King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire

3. Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset

3. ROBERT CARR, EARL OF SOMERSET --~In late March 1603 welcome news reached King James in Edinburgh: Queen Elizabeth had died, and he had been proclaimed King of England. With his wife, Anne of Denmark, and three children - Henry, Elizabeth, and Charles - he would soon begin his journey south to claim that for which he had thirsted for years: the English crown. He was headed for the Promised Land - or so it seemed. Having waited through Elizabeth's declining years, having removed all obstacles and other claimants, and having engaged in secret negotiations with Robert Cecil, Elizabeth's chiefminister, James saw the English throne as his rightful prize. For the first time ever, the King of Scotland would also be the King of England. James's vision of a "Great Britain" took hold. ButJames did not leave desire behind at the Scottish border. In 1607, by which time the king and queen no longer pretended much in the way of a marital rdationship, James's homoerotic attention fastened on Robert Carr, a young Scot who had followed the king from Scotland. At the Accession Day Tilt in 1607 Carr appeared as a participant under the aegis ofSirJames Hay, another transplanted Scot. Despite being an excellent horseman, Carr had trouble; the horse threw him, breaking his leg. James became solicitous of this handsome young man's well-being and insisted that his own physicians take care of him. He then visited the recuperating Carr regularly, even attempting to teach him Latin. The twentieth-century historian William McElwee reaches this histrionic conclusion: "Thus, byJames's folly, in one afternoon the whole pattern of English politics and of English history was changed, immeasurably for the worse." 1 A wittier, more tempered conclusion can be found in Thomas Howard's 161 I letter to John Harington: "If any mischance be to be wished, tis breaking a leg in the Kings presence, for this fellow [Carr] owes all his favour to that bout; I think he hath better reason to speak well of his own horse, than the Kings Roan jennet."2 Carr's fair "ornaments," like Esme Stuart's before him, clearly attracted KingJames, FolgerMS V.b. 2j2, Treve!Jon commonplace book. Permission ofthe Folger Shakespeare Library. Robert Carr, Earf ofSomerset, with his wift, Frances Howard, engraving in Michael Sparke's Narrative History of King James (16;J). Permission ofthe Folger Shakespeare Library. James. In his letter Thomas Howard describes Carr as "straight-limbed, well-favoured, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced, with some sort of cunning and show of modesty; tho, God wot, he well knoweth when to shew his impudence" (p. 275). Arthur Wilson in the mid-seventeenth century offers a fairly standard description: "For his Person, He was rather well compacted than tall; his features and favour comely, and handsome, rather ROBERT CARR than beautiful; the hair of his head flaxen, that of his face tinctured with yellow." 3 McElwee sums up the description: "Carr was a tall, brainless athlete with the slightly effeminate fair-haired good looks most calculated to catchJames's eye" (Wisest Fool, p. 176). Like historians who assertthat Esme Stuart's effect onJames was wholly "malignant," others want to be sure that we dismiss Robert Carr as completely unworthy. At the heart of such assessments lies the unwillingness or inability to confront James's sexual desire, except implicitly to condemn it, to shove it back in a closet where it more properly belongs. Once a historian has designated Carr as brainless and effeminate, then the question of sexual desire vanishes. At least David Harris Willson acknowledges a physical attraction between James and Carr. But he quickly adds: "The vice [unnamed] was common to many rulers and we need not be too shocked. Yet the completeness of the King's surrender to it indicates a loosening of his moral fibre." 4 McElwee says that James began "to treat Carr in public with the same exaggerated, gross affection as in private, and what had already been a little odd in a sixteen-year-old boy when he was worshipping at the shrine of Esme Stuart, became grotesque in the middle-aged man" (Wisest Fool, p. 179)' In a word, James should have known better. McElwee continues: "He appeared everywhere with his arm round Carr's neck, constantly kissed and fondled him, lovingly feeling the texture of the expensive suits he chose and bought for him, pinching his cheeks...