A panoramic history of the arrival of the Stuarts, and how the reign of King James I saw England reach new corners of the globe.
In 1603 England was on the edge of crisis. Queen Elizabeth I had died, bringing the Tudor line to an end.
Enter King James, who reached London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. James established a new dynasty on the English throne.
James’s global ambitions sent ships from London for America, Russia, Persia, India and Japan, as the fledgling East India Company began to intertwine ever closer with the crown and as the English began to travel beyond the bounds of their island in greater numbers than ever before, the seeds of the future British Empire were sown.
Taking in everything from the historic voyage of the Mayflower to the alliance between James and the Persian Shah over a joint love of silk, The Sun Rising revolutionises our understanding of the early seventeenth century and the figures that forged a global Britain.
In conversation with Georgy Jamieson
