Sophia Stuart (22 June 160623 June 1606) was the fourth daughter and last of seven children of James VI and I and Anne of Denmark.Edward Rimbault, The Old Cheque-book, Or, Book of Remembrance, of the Chapel Royal (London, 1872), p. 170.

Biography

Anne of Denmark was rumoured to be pregnant at the end of October 1605. Robert Naunton wrote that courtiers were uncertain because her figure was concealed by her farthingale.HMC 12th report part I, Earl Cowper, Coke (London, 1888), p. 58. In May 1606 she stopped holding audiences with ambassadors including Zorzi Giustinian.Horatio Brown, Calendar State Papers Venice, 1603-1607 (London, 1900), no. 526.

Anne of Denmark prepared herself for childbirth at the Palace of Placentia, or Greenwich Palace in May. Her lady in waiting, Audrey Walsingham, bought linen and lacework to the value of £614 for her lying-in.Sarah A. Bendall, The Women Who Clothed the Stuart Queens: Gender and Work in the Royal Wardrobe and the Fashion Marketplace (Bloomsbury, 2026), p. 84.Fanny Bury Palliser, History of Lace (London, 1865), p. 296. Anne's lodging was furnished with a cupboard displaying silver gilt plate, including a crystal jug with silver mounts that had been a New Year's Day gift to Elizabeth I in 1577.Arthur Jefferies Collins, Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth I: The Inventory of 1574 (London: British Museum, 1955), p. 557 no. 1453.

Sophia Stuart was born early in the morning of Sunday 22 June 1606.David M. Bergeron, The Duke of Lennox, 1574-1624: A Jacobean Courtier's Life (Edinburgh, 2022), pp. 68-9. Anne was attended by a midwife, Alice Dennis, and Peter Chamberlen, the surgeon to the queen,Tracts during the reign of King James I (London, 1809), p. 388. who had both helped at the birth of Mary Stuart in April 1605.Elizabeth Lane Furdell, The Royal Doctors, 1485-1714: Medical Personnel at the Tudor and Stuart Courts (New York, 2001), p. 113. Chamberlen is thought to have been the inventor of birthing forceps.David S. Katz, 'Peter Chamberlen and the fruits of failure', Sabbath and Sectarianism (Brill, 1988), p. 49. Anne gave him a diamond ring for his efforts.Walter Radcliffe, Milestones in Midwifery, and, The Secret Instrument (San Francisco, 1989), p. 30: James Hobson Aveling, The Chamberlens and the midwifery forceps (London, 1882), p. 11.

Sophia grew "verye weake" and was baptised by James Montague, Dean of the Chapel Royal.M. S. Giuseppi, HMC Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House, 1606, vol. 18 (London, 1940), p. 178: Edward Francis Rimbault, The Old Cheque-book, Or, Book of Remembrance, of the Chapel Royal (London: Camden Society, 1872), p. 170 She was named after her maternal grandmother Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), pp. 185, 192. Ninth and last child of James I of England and Queen Anne of Denmark, her body was carried on the Thames in a barge covered with black velvet to be buried in Westminster Abbey on 26 June.

A cancelled tournament There had been plans to hold a tournament at Greenwich to celebrate the birth and baptism. A challenge had been issued in the name of the "Four Knights Errant of the Fortunate Island" on 1 June 1606.David M. Bergeron, The Duke of Lennox, 1574-1624: A Jacobean Courtier's Life (Edinburgh, 2022), p. 73: TNA SP 14/22. The comic text of the challenge made King James laugh. A courtier, William Drummond of Hawthornden sent a copy of the text to a friend in Scotland. Sophia's uncle Christian IV of Denmark was expected to attend. The event was cancelled.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), pp. 49-52: Martin Wiggins & Catherine Richardson, British Drama, 1533-1642: 1603-1608, vol. 5 (Oxford, 2015), p. 302.David Masson, Drummond of Hawthornden (London, 1873), pp. 11–13: Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden (Edinburgh, 1711), pp. 231–233.

Christian IV arrived in England and went to see his grieving sister at Greenwich on 18 July.J. Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England (Philadelphia, 2001), p. 107. Christian IV was entertained by the king at Theobalds while Anne remained at Greenwich, still in the apartments set aside for her confinement.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), pp. 53, 59: Horatio Brown, Calendar State Papers Venice, 1603-1606 (London, 1900), p. 383 no. 556. Anne was "churched" in a private ceremony at Greenwich by Dr Montague on 3 August.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 192: Edward Rimbault, The Old Cheque-book, Or, Book of Remembrance, of the Chapel Royal (London, 1872), p. 171. Before leaving England, Christian IV competed with King James at running at the ring.Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), p. 87.

Monument at Westminster Abbey Sophia's monument at Westminster Abbey resembling a stone crib was designed by Maximilian Colt and painted and gilded by John de Critz.Patricia Phillippy, Women, Death and Literature in Post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2002), p. 144: Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer in the Reign of James I (London, 1836), p. 60: Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1791), pp. 319-20. The tomb is finely carved with lacework and an embroidered velvet cover.Graham Parry, The Golden Age Restor'd: The Culture of the Stuart Court, 1603-42 (Manchester, 1981), p. 255: David Howarth, Images of Rule (Macmillan, 1997), pp. 170-1. Its Latin inscription may be translated, "Sophia, a royal rosebud untimely plucked by Fate and from James, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, and Queen Anne her parents, snatched away, to flower again in the rose garden of Christ, lies here. 23rd June, 4th year of the reign of King James 1606".Westminster Abbey: James I and Anne of Denmark

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