King James I

He lived in turbulent times. Both his mother (Mary, Queen of Scots) and his son (Charles I, here painted by Anthony Van Dyck in 1635) were beheaded. His father was killed (most likely by his mother’s lover) when James was a baby. He became king of Scotland when he was an infant. The foiled "Gunpowder Plot" of 1605 was directed at him.

As a precocious child who could translate Bible chapters from Latin to French - and then to English - when he was only 8, James had literary aspirations. His book Demonology was published in 1597, when he was 31 years old.

But James, king of Scotland (VI) and England (I), was just a human being. Although one of the most respected English translations of The Bible (the KJV) bears his name, James neither wrote nor translated it. Some folks say the KJV translation is the only perfect English translation that exists today. But James himself was far from perfect. He was just a man, prone to the same frailties as all other men.