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| King Charles 1 |
England’s new king, a dogmatic &
inflexible man, retained the old favourite and George Villiers kept the power
& influence bestowed upon him by the old king.
James died owing the city of London over
£200,000 & Charles immediately borrowed another £60,000 to stage a
splendiferous funeral for his father. Mourning garb was distributed to nine
thousand people.
Ignoring his parliament’s objections Charles married
Henrietta Maria, the 15 year old sister of Louis XIII of France, on13th June 1625. The secret
agreement with his brother-in-law to relax restrictions on Catholics was
contrary to his statement to parliament & the very reason that his
parliament had objected to the marriage in the first place.
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| Duke of Buckingham |
In October 1625, nearly 18 months after the declaration
of war with Spain, Buckingham sent a fleet of 100 ships, under the command of Sir
Edward Cecil, a veteran soldier but unused to naval combat, to Spain, where he
attempted to emulate Drake’s feat of singeing the King of Spain’s beard in
Cadiz. His men took the fort that defended the harbour. The city’s defences
were modern & the Spanish ships at anchor were able to sail away as Cecil
had failed to give the necessary orders. The plan to intercept the annual
treasure fleet also failed. Errors came thick & fast – the fleet was under-supplied
& the troops were poorly disciplined.
Cecil returned to England in December, where
the king ignored the whole embarrassing debacle. When House of Commons
attempted to impeach the Duke of Buckingham, whose swift rise to his current
exalted position had earned him many enemies, Charles dissolved parliament to
protect his favourite.
Meanwhile the king turned to forced loans as a means of raising much needed
funds. The Court of Wards was used to bring Charles an income of £35,000[i] per annum, more than he received from the royal estates. He raised monies by grant of patents & monopolies & sold knighthoods (subjects were fined for not paying for the honour). In 1634 there were soap riots, over soap monopolies granted to courtiers.
The third parliament of Charles’ reign was
called in March 1628 – Buckingham planned to attack Calais & raise a royal
standing army. Twenty seven of the 76 men of ’substance’ came as MPs in the new
parliament. Parliament felt that the king was twisting the law, using it for
purposes for which it had not been intended. Both Lords & Commons
petitioned against arbitrary taxation without Act of Parliament. Charles
prorogued parliament in June, as parliament was considering removing Tonnage
& Poundage, one of the major sources of the king’s income.
In April 1628 a fleet under the Earl of Denbigh set sail for la Rochelle, but returned home without engaging the enemy. Buckingham now set to organising
a second fleet, but was stabbed to death in August by an army officer, who felt
that Buckingham had passed him over for promotion
. Deeply saddened by Buckingham’s death, Charles now turned to his wife for sympathy & support. The capitulation of la Rochelle to Louis XIII & Cardinal Richelieu, in October, meant that the disastrous war with France could be ended.
. Deeply saddened by Buckingham’s death, Charles now turned to his wife for sympathy & support. The capitulation of la Rochelle to Louis XIII & Cardinal Richelieu, in October, meant that the disastrous war with France could be ended.
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| John Pym |
Parliament was recalled in January 1629, when
Charles again raised the issue of Tonnage & Poundage. Parliament was not
minded to be helpful to the king over his financial problems & his critics
started attacking the practices of customs officers & the rituals now
creeping into church services – the ‘cults’ of angels, crucifixes, saints,
candles & altars were attacked by John Pym. The king dissolved parliament
in March, having issued arrest warrants for 6 of the MPs who led the attacks on
his policies.
Charles now moved away from working with
parliament, to the more centralised continental style of monarchy. He appointed
Viscount Wentworth (former opponent in parliament) to positions of authority in
Dublin & York. Wentworth, later to become the Earl of Strafford, was an
excellent administrator and worked in collaboration with Bishop Laud of London,
now a privy councillor. The two men were however overbearing, tactless &
bitterly unpopular.
The most inflammatory of the money raising
devices was the levy of ‘ship money’ in 1635. Originally coastal towns were responsible
for paying ship money for the defence of the realm & £104,000[ii] was collected. Now the whole country
was to share the responsibility & £218,500[iii] was demanded. The
country’s landowners felt threatened by a taxation not approved by parliament.
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| Charles & Henrietta Maria |
In June 1633 Charles paid his first visit to
Scotland, where he alienated most of his subjects by commanding a coronation
with the full Anglican ritual. His attitude towards the Calvinists thoughout
the visit seemed almost designed to irritate & annoy. Before leaving he ordered
that all Scottish ministers should wear white surplices, instead of their
customary black.
By the end of July the England had a new archbishop – Laud was
raised to the throne of Canterbury. The king, influenced by his Catholic wife,
was leaning towards re-union with Rome.
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| Archbishop Laud |
The king was also concerned by the rise of
Puritanism in the country & with Laud was determined to stem its influence.
Ideological enemies of the king were savagely punished. In 1630 a Scotsman who
had called bishops ‘Ravens & Magpies’ was arraigned before the Court of the
Star Chamber for declaring ‘the prelacy in Church’ to be ‘satanical’. He was
whipped, imprisoned, fined, had his ears clipped, nose slit on either side
& branded on the cheeks.
Egged on by Laud, the Court of the Star Chamber was in frequent
use to deal with political & religious dissent. Three of the chamber’s
victims won popular acclaim in 1637 – Prynne, Bastwick & Burton all had
their ears chopped off as well as being imprisoned. They became martyrs in the
eyes of their fellow countrymen.
The Treasury was under the control of Bishop Juxon, who in June 1636 was also made First Lord of the Admiralty. In 1637 a test case opposing the Ship money was brought before the court by John Hampden, a Buckinghamshire gentleman, as a matter of principle. Hampden believed that parliament should be responsible for deciding how money was to be raised. By a narrow margin the Chief Justice brought in a judgement for the king.
In 1637 Charles ordered the use of a new
prayer book, almost identical to the Book of Common Prayer, for use in Scotland without
consulting its parliament or the Kirk. This led to rioting & formalised
opposition in the National Covenant. Unable to control the situation from
London, Charles agreed to a General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which in
November 1638 decided on the removal of the bishops from the Kirk and the
abolition of the prayer book.
By early summer in 1639 Charles had raised an
army & marched up to Berwick on Tweed. With neither army prepared to risk more
than the occasional scuffle the Pacification of Berwick was agreed in June,
Charles accepting that disputed questions be referred to a new General Assembly
or parliament. The Scottish parliament thereupon abolished the Scottish bishops,
while the General Assembly re-enacted all the provisions passed the previous
year. |
| Marie de Medici |
Charles was further beleaguered by the
arrival of his mother-in-law, Marie de Medici, at the end of October 1638.
Marie had fallen out with her son who, with Cardinal Richelieu, had wrested
control of France from his mother’s domineering hands. Following involvement in
a number of plots aimed at putting her younger son Gaston on the throne, Marie had been
exiled from her adopted country. Charles found himself paying the dowager Queen
of France £3,000[iv]
a month – another strain on already stretched resources.
Believing the Scots were in league with the French, Charles called
a parliament in April 1640 (known as the Short Parliament) hoping for monies to
fight his Scottish subjects. Parliament called for the abolition of ship money,
redress of grievances & a complete change in the ecclesiastical system.
These terms were unacceptable to Charles & he dissolved parliament in May.
By September 1640 the Scots had invaded Northumberland & Charles’ army
fared so badly that Charles had to leave Northumberland & County Durham in
the care of the Scots under the Treaty of Ripon in October. The Scots were to
be paid £850[v]
per day.  |
| Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford |
The second parliament of the year, or Long parliament, was now
called by Charles. Of the 493 MPs, 399 were in opposition to the king. Parliament
began impeachment proceedings for Archbishop Laud. Parliament passed the
triennial bill, whereby the members could mobilise a parliament, if the king did not
call one within three years. Charles gave his royal assent in February. The
following month Stafford, Charles’ most able supporter, was tried for high
treason & was found guilty. Having assured Stafford that under no circumstances
would he sign a death warrant, Charles sent Stafford to his death on 10th
May 1941.
In the same month
Charles assented to an act, which forbade the dissolution of the English
Parliament without Parliament's consent. Ship money, fines in destraint of
knighthood and forced loans were declared unlawful, monopolies were cut back
severely, and the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were abolished.
All remaining forms of taxation were legalised and regulated by the Tonnage and
Poundage Act. Throughout May, the House of Commons launched several bills
attacking bishops and episcopalianism in general, each time defeated in the
Lords.
The country was moving ever closer to civil war.
Bibliography
The English Civil War – Robert Ashton, 1978 Wiedenfeld & Nicholson
Charles the First – John Bowle, 1975 Wiedenfeld & Nicholson
Richelieu and His Age – His Rise to Power – Carl J Burckhardt, 1967
George Allen & Unwin
http://en.wikipedia.org
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