THE SUN RISING
The Sun Rising: James I and the Dawn
of a Global Britain
Published on 1st April 2025
In 1603 England was on the edge of crisis. Queen Elizabeth I had died, bringing the Tudor line to an end.
Enter King James, who reached London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. James established a new dynasty on the English throne and the first 'united' kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales was born. The Stuarts had arrived.
But first, this new 'Great Britain' had to play catch up. England was behind, but James's global ambitions began to shift the tide. As ships departed London for America, Russia, Persia, India and Japan, as the fledgling East India Company began to intertwine ever closer with the crown and as the English began to travel beyond the bounds of their island in greater numbers than ever before, the seeds of the future British Empire were sown.
Long overshadowed by the glory of Elizabeth I and the fatal nadir of Charles I, the reign of the first King of Great Britain is at last told in a new light. Taking in everything from the historic voyage of the Mayflower to the alliance between James and the Persian shah over a joint love of silk, The Sun Rising revolutionises our understanding of the early seventeenth century and the figures that forged a global Britain.
"A majestic, brilliant account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good"
"With its gripping storytelling combined with historical rigour, The Sun Rising is just the right kind of zesty treatment a neglected period needs. Fresh and fabulous"
"Stereotypes are out; new ways of defining James and his world are in...Whitelock's exploration of how political, cultural and commercial interests interlocked in James's policymaking, so expanding conceptions of state power, is game changing"
"Scintillating ...Here is a focal reign in which the British reached tendrils out into the corners of the globe and entwined themselves with the history of the world"
"Fascinating, razor-sharp and shot through with uncanny resonances for the interesting times in which we live"
"Big, bold, bracing history...Whitelock gives us wide vistas, sharp insights and immersive prose"
"A picturesque portrait of the nascent Great Britain in an extraordinary age"
"Assembling a large cast of explorers, envoys and entrepreneurs, Whitelock vividly underscores the vitality and global ambitious of early seventeenth-century Englishmen and their first Stuart king"
"A very lucid, exciting and well-researched narrative of a part of British history which has been relatively neglected and yet is of vital and enduring importance"