re peace and expansion. He tried his hardest to keep the peace. One of his men stated that he would "rather spend 100,000 pounds on embassies, to keep or procure peace with dishonor, than 10,000 pounds of an army that would have forced peace with honor" (Chute 261-2). King James greatly supported the expansion in America. He chartered the London Company in 1606. By doing this, he hoped to start a colony in North America. The London Company founded Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 ("London Company" 1). King James I made many great contributions to the theater. Shortly after he became king, he made the Chamberlain's Men, a group of travelling actors who made their living preforming plays, royal servants. The Chamberlain's Men were changed to the King's Men. There were nine actors named to the elite group. Among them was none other than William Shakespeare. The King's Men were sponsered by James, which was a great relief for thier pocket books. They were issued scarlet cloth to make uniforms that represented the king. The royal family saw five times as many plays a year as Queen Elizabeth had (Reese 155). 4 Shakespeare made references to events surrounding King James in many of his plays. In 1605, the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. Someone planted several barrels of gunpowder under the Parliament. If their plan would have worked, King James, his family, and all of the Lords and Commons would have been killed. Shakespeare was thought to have based his play Macbeth on those events (Rowse 379). In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet made a speech against Danish drunkenness. Once, when Christian of Denmark payed a visit to his son in law, King James I, he did not stay sober past dinner. His daughter, the Queen of England, passed out while dancing, three other women were too drunk to appear in masque, someone else was sick, and another woman spilt custard on the King. It quite an embaressment for James, but it made Shakespeare a great anecdote (Levi 219)...
