1603: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the B

1603 covers a fascinating and momentous year in British history. It was the year that the great Queen Elizabeth I died, and James V of Scotland, travelled to London to claim the throne as King James I, effectively uniting England with Scotland by bringing them under the rule of a single monarch. As King of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (at that time the kings of England still referred to themselves as kings of France). He was the first monarch to describe himself as King of Great Britain. In that year a terrible plague broke out in England, killing around 40 000 people. Treatises and pamphlets were drawn up on the plague, giving us an important insight into the practise and philosophy of medicine at this time. There was a massive outbreaking of witch-burning that year, in a superstitious age, and the author describes the beliefs and practises regarding witchcraft and the penalties it incurred. The author documents the case of the trial of the trial of Elizabeth Jackson for allegedly bewitching a young girl by the name of Elizabeth Glover. Lee covers the politics and economics of that year, detailing the philosophy of the divine right of kings which King James fervently believed in. The theologian so the time who believed in this doctrine, it must be said strongly qualified it with the condition that the king must rule according to the laws of G-D and man. Thus even the rule of absolute monarchs at this time was far more limited than those of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th and 21st centuries where everything go's to 'defend the revolution'. Few aspects of life in Britain that year are left out of this volume, including farming and trade. The author begins with a chapter on the history of England and Scotland and of the royal dynasties leading up to 1603. He concludes with chapters on piracy, the East India Company and a fascinating chapter on Japan, visited for several years from 1600 by English explorer William Adams.

Why is 1603, a year otherwise oddly uncelebrated among historians (those brainy bespectacled folk generally so fond of giving certain years superstar status) more deserving of its own book than say 1826 or 3340 BC? Let's see, in Britain in the year 1603, the Elizabethan Era came to its titular end with the conclusion of the old Queen's long dying, and the ill-starred Stuart dynasty entered center stage in the form of the Tudor's distant kinfolk from the north. In this same year there was also a return of the bubonic plague, the fall of Sir Walter Raleigh, the end of a war of independence in Ireland, Shakespeare was in peak form, and English piracy, um, I mean privateering, against Spain was at its profitable height. An interesting twelve months to say the least, right? In Christopher Lee's hands (no, not THAT Christopher Lee) the year is almost made to seem that way. I found this book very interesting in the beginning and increasingly less so as it went on. Maybe Lee placed the good stuff first, maybe I acquired an acute case of 1603-fatigue, or perhaps the first half of the year was just more noteworthy than the second, but by the last chapter I was ready to put this book behind me. I do now feel more versed in 1603 as a topic, and can't wait to launch my newfound knowledge on my peers at our next social gathering. When I turn so many heads by dropping a fact like "Did you know that due to old style calendar dating many people in 1603 thought they were actually still living in the year 1602?" I'll have none other than Mr. Lee to thank for it.