Salisbury died in 1612, little mourned by those who jostled to fill the power vacuum. Until Salisbury's death, the Elizabethan administrative system over which he had presided continued to function with relative efficiency; from this time forward, however, James's government entered a period of decline and disrepute. Salisbury's passing gave James the notion of governing in person as his own chief Minister of State, with his young Scottish favourite, Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, carrying out many of Salisbury's former duties, but James's inability to attend closely to official business exposed the government to factionalism.
The Howard party, consisting of Northampton, Suffolk, Suffolk's son-in-law
Lord Knollys, and
Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, along with Sir Thomas Lake, soon took control of much of the government and its patronage. Even the powerful Carr, unfitted for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend
Sir Thomas Overbury for assistance with government papers, fell into the Howard camp, after beginning an affair with the married
Frances Howard, countess of Essex, daughter of the earl of Suffolk, whom James assisted in securing an annulment of her marriage to free her to marry Carr. In summer 1615, however, it emerged that Sir Thomas Overbury, who on 14 September 1613 had died in the Tower of London, where he had been placed at the king's request, had been poisoned. Among those convicted of the murder were Frances Howard and Robert Carr, the latter having been replaced as the king's favourite in the meantime by a young man called
George Villiers. The implication of the king in such a scandal provoked much public and literary conjecture and irreparably tarnished James's court with an image of corruption and depravity. The subsequent downfall of the Howards left George Villiers, now
earl of Buckingham, unchallenged as the supreme figure in the government by 1618.
Throughout his life James I had relationships with his male
courtiers, beginning with his older relative
Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox. The two became extremely close and it was said by an English observer that "from the time he was 14 years old and no more, that is, when the Lord Stuart came into Scotland… even then he began… to clasp some one in the embraces of his great love, above all others" and that James became "in such love with him as in the open sight of the people oftentimes he will clasp him about the neck with his arms and kiss him". Faced with an ultimatum from the Scottish nobility that he choose his Catholicism or James, Stuart chose James and converted to Calvinism. This was still not enough, however, and Stuart was eventually driven out of Scotland to France, where he died.
A few years after the controversy over his relationship with Lennox faded away, James embarked on a close friendship with
Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset. During the next two years, however, their relationship became troubled. In 1615 James fell out with Carr, and forced him to face trial after it was revealed that Carr's new wife had poisoned Sir
Thomas Overbury, his best friend who had opposed the marriage. Although his wife was found guilty and Carr had threatened to expose their liaison in court, James reprieved both of them and gave them a country estate, though after holding them in the tower for seven years.
The last of James's three close male friends was
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the son of a
Leicestershire knight. They had met in 1614, around the same time that the situation with Carr was deteriorating. The King was blunt and unashamed in his avowal of love for Buckingham, saying "
Christ had his John, and I my George". This, referring to the young disciple John, and his Lord and mentor, Jesus Christ.
Buckingham became good friends with James’s wife Anne, she addressed him in affectionate letters begging him to be "always true" to her husband. James in some letters wrote to Buckingham, "I desire only to live in this world for your sake... I had rather live banished in any part of the Earth with you than live a sorrowful... life without you". A few years later James died with Buckingham at his side.