Union of the Crowns Union of the Crowns The Union of the Crowns (; ) was the accession of James VI of Scotland to the thrones of England and Ireland, and the consequential unification for some purposes (such as overseas diplomacy) of the three realms under a single monarch on 24 March 1603. The Union of Crowns followed the death of Elizabeth I of England, the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty, who was James's unmarried and childless first cousin twice removed. The Union was a personal or dynastic union, with the Crown of Scotland remaining both distinct and separate—despite James's best efforts to
Artists of the Tudor court At the start the Wars of the Roses had greatly disrupted artistic activity, which apart from architecture had reached a very low ebb by 1485. The Yorkist dynasty overthrown by the Tudors had been very close to their Burgundian allies, and English diplomats had their portraits painted by the finest Early Netherlandish painters - Edward Grimshaw by Petrus Christus and Sir John Donne by Hans Memling (both National Gallery, London). However these were both painted abroad. In the Tudor period foreign artists were recruited and often welcomed lavishly by the English court, as they were in other artistically marginal parts