue, and representing vnto them such worthie qualities, as they should preasse to imitate."
Of these worthy qualities temperance takes James' spotlight. It is by being moderate and balanced that Henry will thrive and encourage the realm to do the same. Though justice was discussed in the first book in terms of its desired treatment during the prince's establishment, it gets a more thorough examination in this second book where temperance in office is covered. A straightforward warning against the rot sinking the United States' "justice system" is offered:
Lawes are ordained as rules of vertuous and sociall liuing, and not to bee snares to trap your good subjects: and therefore the lawe must be interpreted according to the meaning, and not to the literall sense thereof".
This, this they call Early Modern. Instead of the much more apt Just Before Things Fell Off a Cliff. Tell me, did this come out of the most rockin' time, The Golden Age of Derpland? People regularly died of Typhoid Fever, you know. Or was this guy so ahead of his time we've had to go backwards before we can even approach the correct direction towards his dictum's rightful setting? Oh, it's an ancient idea, by no means his, he just read some books and had the really unfair advantage that they burned and tore easily and missed pages and who knows what language you're going to get even and "looking something up" likely involves a long hike or a complicated gift exchange and it's not like he had to spend sixteen hours a day to choose between talking into the clown mouth at the drive-thru or else thumb through lolcat pics waiting for the delivery pizza and...? Yes, the Basilikon Doron contains simple, old ideas. The fact that humanity has lost them twice now means you'd better treat them with the reverence of novelty, and continue "discovering" them at regular intervals.
Speaking of study, James reiterates that it ought to be undertaken not for the mere sake of knowledge, but for the ability to use one's office well. Akin to noticing only what you've done that you shouldn't've without reflecting on what you haven't done that you should've, and choosing a rich wife who isn't also wise, there are indeed a lot of half-measures available to the well-meaning, and James evidently seeks these out to quash them with extreme prejudice. Serving in the office of a king necessarily means attending parliament, and as much as James hints at its being a nuissance, he counsels fighting against the feeling: "delite to haunt your Session", he says, and observe carefully, remembering that the job of the king therein is to do justice and nothing else. To do justice well, Henry must "learn to discerne betwixt Iustice and equitie"; James draws upon the account of a young Cyrus the Great to illustrate this point also meanwhile very well lost on the masses. Ancient people learned these lessons as children, you realize. We're stuck with adults who still don't understand what happened there.
Clearly, reading's required for ruling well. James entreats his son to also be familiar with the histories of all nations, and especially the histories of his own. He's careful to exclude the "infamous inuectiues" of Buchanan (an historian particularly unfriendly to the House of Stuart) and Knox (a Scottish Reformation leader instrumental in the eventual execution of James' Catholic mother, Mary, Queen of Scots). For explicit recommendation, James gives the Commentaries of (Julius) Caesar, which he says are as good for the pleasantness of the prose as for the relevance of the subject matter; he furthermore chooses Caesar as the "farthest excelled" emperor.
Henry is expected to become proficient in liberal arts besides history too, though he's warned against pressing himself to mastery in these, as it's bound to distract him from the duties of his office. He wouldn't want to be interrupted like Archimedes, says James, by the enemy's victory over the town, while buried in his work. Nevertheless, Henry must make at least "an entry" into mathematics, because it is instrumental in waging war. Henry won't be able to design camps, lead battles, construct fortifications, place batteries, and so on without it. I wonder when last it happened that a mentor told their protege, when inevitably asked why they'd need to know math "in real life", that it was necessary for wasting their enemies.
The second book is tied together with the extolling of constancy, liberality, and wisdom, with a few practical applications described with the brevity and haste of a man attempting to keep his advice from breaking any dams. Henry is advised to honor his parents and teachers, and is expressly forbidden to war against his mother, a common thing among young princes left to handle a power vacuum once the king their father has died; nevertheless, he says, if the son wishes to earn his father's blessing, he should earn his mother's in the king's absence. The prince must learn to feel the sting of life's unpleasantries, but never to let such feeling cloud his judgement or impede his action. He must cultivate the wisdom to discern truth from falsity by considering the messenger, asking whom the message may serve, and accurately identifying its likelihood --pursuits necessary for the sound fulfillment of just about any office superceding that of a grunt. Thus armed against the challenges of his work, Henry can move on to those he'd encounter in, for the most part, his private life.
III. The Third Booke.
Be carefull then, my Sonne, so to frame all your indifferent actions and outward behauiour, as they may serue for the furtherance and forth-setting of your inward vertuous disposition.
The minutious scrutinization of kings would mean all manner of innocuous comments and mannerisms get magnified and interpreted, potentially even swaying public opinion or, more's the point, influencing the behavior of the people themselves. This obnoxious if unavoidable fact of accessible leadership stretches even into "indifferent actions", James notes, but what exactly are those? The king has made a neat division: indifferent actions are either necessary or unnecessary (though convenient and lawful). The necessary class includes the daily inescapable: eating, sleeping, clothing, speaking, writing, and gesture. The convenient and lawful, but not necessary: pastimes, exercises, and the "using of company for recreation".
The mores and norms of the royal table are foremost on this list for the reason that they reach a larger amount and a wider variety of people than any other. Eating in groups is to be embraced. One of the marks of tyranny, says James, is the tendency to prefer eating alone, not to mention its suggestion that the diner seeks solitude for the sake of greedily overindulging in a manner that would bring him shame were there an audience. James is fairly ascetic in his advice regarding food itself; sauces, he says, are more like medicine than food. The king warns against gluttony, recalling the aspersions cast on the ancient Athenian Philoxenus. Business, the king notes, should never be conducted at the table, and "pleasant, quicke, but honest discourses" are preferred. It's by now quite a common complaint that people spend more time eating alone, or at the table but not talking, or merely gossiping and making each other hate the holiday meals that serve as the last remnants of communal feasting.
Correct conduct in the bedchamber likely doesn't strike quite so many modern nerves, though I'm sure it's still contrary to the daily experience of many. It revolves around learning to fit sleep and fatigue to one's affairs, not fitting one's affairs to the cycles of sleep. James notes that such discipline is especially needed in times of war. He dismisses the supposed importance and meaning of dreams, advising against the attempt to interpret them. The need for trustworthy and discreet attendants in the bedchamber is revisited; Henry must insist that those who wash and dress him are "without blemish". And in dressing, James prescribes a bevy of rules mostly consisting of what not to do, in a strange departure from his usual care to enumerate goodness. In fact the passages addressing costume bear the biggest contextual crutch, which is impressive given the heavy and overt religious overtones. With stern admonitions to shun over-complicated, wrongly-accentuating clothes, you'd almost expect James to appear in something like a wool-lined, plain pyjama with "Ye King" embroidered over the chest. And yet,
But I guess fashion's fickleness is nothing new. Good security, however, is eternal. James says to have good arms and armor about himself at court, and to take special care to avoid and forbid "toilsome" weapons and "traiterous defensiue" armor, like "plate-sleeues and such-like unseen" pieces. The old Scots fashion, he asserts, is best.
Speech and writing mark the return of advice more likely to be of broad utility; both call for plainness of form. Oration is broken without gesture, neither of which should rest on artifice --advice plenty of current "speakers" who seem to be stuck pushing around imaginary boxes while intoning after Philip Glass could use to serious benefit. Specifically, "iowking" and nodding are fashionable orational gestures to be avoided, characteristic as they are of "aspiring Absaloms" than "rightful kings". James plainly indicts effeminate and mignard terms in speech and writing; girly men, we presume, ought to get back in the kitchen and make him an unsauced steak. He marks that the language of reasoning is very different from that of official pronouncements and writs, but notes that this does not mean the latter should not be reasoned about first. Unofficial writing, if Henry wishes to publish such, should be edited by skilled men, and the prince is entreated to write in his own tongue, as "there is nothing left to be saide in Greeke and Latine alreadie". And if approaching poetry, of which James himself published some, Henry should remember that the rhyming itself is not what's important, but the quality of devices, such that if "shaken sundrie in prose", would still be good.
Only the unnecessary, indifferent activities are left to us. Admire how this category, minor in name as well as substance, comes last, as well it should, and wonder with me: is the serene appreciation of proper structure a blessing of comprehension or a curse of otherwise rotten environment? At any rate, James encourages exercise principally as a means to ward off the evils of idleness, and also as a means of keeping the royal body limber for travel and war. Good exercises include palle maille (Pall Mall, a precursor of croquet), dancing, leaping, and field games. Best of all are those performed on horseback, especially the tilt, the ring, and low-riding for handling of the sword (various types of jousting events). Hunting is good, but is to be done with hounds, as guns and even bows are the tools of thieves. Hawking is inferior to hunting, James says, because it is less like warfare, and worse still, apparently, can be very frustrating --but it's still permissible.
Cards, dice, and other "sitting house-pastimes" aren't forbidden, because while some men find their ruin therein, and the games train neither mind nor body, they at least prevent the horror of idleness, and so present an acceptable activity in times of rain or moodiness. Chess, however, James describes as overly wise and philosophical, too smart for its own good; Henry would be better off considering his affairs of state. Gambling at any game is to be done only for fun, and the sums wagered should be written off mentally at the time of the wager, and constitute no more than the gambler would be happy to tip someone. To these broadly wise and oft-neglected rules James adds the instruction never to cheat, and ultimately, if the prince cannot abide by each of these points, he should abstain from gambling altogether.
James calls upon his friend Guillame de Salluste Du Bartas to illustrate why Henry should not seek to play musical instruments and especially not those which lay people use to make their livings: "Leur esprit s'en fuit au bout des doigts" (their spirits fly from their fingertips). Acting is similarly frowned upon as is keeping comedians and dancers in the royal retinue. It seems Thalia and Melpomene were thoroughly devalued by "Tyrans" who "delighted most in them", and so they're tucked away from acceptable Scottish court life. Possibly the performing arts were simply too rife with loose women, and would make James' warning against them too difficult to follow: "And chiefly abstaine from haunting before your mariage, the idle companie of dames, which are nothing else, but irritamenta libidinis". James had a series of prettyboy favorites, who supposedly helped him circumvent this rule. It's not that one couldn't see the attraction, especially in the countenance of the most prominent, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham --but why not teach his son this trick?
James reservedly anticipates that his son will eventually sit on the English, as well as the Scottish throne, and so counsels that the prince follow the indifferent customs of whatever land under his rule which he deems most civil, trusting that proper adoption among the people will take place over time through the intermingling of the kingdoms --forcing cultural assimilation is out of the question. He notes the "inuiolated amity" between himself and (his cousin) Queen Elizabeth at that point, viewing it as a foreshadowing of pleasant coexistence and the healing of old wounds.
Whether the prince's present actions are indifferent, exercised in his office, or as part of his quest to understand the world and himself, James reminds him to let his actions belie the righteousness and virtue of his heart. Writing from a reign that saw considerable, objective turmoil, James tells his son to be constant in his resolution. To achieve this, he must think of the body as a microcosm for potential of action: he has two eyes to discern, two ears to hear both sides of a dispute, and yet one tongue to plainly pronounce; one head and heart to stay himself, and hands and feet with many digits for swift execution of his decisions. The king's greatest glory, he says, is to advance the good within his land, a precept useful to all. Should Henry wish to think himself fully in his father's favor, he is to always remember the gravity of his duties, and to make their carrying out with sincerity and justice the chief aim of his efforts. James signs the work with encouragements from the Aeneid's Anchises telling his son Aeneas how to steer himself:
"Excudent alij spirantia mollius aera,
Credo equidem, & viuos ducent de marmore vultus,
Orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
Describent radio, & surgentia sydera dicent.
Tu; regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(Hae tibi erunt artes) pacique imponere morem,
"Parcere subiectis, & debellare superbos."
Which we'll let Williams give as
"Let others melt and mould the breathing bronze
To forms more fair, --aye! out of marble bring
Features that live; let them plead causes well;
Or trace with pointed wand the cycled heaven,
And hail the constellations as they rise;
But thou, O Roman, learn with sovereign sway
To rule the nations. Thy great art shall be
To keep the world in lasting peace, to spare
humbled foe, and crush to earth the proud."
Anchises gave this counsel to his son in the Elysian fields; for all James' seemingly genuine belief in Christianity, he was wise enough to spare his son the journey towards hell to find his own guiding words. Seasoned with some measure of bias owing to the time and place, the Basilikon Doron nevertheless provides a useful collection of ideas; ideas that are old, ideas that are basic, but ideas which are honest and considered, preserving their breath of life and making them a treasure for modern readers just as they were doubtless treasures for James' successor.
A well-structured read, drawn from the bitter experience and sublime repose of James himself and a litany of rulers and wise men before him, the text is essential for any endeavor to understand its time in the stretch of history, or the meaning of able, effective guardianship. For while parents may not choose the ways in which their children prosper (or fail to do so), they may form the latticework for greatness. If they are lucky, they may be followed by people worthy of their wisdom. And if they're not, perhaps still, in lines less linear, they may find willing prosperity reaching out to receive their gifts in barren times, in trying lands.
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