Fake History Hunter

For some strange reason there are a lot of rather peculiar stories going around about famous historical figures having very odd bathing habits that generally involve them not bathing very much.
I’m not sure why this is, I’ve dealt with the general myths about common people never bathing in the past (they did) but the stories about these royals keep being used as an excuse to prove that back then everybody was filthy.
After all, they claim, if the royals never bathed, why would the commoners?

Some of the most regular victims of this slander are;

• Queen Elizabeth I of England (myth debunked here)
• Queen Isabella I of Castile
• King Louis XIV of France (and his entire palace)
• King James VI of Scotland and I of England (myth debunked here)

In this article I will deal with the stories surrounding King James VI & I.

This article is entirely based on a thread written by Anna Gibson, aka Inviting History on Twitter.
You can read the original thread by clicking here.

Also important: this is a work in progress, both Anna and I will continue to research this topic and if need be add to this article or make changes.

The story about King James VI of Scotland and I of England is that he never bathed and subsequently the rooms he occupied were lice-filled.
One of the main culprits of this story still regularly being repeated online is the article “Naked Cooks, Excrement, Rats: The Secretly Disgusting History of Royal Palaces” which was published on history.com in 2019.
Quite a few of the other claims made there are also dubious, to put it mildly, but here I’ll focus on the claims made about King James.

The History.com article doesn’t provide specific citations, but the main source for a lot the specific claims and wording in the article appears to be ‘The Royal Art of Poisons’ by Eleanor Herman, a book referenced in the article itself.
The book repeats long disproven myths about Elizabeth I (more about that here) and Isabella of Spain rarely bathing and then claims that James: never bathed, never washed his hands, spread lice in rooms he frequented, itched constantly, rarely changed clothes.

The book provides no citations for these specific claims, but thanks to the wording used and the relatively few sources used in other works to back up these claims, it’s fairly easy to find out where most of them likely came from.
Some books like ‘Renaissance, Revolution and Reformation: Britain 1485-1750’ published before Herman’s book, make the claim of no bathing–but no citation for it.

Herman claims that a courtier complained that she “got lousy by sitting in a councillor’s chamber that James frequented.” Did a courtier write this? Well, not exactly. Herman doesn’t cite her source, but this wording is directly from the book “The Royal Doctors” by E. Furdell.
Although Herman includes the quote in full, she did not include the brackets in the version quoted in Furdell’s book. Meaning this (“a councillor’s”) is not what the original source said. Furdell removed the name of Sir Thomas Erskin and replaced it with the bracketed word.

Upon closer inspection, it appears that Herman was also likely getting the uncited James VI/I information from Furdell’s book–note aversion to water, never washing, etc.
For the “lousy” quote, Furdell was quoting from the Lady Anne Clifford. Furdell specifically cites “King James VI and I” by David Harrison Wilson for this Clifford quote.
Willson writes, prior to quoting Clifford: “Yet his grandeur was accompanied by a personal uncleanliness that offended his new subjects, themselves not dainty in matters of soap and water.” (Funny that this source-of-a-source contradicts the History notions of nasty courtiers!)
Now Willson quotes Clifford: “We all saw a great change between the fashion of the court as it is now and of that in the Queen’s time, for we were all lousy by sitting in the chamber of Sir Thomas Erskine.” Note the fuller quote providing a bit (but not all) more context.
He writes further that there were ‘comments upon the filth of James’s personal habits that pass far beyond the possibilities of bowdlerised exposition.’ He provides a citation at the end of this sentence, let’s see where it leads.
Willson’s citation for this passage provides multiple sources, each for different aspects of the paragraph. A little frustrating, as it means combing through each source (minus Clifford, since it’s obvious that that is a citation for!) to see what it supposedly backs up.
Nothing in the Venetian manuscripts cited remarks on the “filth of James’ personal habits.” It’s all about money.
24: “…the drain on private purses is enormous”
46: backing up James increasing his expenditure and pomp (from the previous page)
60: “wealth of jewels.”
The “Hatfield” citation is backing up a few sentences about a commission created to curtail the king’s household expenses. Willson also transcribed improperly it seems, as he wrote “and Salisbury’s assistance,” whereas digitised papers say “Cecil’s assistance.” The actual quote:

So in terms of Willson proving the numerous comments about James’s personal filth, this leaves only “Merry Passages and Jests”.
Of the 12-ish anecdotes (though remember, these are “merry jests”!) related to James I listed in the back of the book, only one is related to hygiene. And it’s ridiculous. In short, it says that James went hunting and defecated so much in his breeches that it came out his shirt.

“King James being a hunting one time, and loth to light for the matter, shitte in his Breeches (according to his usuall manner) and so followed the chace, squeesing and charning so long, that it wrought out at the toppe of his collar;
he lord Holdernesse (Ramsy) following of him, and smelling the businesse, your Highnesse is much polluted, sayes he; sure thou hast stood on thy Head, Man, and shitt thy selfe, how comes it out at thy Cragge else?
my Lerds, see our Salaman, is this the Salaman yea talke on? if ever old Salaman in all his Reyaltie, was a Rayde like ours, Ille be hangd.”

The merry jest is attributed to “Doctor Garnons.”
Another “jest” related to James in this book has his horse talking to him. Does Willson thing this book is also proof that horses talk, and that James could communicate with them? I would doubt it. All in all it’s very strange that Willson cited this book as evidence.
It’s a jestbook, a collection of humorous, often bawdy, anecdotes. In the introduction, the (modern) editor notes that in related to well-known persons, “the jests must be largely apocryphal,” as it was common to take popular jests and match them with current figures. In fact…
The modern editor notes that “This sort of fiction was all too often perpetuated by finding its way into the history books.” The editor notes the jests sometimes reflected “psychological truth,” in that the “the joke gains currency because it speaks to the popular feeling.”
In regards to Willson’s claim of there being many contemporary anecdotes related to James being filthy, he cites: a jest about shitting so much it comes out his shirt- in the same book it claims his horse talked to him, and the “lousy” anecdote.

Since we’re focusing mostly on the History.com article claims, I’ll stick with the Clifford Diary (“lousy”) for the moment before returning to the other sources down the line. Willson specifically cites the 1923 edition called “Diary of Lady Anne Clifford.”
The 1923 publication of “The Diary of Lady Anne Clifford” is an edited version of the “Knole” manuscript, which is not the original document but a transcript manuscript finished in 1826.
Jessica L. Malay, who has written extensively on Clifford, on the Knole diary: “The handwriting is much less legible [compared to other manuscripts] and has more of an amateur or draft quality about it. It also contains many transcription errors and is the least complete.”
In regard to the specific transcription of the passage in question, however, the standardized version that Malay provides in her work “Anne Clifford’s Autobiographical Writing” is almost the same with a difference in the ‘translation’ of some unique 16th century phrasing.
Let’s (finally) take a look at the phrase more deeply. In context, this phrase comes very early on in the ‘Memoir,’ when Clifford is writing retrospectively about the transition from the reign of Ellizabeth I to James I. She was 13 when Elizabeth I died.
Specifically in the context of the “lousy” quote, Clifford was writing about the new king’s first stay at Theobalds House that occurred early on in his his reign. The stay was 4 days long, involved entertainments, meals, and lots of knighting.
Clifford wrote that they went there “to see the King who used my Mother and aunt very graciously, but we all saw a great change between the fashion of the Court as it is now and of that in the Queen’s time, for we were all lousy by sitting in the chamber of Sir Thomas Erskine.”
What did Anne mean when she wrote that they were “all lousy by sitting in the chamber of Sir Thomas Erskine”? In the 16th century, lousy could mean, literally, with lice. But it could also be used, to quote Etymology Online, in a “figurative use as a generic adjective of abuse.”
Anne very well could have been writing literally, and complaining that she, her aunt and mother, got lice when visiting Erskine’s chamber at Theobalds. Lice existed then as they do now, it was a problem. (And they didn’t even have to deal with the drug resistant super lice!)
If we assume she was being literal, however, there are a few issues here. The spread of lice has nothing to do with personal hygiene or not bathing. James could have taken a bath every day and smelled as fresh as a cucumber, and still had head lice.
The books I’ve already referenced are not the only ones to suggest it might have had to do with uncleanliness, but again, let’s assume it’s literal and true, this would be have to do more with a lack of care in court for removing pests–not James I specifically not bathing.
ut he may have not been writing the word literally. She may have even used the word “lowzy,” updated for these transcribed manuscripts for readability. Lowzy, like lousy, was used interchangeably–but lowzy appears more often in the context of meaning poorly done/bad.

This text above is from “Famous Ladies of the English Court,” published in 1899. Was Anne writing that they got lice in the chamber, or complaining that they were essentially sat in Erskine’s chamber for the events and were not well treated?
That’s not to discount the notion that it may have been referring to some type of irritation with the room. W.J. Rolfe, in an annotated 1905 ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ references Clifford’s quote in referring to rooms that were musty and needed to be aired out and scented.

And if she was being literal: Are we to believe that James went into Erskine’s chamber at Theobalds so much in 4 days that it must have been infested with his lice? The king stayed for only 4 days, and based on descriptions of the event, spent time hunting, giving speeches, etc.
Did he go into Erskine’s chamber during the 4 days at Theobald? Maybe. But Anne never wrote that James I frequented the chamber. This is an assertion by Furdell in The Royal Doctors, repeated by Herman in The Royal Art of Poison.
So: When the author of the History.com article writes that James “was said to never bathe, causing the rooms he frequented to be filled with lice,” it’s referencing 1 sentence written by 1 person who never said that he frequented the room, and may not have meant literal lice.

There is no primary source that says the rooms James frequented were infested with lice, or even that he himself had lice. One author misleadingly claimed that Clifford wrote that she got lice from a chamber that James frequented, when she did not connect the room with the king.
And the word “lousy” (which Anne may have written as “lowzy”) does not always mean the literal “with lice.” It can also mean poorly used, poor/bad, and other negative connotations. Anne may have been complaining about the new nature of court vs what she saw with Elizabeth I.

More to follow.

Sources & references:

• Anna Gibson’s Inviting History blog
• Inviting History’s Twitter thread
• The curious claims about Elizabeth I’s bathing habits
• Renaissance, Revolution and Reformation

If you like my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon;

Disclaimer;
Picture(s) found online, used for (re-)educational purposes only.
I do not own the copyrights to these images, I only share them here for educational purposes to try and make sure the real story behind it becomes known and people will stop spreading false information.
If the copyright owner objects to the sharing here, kindly contact me and I shall alter the article.
If you’re interested in using any of the images here get in touch with the copyright owners mentioned in the article.
Feel free to contact me with questions.