"Allegations of homosexuality made against King James, in his lifetime and in the generation afterwards, shook the political world of early Stuart England. In this history of the monarch and his times, Michael Young relates these allegations to the current debate among historians on the origin of modern conceptions of "homosexuality."".

"Combining research on the history of homosexuality with political history, Young's treatment of homophobia, effeminacy, manliness, and sexual politics in Jacobean England not only explores the repercussions of James's homosexuality on his son Charles's reign, but shows how prior historians have mishandled the subject of James's homosexuality and underestimated its political consequences."--BOOK JACKET.