James and Buckingham

James & Buckingham

1. Personal relations

"you may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled … Christ has his John, and I have my George".

James I in 1617, talking of George Villiers, Earl (and later Duke) of Buckingham

James was undoubtedly very taken with Buckingham: he was the only person to whom James gave the title of Marquess or Duke.

Buckingham, a man of unusual beauty and elegance, gave devoted and constant attention to James, and accepted his public petting genially. In exchange James gave Buckingham wealth, position, power, and the control of all royal patronage. No earlier favorite or statesman, whether under James or the Tudors, had dominated court and policy as completely as Buckingham did.

So entire was Buckingham's monopoly of power that even George Abbot and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (initially his backers) became his enemies.

Lady Catherine Manners

Buckingham rewarded both himself and his family lavishly from royal estates and public funds; he married himself and his relatives into the most important families in England. By 1620, he was receiving about £14,000 p.a., exclusive of bribes and one-off gifts.
[Table of Villiers' family connections]

George Villiers
married Lady Catherine Manners, the only daughter of the wealthy Earl of Rutland. She brought with her a dowry of £10,000 in cash and land worth c £5000 p.a.

John Villiers
married Frances Coke, a beautiful heiress, daughter of Sir Edward Coke. Coke paid a portion of £10,000 and £1,000 p.a., and in exchange Buckingham and James restored him to the Privy Council

Christopher Villiers
George and his mother did all they could to find dull, plain Christopher a wealthy wife, but the first woman approached turned him down flat, the second was saved by her father, and the third potential bride eloped with another man to avoid him

Buckingham's power was wholly dependent on royal favor, so as James grew old and ill, Buckingham cultivated his relationship with Charles. Initially, they had got on badly but later the two became such close friends that when James died in 1625, Buckingham's power was undiminished.

Buckingham's power, greed, and exaltation above men from older and nobler families made him enemies. Moreover, he was blamed for almost everything that went wrong in England between 1618 and 1628.

2. Economic crisis.

	The early 1620s was a period of economic depression. An error in setting the ratio of gold to silver led to silver (which was used for most transactions) leaving the country (especially to Holland). This forced the English to resort to barter.
	The Thirty Years War increased this drain of silver and increased the price of English goods on the Continent. Trade slumped and cloth-workers and other industrial workers were reduced to poverty.
	The 1621 Parliament was called in part to try and resolve the economic problems, but could do nothing. 1622 cloth exports were 40% of their 1618 level. A disastrous harvest in 1622 added to the problems.
	Economic problems eased a little in the later 1620's but it was not until the 1630's that the economy fully recovered.

3. Foreign policy and the Thirty Years War

The Parliament of 1621 was called primarily to discuss foreign policy.

In 1618 - Frederick was elected King of Bohemia,

Frederick's election outraged the Habsburg Emperor, Ferdinand II, who regarded Bohemia as a hereditary possession of his family.

Ferdinand II

1620 - Habsburg forces invaded Bohemia and defeated Frederick at the Battle of the White Mountain.
Spanish troops also invaded Frederick's home territory, the Palatinate, and by 1622 had occupied it entirely.

Bethlen Gabor

Frederick now ruled nowhere - but he did have allies: Christian of Brunswick and the Transylvanian Prince, Bethlen Gabor, a formidable general.

[More on the Thirty Years War].

James I, still hoping for a Spanish match for his son, Charles, wanted a peaceable resolution of the conflict whereby Frederick would renounce his title to Bohemia in exchange for the return of the Palatinate.
He believed that Parliament, with its Protestant sympathies would help him to bring pressure to bear on the Habsburgs. This was particularly true because the Twelve Years Truce (1606-1621) between Spain and the Dutch had ended and fighting had resumed - apparently another case of Catholics versus Protestants.

Parliament was indeed virulently anti Catholic, but nevertheless very reluctant to vote James enough money to mount a serious campaign.
Until the 1630s, the Catholic Imperial forces under Johannes Tserkleas, Count of Tilly and Albrecht von Wallenstein were everywhere triumphant. Only when a Swedish army led by Gustavus Adolphus, and supplied with French money intervened, did the tide turn.

4. The Parliament of 1621

Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex (1575-1645)

Although Parliament had not sat since 1614, impositions were still being collected, but the Commons wanted to present a united front in view of the international crisis and did not at once turn to their financial grievances.

They promptly granted the King two subsidies (c. £70,000) - unusual generosity, though not enough to pay for a war.

The House of Commons soon turned to the country's economic problems, which many blamed on monopolies. James used monopoly rights as a cheap way of rewarding his servants, and Buckingham and his family had benefited heavily.

A contemporary pamphlet's depiction of Mompesson's flight

One of the monopolists impeached by Parliament was Sir Giles Mompesson, who had married into the Villiers family and devised a scheme to license all inns and alehouses and split the license fee receipts between himself and James. Mompesson escaped the sentence by fleeing to France.

The process of impeachment was revived in 1621 by Sir Edward Coke, although it had not been used since the fourteenth century.
[Impeachment was inherited by the English colonies in America and adopted into the American Constitution].

Sir Edward Coke also tried to persuade Parliament to investigate the royal advisors (especially his old enemies Bacon and Ellesmere). Parliament dropped the investigation but when it found evidence that Bacon had been taking bribes on a scale unusual even by the standards of the day, they impeached him.
[Sir Francis Bacon was deprived of office and fined heavily, but James forgave the fine and Bacon went into a comfortable retirement writing literary, scientific and historical works until his death in 1626].

One of the leaders of the attack on Sir Francis Bacon was Lionel Cranfield (another recent relative by marriage of Buckingham). He became Lord Treasurer in 1621, and by his competence and industry almost solved James' financial problems (despite the King's continued extravagance). Unfortunately, the solution involved levying still more impositions.

The comparative peace of the first half of the 1621 Parliament ended when miscommunication led the House of Commons to begin attacking the Spanish marriage project. James did want Parliament to bring pressure to bear on Spain, but he was outraged by this infringement of the royal prerogative and told the Commons so in no uncertain terms.

"… some fiery and popular spirits of some of the House of Commons … argue and debate publicly of … matters far above their reach and capacity, tending to our high dishonor and breach of prerogative royal. … These are therefore to command you to make known in our name unto the House, that none therein shall presume henceforth to meddle with anything concerning our government or deep matters of State, and namely not to deal with our dearest son's match with the daughter of Spain, nor to touch the honor of that King or any other our friends and confederates; …"

James to the Speaker of the Commons, 3 December 1621.

	James' peremptory letter provoked a major row with the House of Commons, which regarded it as an infringement of their right of free speech.
	James fired more angry letters back, and the Commons finally passed the Protestation of the House of Commons.
	James dissolved Parliament (6 January 1622) and tore the Protestation out of the Commons' Journal. Coke was sacked from the Privy Council and never regained royal favor.

5. The Spanish Match

	Despite the House Of Commons' opposition the the marriage of Charles to Philip III's daughter, Maria, James pressed on with negotiations. The Spanish dragged their heels.
	1623 - In a wildly romantic and decidedly stupid escapade, Charles and Buckingham went to Spain to woo the Spanish princess in person. They achieved nothing (Maria said she would rather go into a nunnery than marry Charles), and risked a great deal. [An entertaining fictionalization of this event can be found in the novel Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte.] Maria later married Ferdinand, King of Hungary who became Emperor Ferdinand III.
	Returning home empty-handed and humiliated in September, both Charles and Buckingham now turned against Spain. Buckingham looked for anti-Spanish allies, and approached the puritan leader, John Preston. James blocked plans for a war of revenge, but his health was failing.

6. Religion

During the 1620s, the character of the English Church had been changing. Although James had rejected puritan demands, he continued to promote clerics who were tolerant of puritan views. The bishops George Abbot, John Williams, and Thomas Morton, all saw Catholicism as the main threat - particularly after the Gunpowder Plot. They and the puritans agreed on all the important aspects of doctrinal theology - most notably the doctrine of predestination.

There were divisions in the Jacobean Church - puritans objected to the Book of Sports (1618) which allowed the ordinary people to play sports and games on Sunday; laymen (most notably John Selden) objected to the idea that they were obliged by God's law to pay tithes; there were intermittent disputes between secular and ecclesiastical courts - in 1611 Sir Edward Coke claimed that the Court of High Commission was illegal.

Nonetheless, the Jacobean Church was more united than at any time since the Reformation.

In 1618, James sent a delegation to the Synod of Dort. It condemned Arminian doctrines, which undermined strict Calvinist notions of predestination.
[Read the Canons passed by the Synod].

But there was a contrasting current in the English Church. A few churchmen were becoming increasingly suspicious of Calvinism - they wanted to put more stress on sacraments and ceremonies.

Lancelot Andrewes

Lancelot Andrewes, one of the early leaders of this anti-Calvinist current, was muted in his opposition. But Richard Montagu, Richard Neile and William Laud, not only opposed Calvinist doctrines but minimized the points on which the Church of England differed from Roman Catholicism.

Laud and the other Arminians were few in number, but they did gain the support of Charles and Buckingham.

7. The Parliament of 1624

Because they wanted to make war on Spain, Charles and Buckingham persuaded James to call the Parliament of 1624. Prince Charles himself sat in the House of Lords.

James I and his Lord Treasurer, Cranfield, who knew how expensive it would prove, resisted the Commons' pressure for war. Buckingham arranged for Cranfield's impeachment (on charges of bribery). Egged on by Buckingham and Charles, the Commons voted taxation for the war and established committees to check that the money was indeed spent on the military.

This Parliament declared monopolies illegal. It also ended the common law right of sanctuary.

Despite the votes in Parliament, James did not declare war. Charles and Buckingham still pursued their plan, and arranged a marriage alliance with France (Spain's enemy).

Henrietta Maria (1609-69)
Henrietta Maria

In 1625, Charles married Henrietta Maria (daughter of King Henry IV of France and Marie de Medici).

8. The death of James I.

	James was troubled with various ailments, including gout and arthritis. Immediately after his wife's death in 1618, he suffered a serious gastric illness.
	Nonetheless, his death on 27 March 1625 at the age of 58 was unexpected.
	He developed a fever in March 1625. Buckingham sent his own physician to treat James and the king's condition deteriorated rapidly. He developed dysentery, suffered a stroke, and his tongue became so swollen as almost to cause suffocation. The dysentery finally killed James.
	Immediately, the rumor began to spread that Buckingham had poisoned James.