On 20 June 1620, Esther Inglis sat down to write a letter to King James. This is the only known letter from her that survives, and it gives a distinct sense of her straight-talking that we find in some of her manuscripts to the king as well as Princes Henry and Charles. The importance of the letter required her to use a large full sheet of paper – which was expensive – on which she writes her message in careful Roman script. The message barely takes up the top half of the sheet, but she signs it at the bottom right corner.

Addressing the king in large capitals at the top: ‘MOST MIGHTIE MONARCHE’, she gets right down to business. ‘Darre I presume vpon th’honnor and credit that I haue had at diuers tymes to speake your Royal Majesté and hath euer found your Highnes fauour’, indicating an extraordinary familiarity with the king, which indeed goes back to early days in Edinburgh. She is writing on behalf of her ‘only sonne who hauing past his course two yeares ago would glaidlie follow Theologie if it shall please God’. Samuel had taken his MA degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1618 but desired more study, so Esther is asking the king to write a letter on his behalf ‘to sum fellowship either in Cambridge or Oxefoord as occasion shall fall out’.

She has reminded King James that Samuel gave him a little book of his own poems when the king visited Edinburgh in 1617, and now she asks that he write a fellowship recommendation – rather like asking your favourite professor for a letter to go with your applications. Being fully aware of how the court operates, Esther spells out exactly what she wants done. When Samuel notifies one of the noblemen close to the king that he has a possible fellowship pending, let the nobleman tell the king’s secretary right away so that a letter can be expeditiously produced.

She ends, ‘For the which I may haue my tossed mynd releeued of the great cair I haue perpetuallie for this said youth. And wee all of vs will neuer cease to beseech God to preserue and prolong your Majesties lyfe with many happie & prosperous yeeres to Reigne ouer vs’. Esther reveals herself here as the caring mother, worried about the future for this her only remaining son who is so talented, and she assures the king that the whole family will be praying for him.

What an extraordinary letter from a middle-class woman to her ruler, not grovelling but honest and straightforward, harkening back to the openness of the Stewart court as it was in Scotland before 1603. Both she and Bartilmo had worked for the king in the 1590s, Samuel had met him twice in 1617, and Esther is here relying on this familiarity. In the end, after seven months, the king appointed Bartilmo to the living at Spexhall in Suffolk, but in fact it’s very unlikely that he ever went there.¹ Samuel took that living within ten months, so his father’s appointment may have been a placeholder until Samuel finished his studies. He was to remain there for the rest of his life with his own family, dying at the ripe age of 84 in 1681. How proud his mother would have been.

1. Thanks to Jamie Reid Baxter for this interpretation of the switch between father and son. ↩︎