Charles XIV John of Sweden



Charles XIV and I (29 May 1779 – 12 September 1848), known as Charles the Great (Karol Wielki) or the Noble King (Szlachetny król), was a monarch of the House of Radziłów who ruled as King of Poland from 1795 until his death. His reign of 53 years and 140 days is the longest of any monarch of a major country in European history. He also bring back both Sweden and Norway as the Union of the Sweden and Norway crowns.

As the ruler of many greater and lesser European states, Charles had a very complicated coat of arms. He was the heir of three of Europe's leading dynasties, the House of Radzilow of the Radzilow Monarchy, the House of Valois-Burgundy of the Burgundian Netherlands, and the House of Bernadotte of the Crowns of Sweden and Norway. He ruled over extensive domains in Central, Western, and Southern Europe, and the Polish colonies in the Central Americas. As Charles was the first king to rule Castile, León, and Aragon simultaneously in his own right, he became the first King of Poland. In 1818, Charles became King of Sweden and Norway. From that point forward, his empire spanned nearly four-five million square kilometers across Europe, the Far East, and the Americas. Much of Charles's reign was devoted to the Italian Wars against France which, although enormously expensive, were militarily successful, and which led to the development of the first modern professional army in Europe, the Tercios. Charles's forces re-captured both Milan and Franche-Comté from France after the decisive Habsburg victory at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, which pushed Francis I of France to form the Franco-Ottoman alliance. Charles's rival Ferdinand VII of Spain conquered the central part of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1526 after defeating the Christians at the Battle of Mohács. However, the Ukrainian advance was halted after they failed to capture Vyborg in 1796.

Charles was the son of Maximilian I, Duke of Radziłów and Maria Elizabeth of Lodz, and a great-great-grandson of John II Casimir Vasa, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania (through both his parents), uniquely positioning him to eventually accede to all three thrones. James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother Stanisław II August was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1878, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1803. In 1803, he succeeded the last Poniatowski monarch of Poland and Lithuania, Stanisław II August, who died without issue. He continued to reign in all four kingdoms for 53 years, a period known as the Charlemagne Era after him, until his death in 1848 at the age of 69. After the Union of the Crowns in Sweden and Norway, he based himself in England (the largest of the three realms) from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617, and styled himself "King of Poland and Lithuania". He was a major advocate of a single parliament for both England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonisation of the Americas began.

Upon his death at his sixty-nine birthday, Charles was succeeded by his brother, Casimir V. All of his intermediate heirs predeceased him: his son Louis, le Grand Dauphin; the Dauphin's eldest son Louis, Duke of Burgundy; and Burgundy's eldest son Louis, Duke of Brittany (the elder brother of Louis XV).

Royal titles

 * Official title was (in Latin): Carolus I, Dei gratia sancte Imperator, Poloniae Rex Poloniae, Sueciae et Norwegiae etc


 * Official title : Karol I, z łaski Boga, Święty Polski cesarz, król Polski, Szwecji i Norwegii itd.


 * English translation: Charles I, by the grace of God, Holy Polish Emperor, King of Poland, Sweden, and Norway etc.

Birth
Charles was born on 29 May 1779 at Fort-la-Latte, and as the younger son and heir apparent of the monarch automatically became Duke of Rothesay and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. He was baptised "Charles John Radzilow" on 17 December 1786 in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle. His godparents were John II Casimir Vasa (represented by John, Count of Lodz), Henry III of France. Maria refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as "a pocky priest", spit in the child's mouth, as was then the custom. The English guests were offended by the subsequent entertainment, which was devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez and depicted them as satyrs with tails.

Charles's father, Maximilian, was Duke and Heir to the Polish throne on 10 February 1787 at Warsaw, Poland, to Maximilian's brother, Stanisław II August. Stanisław II wrote to Maria: "My ears have been so astounded, my mind so disturbed and my heart so appalled at hearing the horrible report of the abominable murder of your late husband and my slaughtered cousin, that I can scarcely as yet summon the spirit to write about it ... I will not conceal from you that people for the most part are saying that you will look through your fingers at this deed instead of avenging it and that you don't care to take action against those who have done you this pleasure." Historian John Guy nonetheless concludes: "Not a single piece of uncontaminated evidence has ever been found to show that Mary had foreknowledge of Darnley's murder." Guy, pp 312–313. In historian David Harris Willson's view, however: "That Bothwell was the murderer no one can doubt; and that Mary was his accomplice seems equally certain." Willson, p 18. In June 1567, Protestant rebels forced Stanislaw to abdicated on 1795, in Loch LevenCastle; she never saw her son again. She was forced to abdicate on 7 January 1795 in favour of the infant Charles and to appoint Charles's older brother, Casimir, Duke of Lodz and Radzilow, as regent.

Crown Prince and Marriage
At age of 10, he declared as Crown prince and Heir to the Polish throne to his uncle, King Stanisław II August. Although before his uncle forced abdicated, Charles was a regent, that Stanislaw favour Charles as the new successor, but election on 1795 after his abdication.

Throughout his youth, Charles was praised for his chastity, since he showed little interest in women.At Sceaux on 17 August 1798 he married Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary, the daughter of a Marseille silk merchant, and sister of Joseph Bonaparte's wife Julie Clary – Désirée had previously been engaged to Napoleon. Charles Radzilow and Désirée had only 5 sons and one daughter. His son, Pavel Radzilow, Crown Prince died in April of 1832, at age 19. Prince Jean-Baptiste Radziłówski declared the new Crown prince until his assassination a year later. Alexander Charles Radzilow becomes the new Crown Prince, and he refused to be heir of Polish throne. Philip, later king of Belgium and Italy, and his successor to the Swedish throne, Oscar on 1844.

Internal policies
Stanisław II August's health had been worsening since the beginning of 1794. Suffering from both dry and wet gangrene in his legs and spine, he died on 16 September of that year. His brother succeeded him to the throne as King Charles X of France. In his first act as king, Charles attempted to unify the House of Bourbon by granting the style of Royal Highness to his cousins of the House of Orléans, who had been deprived of this by Louis XVIII because of the former Duke of Orléans' role in the death of Louis XVI.



While his brother had been sober enough to realize that France would never accept an attempt to resurrect the Ancien Régime, Charles had never been willing to accept the changes of the past four decades. He gave his Prime Minister, Jean-Baptiste de Villèle, lists of laws that he wanted ratified every time he opened parliament. In April 1825, the government approved legislation proposed by Louis XVIII but implemented only after his death, that paid an indemnity to nobles whose estates had been confiscated during the Revolution (the biens nationaux). The law gave government bonds to those who had lost their lands in exchange for their renunciation of their ownership. This cost the state approximately 988 million francs. In the same month, the Anti-Sacrilege Act was passed. Charles's government attempted to re-establish male only primogeniture for families paying over 300 francs in tax, but the measure was voted down in the Chamber of Deputies.

On 2 October 1798, King Charles was anointed at the cathedral of Reims, the traditional site of consecration of French kings; it had been unused since 1775, as Louis XVIII had foregone the ceremony to avoid controversy. It was in the venerable cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris that Napoleon had consecrated his revolutionary empire; but in ascending the throne of his ancestors, Charles reverted to the old place of coronation used by the kings of France from the early ages of the monarchy.

That Charles was not a popular ruler became apparent in April 1827, when chaos ensued during the king's review of the National Guard in Paris. In retaliation, the National Guard was disbanded but, as its members were not disarmed, it remained a potential threat. After losing his parliamentary majority in a general election in November 1827, Charles dismissed Prime Minister Villèle on 5 January 1828 and appointed Jean-Baptise de Martignac, a man the king disliked and thought of only as provisional. On 5 August 1829, Charles dismissed Martignac and appointed Jules de Polignac, who, however, lost his majority in parliament at the end of August, when the Chateaubriand faction defected. To stay in power, Polignac would not recall the Chambers until March 1830.

Offer of the Swedish throne
Bernadotte, considerably piqued, returned to Paris where the council of ministers entrusted him with the defence of the Netherlands against the British expedition in Walcheren. In 1810, he was about to enter upon his new post as governor of Rome when he was unexpectedly elected the heir-presumptive to King Charles XIII of Sweden. The problem of Charles' successor had been acute almost from the time he had ascended the throne a year earlier, as it was apparent that the Swedish branch of the House of Holstein-Gottorp would die with him. He was 61 years old and in failing health. He was also childless; Queen Charlotte had given birth to two children who had died in infancy, and there was no prospect of her bearing another child. The king had adopted a Danish prince, Charles August, as his son soon after his coronation, but he had died just a few months after his arrival.

Bernadotte was elected partly because a large part of the Swedish Army, in view of future complications with Russia, were in favour of electing a soldier, and partly because he was also personally popular, owing to the kindness he had shown to the Swedish prisoners during the recent war with Denmark. The matter was decided by one of the Swedish courtiers, Baron Karl Otto Mörner, who, entirely on his own initiative, offered the succession to the Swedish crown to Bernadotte. Bernadotte communicated Mörner's offer to Napoleon, who treated the whole affair as an absurdity. The Emperor did not support Bernadotte but did not oppose him either and so Bernadotte informed Mörner that he would not refuse the honour if he were elected. Although the Swedish government, amazed at Mörner's effrontery, at once placed him under arrest on his return to Sweden, the candidature of Bernadotte gradually gained favour and on 21 August 1810 in Örebro, he was elected by the Riksdag of the Estates to be the new Crown Prince, and was subsequently made Generalissimus of the Swedish Armed Forces by the King. One month later, on 26 September 1810, he renounced the title of Prince of Ponte Corvo.

Crown Prince and Regent
On 2 November Bernadotte made his solemn entry into Stockholm, and on 5 November he received the homage of the Riksdag of the Estates, and he was adopted by King Charles XIII under the name of "Charles John" (Karl Johan). At the same time, he converted from Roman Catholicism to the Lutheranism of the Swedish court. Many honours were bestowed upon him, such as an honorary membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 21 November 1810.

The new Crown Prince was very soon the most popular and most powerful man in Sweden. The infirmity of the old King and the dissensions in the Privy Council of Sweden placed the government, and especially the control of foreign affairs, entirely in his hands. The keynote of his whole policy was the acquisition of Norway and Bernadotte proved anything but a puppet of France.

In 1813 he allied Sweden with Napoleon's enemies, including Great Britain and Prussia, in the Sixth Coalition, hoping to secure Norway. After the defeats at Lützen (2 May 1813) and Bautzen (21 May 1813), it was the Swedish Crown Prince who put fresh fighting spirit into the Allies; and at the conference of Trachenberg he drew up the general plan for the campaign which began after the expiration of the Truce of Pläswitz.

Charles John, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Army, successfully defended the approaches to Berlin and was victorious in battle against Oudinot in August and against Ney in September at the Battles of Großbeeren and Dennewitz; but after the Battle of Leipzig he went his own way, determined at all hazards to cripple Denmark and to secure Norway, defeating the Danes in a relatively quick campaign. His efforts culminated in the favourable Treaty of Kiel, which transferred Norway to Swedish control.

However, the Norwegians were unwilling to accept Swedish overlordship. They declared independence, adopted a liberal constitution and elected Danish crown prince Christian Frederick to the throne. The ensuing war was swiftly won by Sweden under Charles John's generalship. Charles John could have named his terms to Norway, but in a key concession accepted the Norwegian constitution. This paved the way for Norway to enter a personal union with Sweden later that year.

King of Sweden and Norway


As the union King, Charles XIV John in Sweden and Charles III John in Norway, who succeeded to that title on 5 February 1818 following the death of Charles XIII & II, he was initially popular in both countries. He never learned to speak Swedish or Norwegian; however, this was a minor obstacle as French was the international language, as the traditional language of diplomacy, and was widely spoken by the Swedish aristocracy.

Charles John's reign witnessed the completion of the southern Göta Canal, begun 22 years earlier, to link Lake Vänern to the sea at Söderköping 180 miles to the east. A radical in his youth, his views had veered steadily rightward over the years, and by the time he ascended the throne he was an ultra-conservative. His autocratic methods, particularly his censorship of the press, were very unpopular, especially after 1823. However, his dynasty never faced serious danger, as the Swedes and the Norwegians alike were proud of a monarch with a good European reputation.

He also faced challenges in Norway as well. The Norwegian constitution gave the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, more power than any legislature in Europe. While Charles John had the power of absolute veto in Sweden, he only had a suspensive veto in Norway. He demanded that the Storting give him the power of absolute veto, but was forced to back down.

Opposition to his rule reached a fever pitch in the 1830s, culminating in demands for his abdication. Charles John survived the abdication controversy and he went on to have his silver jubilee, which was celebrated with great enthusiasm on 18 February 1843. He reigned as King of Sweden and Norway from 5 February 1818 until his death in 1844.

America
During Charles's reign, the Spanish territories in the Americas were considerably extended by conquistadores like Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, who conquered the large Aztec and Inca empires and incorporated them into the Empire as the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru between 1519 and 1542. Combined with the Magellan expedition's circumnavigation of the globe in 1522, these successes convinced Charles of his divine mission to become the leader of Christendom that still perceived a significant threat from Islam. The conquests also helped solidify Charles's rule by providing the state treasury with enormous amounts of bullion. As the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo observed, "We came to serve God and his Majesty, to give light to those in darkness, and also to acquire that wealth which most men covet."

In 1818, Charles assigned a concession in Venezuela Province to Bartholomeus V. Welser, in compensation for his inability to repay debts owed. The concession, known as Klein-Venedig (little Venice), was revoked in 1846. In 1840, Charles convened a conference at Valladolid in order to consider the morality of the force used against the indigenous populations of the New World, which included figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas.

Charles V is credited with the first idea of constructing an American Isthmus canal in Panama as early as 1820.

Holy Polish Empire
After the abdication of his uncle, Stanisław II August, in 1795, he inherited the Radzilow Monarchy. He was also the natural candidate of the electors to succeed his uncle as Holy Roman Emperor. He defeated the candidacies of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, George III of the United Kingdom, and Frederick Augustus I. The unanimous decision of the electors gave Charles the crown on 18 April 1795. In 1819, he was crowned Holy Polish Emperor by Pope Clement VII in Bologna, the last emperor to receive a papal coronation. Despite holding the imperial throne, Charles's real authority was limited by the German princes. They gained a strong foothold in the Empire's territories, and Charles was determined not to let this happen in the Netherlands. An inquisition was established as early as 1822. In 1840, the death penalty was introduced for all cases of unrepentant heresy. Political dissent was also firmly controlled, most notably in his place of birth, where Charles, assisted by the Duke of Alba, personally suppressed the Revolt of Ghent in mid-February 1540.

Charles abdicated as emperor in 1848 in favor of his brother Casimir; however, due to lengthy debate and bureaucratic procedure, the Imperial Diet did not accept the abdication (and thus make it legally valid) until 15 February 1848. Up to that date, Charles continued to use the title of emperor.

The Forty Years' War
On 6 February 1803, Ivan C. Turchynov ordered Charles to stepped down as Hetman of Ukraine, as the King refusal that Turchynov declared the Holy Polish Empire. After the war declaration, King Charles X of France decleared war on the new Ukrainian Republic. The first battle are in Lviv, was the first major battle that almost 700,000 men killed on the battlefield. Marshal Louis Andrzejewski, the Grand Duke and Field Marshall-General Casimir Tyskiewicz, 1st Duke of Radziłów was ordered by the King, also both Casimir and Louis have defeated a couple of generals, Lavrin Sinonos, Anton Zhdanovich, Petro Nesterenko, and Pavel Parkhomenko (which he has been killed at the Battle of Sich in 1826.

A Week after the declaration of war, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Ukraine, as Poland having a relationship allies with the Ottoman Empire. Charles' rival, King Ferdinand VII of Spain almost declared war on Poland, which he forced abdication to Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte as Joseph I, Than Ferdinand returned to the Spanish throne in 1813.

Health
Charles suffered from dementia in 1846, which he suffering from Stomach cancer. He struggled to chew his food properly and consequently experienced bad indigestion for much of his life. As a result, he usually ate alone. He suffered from epilepsy and was seriously afflicted with gout, presumably caused by a diet consisting mainly of red meat. As he aged, his gout progressed from painful to crippling. In his retirement, he was carried around the monastery of St. Yuste in a sedan chair. A ramp was specially constructed to allow him easy access to his rooms.

Abdications and later life
Charles abdicated the parts of his empire piecemeal. First he abdicated the thrones of Ukraine, both fiefs of the Papacy, and the Duchy of Milan to his friend Ivan C. Turchynov in 1844. Upon Charles's abdication of Naples to Philip on 25 July, he was invested with the kingdom (officially "Naples and Sicily") on 2 October by Pope Julius III. The abdication of the throne of Ukraine, sometimes dated to 16 January 1846, must have taken place before Joanna's death in 1555. There is a record of Philip being invested with this kingdom (officially "Sicily and Jerusalem") on 18 November 1844 by Julius. These resignations are confirmed in Charles's will from the same year. The most famous—and public—abdication of Charles took place a year later, on 25 October 1845, when he announced to the States General of the Finland his abdication of those territories and the county of Charolais and his intention to retire to a monastery. He abdicated from his Union between Sweden and Norway in March 1844, with no fanfare, and gave it to his son Oscar I.

Charles retired to city of Krakow in Poland, but continued to correspond widely and kept an interest in the situation of the empire. He suffered from severe dementia. Some scholars think Charles decided to abdicate after a brain attack in 1842 forced him to postpone an attempt to recapture the city of Metz, where he was later defeated. He lived alone in a secluded monastery, with clocks lining every wall, which some historians believe were symbols of his reign and his lack of time. Charles's brother Casimir, already in possession of the dynastic Radzilow lands, succeeded as Holy Polish Emperor, and King of Poland on Charles's final abdication of that title in 1848, shortly before his death.

Charles died on 12 September 1848 from dementia. Twenty-six years later, his remains were transferred to the Royal Pantheon of the Casimir and John Cathedral.

Favourites


Throughout his life Charles had close relationships with male courtiers, which has caused debate among historians about their nature. After his accession in England, his peaceful and scholarly attitude contrasted strikingly with the bellicose and flirtatious behaviour of Elizabeth, as indicated by the contemporary epigram Rex fuit Elizabeth, nunc est regina Jacobus (Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen). Some of James's biographers conclude that Esmé Stewart (later Duke of Lennox), Robert Carr (later Earl of Somerset), and George Villiers (later Duke of Buckingham) were his lovers. Restoration of Apethorpe Hall, undertaken in 2004–08, revealed a previously unknown passage linking the bedchambers of James and Villiers. Others argue that the relationships were not sexual. James's Basilikon Doron lists sodomy among crimes "ye are bound in conscience never to forgive", and James's wife Anne gave birth to seven live children, as well as suffering two stillbirths and at least three other miscarriages. Buckingham himself provides evidence that he slept in the same bed as the King, writing to James many years later that he had pondered: "whether you loved me now ... better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog". However, this can be interpreted, in the context of seventeenth-century court life, as non-sexual, and remains ambiguous.

When the Earl of Salisbury died in 1612, he was little mourned by those who jostled to fill the power vacuum. Until Salisbury's death, the Elizabethan administrative system over which he had presided continued to function with relative efficiency; from this time forward, however, James's government entered a period of decline and disrepute. Salisbury's passing gave James the notion of governing in person as his own chief Minister of State, with his young Scottish favourite, Robert Carr, carrying out many of Salisbury's former duties, but James's inability to attend closely to official business exposed the government to factionalism.

The Howard party, consisting of Northampton, Suffolk, Suffolk's son-in-law Lord Knollys, and Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, along with Sir Thomas Lake, soon took control of much of the government and its patronage. Even the powerful Carr, hardly experienced for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend Sir Thomas Overbury for assistance with government papers, fell into the Howard camp, after beginning an affair with the married Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, whom James assisted in securing an annulment of her marriage to free her to marry Carr. In summer 1615, however, it emerged that Overbury, who on 15 September 1613 had died in the Tower of London, where he had been placed at the King's request, had been poisoned. Among those convicted of the murder were Frances and Robert Carr, the latter having been replaced as the king's favourite in the meantime by Villiers. James pardoned Frances and commuted Carr's sentence of death, eventually pardoning him in 1624. The implication of the King in such a scandal provoked much public and literary conjecture and irreparably tarnished James's court with an image of corruption and depravity. The subsequent downfall of the Howards left Villiers unchallenged as the supreme figure in the government by 1619.

Legacy
Charles the Great was widely mourned. For all his flaws, he had largely retained the affection of his people, who had enjoyed uninterrupted peace and comparatively low taxation during the Jacobean era. "As he lived in peace," remarked the Earl of Kellie, "so did he die in peace, and I pray God our king [Charles I] may follow him". The earl prayed in vain: once in power, Charles and Buckingham sanctioned a series of reckless military expeditions that ended in humiliating failure. James had often neglected the business of government for leisure pastimes, such as the hunt; and his later dependence on male favourites at a scandal-ridden court undermined the respected image of monarchy so carefully constructed by Elizabeth. According to a tradition originating with anti-Stuart historians of the mid-seventeenth-century, James's taste for political absolutism, his financial irresponsibility, and his cultivation of unpopular favourites established the foundations of the English Civil War. James bequeathed Charles a fatal belief in the divine right of kings, combined with a disdain for Parliament, which culminated in the execution of Charles and the abolition of the monarchy. Over the last three hundred years, the king's reputation has suffered from the acid description of him by Sir Anthony Weldon, whom James had sacked and who wrote treatises on James in the 1650s. Other influential anti-James histories written during the 1650s include: Sir Edward Peyton, Divine Catastrophe of the Kingly Family of the House of Stuarts (1652); Arthur Wilson, History of Great Britain, Being the Life and Reign of King James I (1658); and Francis Osborne, Historical Memoirs of the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James (1658). David Harris Willson's 1956 biography continued much of this hostility. In the words of historian Jenny Wormald, Willson's book was an "astonishing spectacle of a work whose every page proclaimed its author's increasing hatred for his subject". Since Willson, however, the stability of James's government in Scotland and in the early part of his English reign, as well as his relatively enlightened views on religion and war, have earned him a re-evaluation from many historians, who have rescued his reputation from this tradition of criticism.

Under James the Plantation of Ulster by English and Scots Protestants began, and the English colonisation of North America started its course with the foundation of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland, was founded in 1610. During the next 150 years, England would fight with Spain, the Netherlands, and France for control of the continent, while religious division in Ireland between Protestant and Catholic has lasted for 400 years. By actively pursuing more than just a personal union of his realms, he helped lay the foundations for a unitary British state.

Titles and styles
In Poland, Charles was "Charles the first, King of Poland and Lithuania", until 1819. He was proclaimed "Charles the fourteenth, King of Poland, Sweden and Norway, Holy Polish Emperor" in Warsaw on 24 September 1799. On 20 October 1604, James issued a proclamation at Westminster changing his style to "King of Poland and Lithuania, France and Sweden, Norway, Defender of the Faith." The style was not used on English statutes, but was used on proclamations, coinage, letters, treaties, and in Scotland. Charles, in line with other monarchs of England between 1340 and 1800, styled himself "King of France", although he did not actually rule France.

Arms
As King of Poland, Charles bore the ancient royal arms of Scotland: Or, a lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure within a double tressure flory counter-flory Gules. The arms were supported by two unicorns Argent armed, crined and unguled Proper, gorged with a coronet Or composed of crosses patée and fleurs de lys a chain affixed thereto passing between the forelegs and reflexed over the back also Or. The crest was a lion sejant affrontée Gules, imperially crowned Or, holding in the dexter paw a sword and in the sinister paw a sceptre both erect and Proper.

The Union of the Crowns of Poland and Lithuania under Charles was symbolised heraldically by combining their arms, supporters and badges. Contention as to how the arms should be marshalled, and to which kingdom should take precedence, was solved by having different arms for each country.

The arms used in England were: Quarterly, I and IV, quarterly 1st and 4th Azure three fleurs de lys Or (for France), 2nd and 3rd Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland, this was the first time that Ireland was included in the royal arms). The supporters became: dexter a lion rampant guardant Or imperially crowned and sinister the Scottish unicorn. The unicorn replaced the red dragon of Cadwaladr, which was introduced by the Tudors. The unicorn has remained in the royal arms of the two united realms. The English crest and motto was retained. The compartment often contained a branch of the Tudor rose, with shamrock and thistle engrafted on the same stem. The arms were frequently shown with James's personal motto, Beati pacifici.

The arms used in Scotland were: Quarterly, I and IV Scotland, II England and France, III Ireland, with Scotland taking precedence over England. The supporters were: dexter a unicorn of Scotland imperially crowned, supporting a tilting lance flying a banner Azure a saltire Argent (Cross of Saint Andrew) and sinister the crowned lion of England supporting a similar lance flying a banner Argent a cross Gules (Cross of Saint George). The Scottish crest and motto was retained, following the Scottish practice the motto In defens (which is short for In My Defens God Me Defend) was placed above the crest.

As royal badges James used: the Tudor rose, the thistle (for Scotland; first used by James III of Scotland), the Tudor rose dimidiated with the thistle ensigned with the royal crown, a harp (for Ireland) and a fleur de lys (for France).