james 1st gay?
does the story insinuate that he is gay or bi? near the beginning of part 2, he pulls percy's head down towards his special area.
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MovieChat Forums > Gunpowder, Treason & Plot (2004) Discussion > james 1st gay?
Clearly bi... The point you made, also after he first sleeps with his wife and she walks through and he's sitting with the young lad on the steps... Then towards the end he starts falling in love with her... Nuff said.
shareHE WAS BI LOVE MOST OF THEM WERE LOL
shareHaving not seen the series, I don't know what it was insinuating, but I though this would be a good place to make clear the scholarly opinion on James.
After exaustive historical research, there is no direct evidence that James I was gay. Furthermore, there was no such thing as gay at the time. It would not have been a crime to be gay then, had there been such a thing, the crime would have been "buggery", anal sex, which was a very severe crime against god and man. but it was no more severe commited between men then commited between a man and a woman.
James wrote extensivly about the evils of buggery and it was one of the main evils that he wrote all princes should avoid in his book about how to rule.
It is certianly true that he prefered his male favorites, Buckingham and Somerset in perticular. But this was not at all unusual. It is accepted by scholars that he had a genuine love for his wife, but a wifes role at that time was limited. She was not expected to take part in intellectual pursuites or debates on politics or religon. Thus an intellectual like James went to his male friends to fill these roles.
When looking at these things, one has to take into account the cultural differences of a past era. You have to look at things in the context of their own time. If someone read a letter of that time period from James to Buckingham it would sound like an explicit love letter, but thats just the way they spoke at the time.
I say this not as a homophobe of any kind, but more to defend James against the ridicule against him by some people. I don't care if there was a gay king, but others do. It lessens his historical importance by reducing him to the gay king.
Also, i say this all with relative authority as I'm repeating it from my professor of the last two years, who is a leading authority on Tudor and Stuart England within the US.
To say that James was not at least bisexual is to ignore basic historical fact. To say his love for his wife was genuine is a misconception, as time went by they spent less and less time together. It is possibe to say that a limited role of women made a close relationship impossible but if you look at other monarchs of a similar perios such as his son Charles, he remained utterly devoted to his wife rarely leaving her except for matters of state. Although somewhat colourful language is used in letters to Buckingham it is plainly obvious that there was something else going on as even public satire pointed out. His own son Charles was embarressed by his father's homosexuality as acknowledged by many leading British historians of that period.
shareHe looked like he was a practicing sadist and didn't care what the source of his pleasure was. As long as someone was suffering, he was "up" for it. But then when he started falling in love with his wife, it appeared that he didn't know how to express that affection... and she wasn't sure how to return it.
I don't think "most of them were" however. Some were, some weren't. In some cases, we're not sure. I guess I'll have to read up on his character, which doesn't look like an easy read. He was a complex man.
Samantha
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@AJB GB:
I know that post above is ancient history, but I can't believe nobody has hauled this person onto the carpet for his ludicrous assertion that "there was no such thing as gay at the time"!!! Snort! That is hilarious, although it's also pathetically uninformed. Do people really think homosexuality is some recent fad that folks have taken to just for, oh, the heck of it?
Saddest/funniest thing I've seen on IMDb or anywhere else for quite some time!
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I think you've maybe missunderstood what AJB GB meant. They were refering to the classifications of sexuality, rather than the act. In 16th/17th century England, a person would not have been labled as gay/straight/bi/homosexual or any other such term, as these are more modern definitions, if you will. But that's not to say that people were not involved in other sexual activities/relationships. Only the way they would have been discussed or classified would have been different. I think that was the point that AJB GB was trying to make; not to try and imply that there were no gay people 400 years ago.
Although as you pointed out, both the earlier, and also your posts, were made some time ago.
"buggery"? That was originally a term for anal sex?
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