James VI and I

After her recovery from smallpox, Queen Elizabeth I started using a ceruse foundation on her face, neck and chest. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

5 weird habits of royals through history

This 16th-century woodcut depicts King James VI at the North Berwick witch trials, the case that first sparked his obsession with hunting. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

James VI and I: the king who hunted witches

A portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, c1588. (Photo by ACTIVE MUSEUM / Alamy Stock Photo)

“The rankest traitor in all England?” Walter Ralegh on trial

A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

12 facts about the Stuarts

Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552–1618 (Photo by Getty Images)

Walter Ralegh: enemy of the state

Podcast Website large Tracy Borman

Historical fact and fiction

An illustration of a group of supposed witches being beaten in front of King James VI and I, c1610. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King James’s witch hunts

In this painting from c1650, a witch wields a broomstick as demons and 'familiars' (helpers of witches) congregate before her. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

History quiz – witchcraft and superstition

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A deadly royal favourite?

Queen Elizabeth I dancing with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Artist unknown. (© Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library/Alamy)

Tudor tunes: music at the courts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James VI and I

An engraving of the frontispiece to the first edition of the King James Bible. Published in 1611, the Bible was soon to become required reading across the English-speaking world. (Culture Club/Getty Images)

The making of the King James Bible