Britain Releases The House of Stuart Stamps

The Royal Mail releases today June 15, 2010, a new issue on British royalty featuring the House of Stuart. This is the fourth in the Kings and Queens series of stamp issues which profiles every monarch from 1399 to the present.

The Stuarts ruled Scotland for over two centuries before inheriting the English throne and established a reputation as both ambitious and accident-prone. Of nine monarchs, six of them died violently.

They ruled Britain from 1603, when the Union of the Crowns caused James VI of Scotland to become James I of England. Stuart rule ended in 1714, but in between there was the Fire of London, the gunpowder plot, civil war and the beheading of Charles I, which makes this issue truly fascinating.

Featured above are the seven Stuart monarchs that reigned over the British Isles from the union of the crowns of England and Scotland.