The Gift of Ethics

Basilikon Doron (1599) is an instructional treatise on kingly ethics written by King James VI of Scotland, who would later become king over England in tandem, to his son, Prince Henry. After Henry’s early death, James awarded the book to his second son, Charles, who had been born one year after the book was written. Only seven copies were printed originally and those were solely to be found in Edinburgh. The scarcity of the book was due to the nature of the book itself. It was intended to be the private reading material of the king’s heir - Basilikon Doron means royal gift in Ancient Greek. However, swiftly after the books were distributed to their safekeepers, at least one copy was found in public circulation. Four years later, in 1603, the book proved a seventeenth century bestseller when the king printed thousands of copies for public distribution in London. The treatise is formed in three parts. The first part concerns a king’s duty to God; the second part concerns a king’s duty to himself; and the third part concerns a king’s duty to his subjects. It offers the reader an apparently genuine insight into the mind of an Early Modern monarch, for better or worse, due to the book’s intended limited circulation.