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Personal relationships

Throughout his life James had close relationships with male courtiers, which has caused debate among historians about their exact nature. In Scotland Anne Murray was known as the king's mistress. After his accession in England, his peaceful and scholarly attitude contrasted strikingly with the bellicose and flirtatious behaviour of Elizabeth, as indicated by the contemporary epigram Rex fuit Elizabeth, nunc est regina Iacobus (Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen).

Some of James's biographers conclude that Esmé Stewart, Duke of Lennox; Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset; and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, were his lovers. John Oglander observed that he "never yet saw any fond husband make so much or so great dalliance over his beautiful spouse as I have seen King James over his favourites, especially the Duke of Buckingham" whom the king would, recalled Sir Edward Peyton, "tumble and kiss as a mistress". Restoration of Apethorpe Palace, Northamptonshire, undertaken in 2004–08 revealed a previously unknown passage linking the bedchambers of James and Villiers.

Some biographers of James argue that the relationships were not sexual. James's Basilikon Doron lists sodomy among crimes "ye are bound in conscience never to forgive", and James's wife Anne gave birth to seven live children, as well as suffering two stillbirths and at least three other miscarriages. Contemporary Huguenot poet Théophile de Viau observed that "it is well known that the king of England / fucks the Duke of Buckingham". Buckingham himself provides evidence that he slept in the same bed as the king, writing to James many years later that he had pondered "whether you loved me now... better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog". Buckingham's words may be interpreted as non-sexual, in the context of 17th-century court life, and remain ambiguous despite their fondness. It is also possible that James was bisexual.

When the Earl of Salisbury died in 1612, he was little mourned by those who jostled to fill the power vacuum. Until Salisbury's death, the Elizabethan administrative system over which he had presided continued to function with relative efficiency; from this time forward, however, James's government entered a period of decline and disrepute. Salisbury's passing gave James the notion of governing in person as his own chief Minister of State, with his young Scottish favourite Robert Carr carrying out many of Salisbury's former duties, but James's inability to attend closely to official business exposed the government to factionalism.

The Howard party (consisting of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton; Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk; Suffolk's son-in-law William Knollys, Lord Knollys; Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham; and Thomas Lake) soon took control of much of the government and its patronage. Even the powerful Carr fell into the Howard camp, hardly experienced for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend Thomas Overbury for assistance with government papers. Carr had an adulterous affair with Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. James assisted Frances by securing an annulment of her marriage to free her to marry Carr, now Earl of Somerset.

In summer 1615, however, it emerged that Overbury had been poisoned. He had died on 15 September 1613 in the Tower of London, where he had been placed at the king's request. Among those convicted of the murder were the Earl and Countess of Somerset; the Earl had been replaced as the king's favourite in the meantime by Villiers. James pardoned the Countess and commuted the Earl's sentence of death, eventually pardoning him in 1624. The implication of the king in such a scandal provoked much public and literary conjecture and irreparably tarnished James's court with an image of corruption and depravity. The subsequent downfall of the Howards left Villiers unchallenged as the supreme figure in the government by 1619.