1625-1629: the first crisis of
Charles I's reign
Charles I
combined stupidity with an exalted view of royal power. Naturally
shy, his court was far more dignified and formal than his father's
had been. Pious and chaste, stubborn and unimaginative, his
personality played an important role in England's descent
into Civil War.
1. Charles I - marriage and
parliament
| The
twenty-four-year old Charles married fifteen-year-old Henrietta
Maria (by proxy) on 1 May 1625, but initially continued under
Buckingham's influence and saw little of his wife. |
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Buckingham was
extremely unpopular in the country at large.
"Who rules
the Kingdom? The King.
Who rules the King? The Duke.
Who the Duke? The Devil."(1623 pamphlet) |
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As a result of
his marriage, Charles made many concessions to Roman Catholics (in
particular, temporary non-enforcement of the penal laws against
them) and this aroused suspicions in the first Parliament of his
reign. |
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Parliament
assembled 18 June 1625 and did vote two subsidies (c. £140,000), but
this was not nearly enough for an effective war. Parliament refused
to vote any more taxation unless they could supervise its
expenditure. |
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The Commons
also voted tonnage and poundage for one year only. (They
hoped to use the renewal of tonnage and poundage as a bargaining
chip to end the collection of impositions).
| Since
1414, Parliament had voted every monarch the right for life to collect
duties on every ton (cask) of wine and pound (£
value) of imports. |
The House of Lords regarded this limitation to one year as so
insulting that they refused to pass the Bill. Charles simply
continued to collect the duties without parliamentary authority.
This became another grievance in Charles' subsequent parliaments. |
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In 1587, Sir Francis
Drake had raided the Spanish harbor of
Cadiz, burnt many ships there,
and boasted to Elizabeth I of having "singed the King of Spain's
beard". In 1596, the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh had
again raided and burnt Cadiz port. |
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Charles I hoped to repeat these
successes and in 1625, sent a fleet to
attack Cadiz. But the raid was
an expensive failure. The fleet was ill-equipped, the soldiers got
drunk, and the Spanish treasure fleet was never found.
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Once again in need
of money, Charles recalled Parliament; it met 6 February 1626. |
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Already alienated by the collection
of tonnage and poundage and by the humiliation at Cadiz, the Members
of Parliament were further annoyed by Charles I's underhand attempt to
keep his opponents out of parliament. (He named them as sheriffs, so
as legally to oblige them to remain in their counties). |
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In the House of Lords, Thomas
Howard (14th Earl of Arundel), William Herbert (3rd Earl of Pembroke),
John Digby (Earl of Bristol) and Bishop George Abbot
were all enemies of Buckingham. |
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In the House of Commons, opposition
was led by Sir Dudley Digges and
Sir John Eliot.
Eliot was a great orator, who had once been a client of Buckingham but
had been alienated by Buckingham's collaboration with French
suppression of Protestant rebels. |
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Led by Eliot, Buckingham's foes in
the Commons drew up a list of charges for his impeachment before the
House of Lords, and refused to vote any taxation until the Lords
condemned and sentenced Buckingham. |
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In order to stop Buckingham's
enemies gaining a majority, Charles had been preventing John Digby,
Earl of Bristol and Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel, from attending the
House of Lords. When forced by the peers' pressure to let them return,
Charles announced the dissolution of Parliament (15 June 1626) as the
only way to avoid Buckingham's impeachment.
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Habeas Corpus
"But
the great and efficacious writ in all manner of illegal
confinement, is that of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum;
directed to the person detaining another, and commanding him to
produce the body of the prisoner with the day and cause of his
caption and detention, ad faciendum, subjiciendum, et
recipiendum, to do, submit to, and receive, whatsoever the
judge or court awarding such writ shall consider in that
behalf."
William Blackstone, Commentaries (1768). |
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Charles was still in need of money
after the dissolution, and he resorted to collection methods of dubious legality.
First he raised a benevolence and then a Forced Loan. (It was
called a "loan" but the chances of repayment were almost nonexistent).
It netted about £250,000. |
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Charles also billeted his troops in
civilian homes near the South Coast of England. The infrequently-paid troops
were unruly and destructive, but it was difficult for local civilians
to call them to account as soldiers were under Martial Law, and
could only be tried in military courts.
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Billeting of troops was so
unpopular that Charles used it as a method of subduing and punishing
his opponents; (for example, in Banbury, the stronghold of William
Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, the troops started a
fire that burnt most of the town). |
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Most of Charles' subjects felt they
had no choice but to pay the Forced Loan, but seventy-six gentlemen and the
Earl of Lincoln (Theophilus Clinton/Fiennes) refused to pay. |
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Charles imprisoned them, but did
not charge them with any crime, for fear the judges might decide
against him. Five of the imprisoned knights, including Sir Thomas
Darnell, applied to the Court of King's Bench for a writ of Habeas
Corpus. |
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The Court did not free the knights,
thus effectively siding with the King.
Earlier English monarchs had imprisoned people without bringing
charges or showing cause, but only in exceptional cases of state
security. Charles' use of the power for political ends was
unprecedented.
[More on the
Five Knights case]. |
6.
Sibthorpe,
Maynwaring and Montagu.
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Charles I tried to
mobilize the Church in favor of the Forced Loan. Several clergymen
preached sermons supporting the King's right to levy the loan, and
subjects' duty to pay. |
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The two most
important were those of Roger Maynwaring (1590-1663) and
Robert Sibthorpe (d.1662). Both asserted that the King was God's
representative, and that all his commands (except those directly contrary to
the word of God) should be obeyed.
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"To Kings,
therefore ... nothing can be denied (without manifest and
sinful violation of law and conscience) that may answer their
royal state and excellency; that may further the supply of
their urgent necessities; that may be for the security of
their royal persons (whose lives are worth millions of
others); that may serve for the protection of their kingdoms,
territories and dominions:"
Maynwaring,
Religion and alegiance. |
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Charles ordered
the publication of Maynwaring's sermons, although even William Laud
recognized that they would outrage most people. |
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Charles told
Archbishop George Abbot to license Sibthorpe's sermon; when he
refused, Abbot was suspended from power. A commission of Bishops,
including William Laud, Richard Neile, and John Buckeridge, licensed
the work, and from then on it was these men who held the real power in the Church of
England. |
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William Laud also
gave support to another cleric -
Richard Montagu, who had been
censured by Abbot for a pamphlet entitled A New Gag for an old
Goose (1624). In it, Montagu argued that many Calvinist doctrines
were no part of the Church of England's teaching This infuriated the
puritans and in 1625 Montagu was attacked by the Commons led by John
Pym. |
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Montagu appealed
against these attacks to Charles I in a pamphlet called Appello
Caesarem ("I appeal to Caesar" - a reference to Acts 25:11, when
Saint Paul appealed to the Roman Emperor against Jewish persecution).
Charles rebuffed Parliament's attacks on Montagu, and established a
conference at York House to judge his views. Since it was composed
entirely of churchmen sympathetic to Montagu's stance, it found in his
favor. |
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Charles I's
actions convinced many of his subjects that he wanted to make the
Church Roman Catholic and the state absolutist. |
7. The expedition to Rhé
8. The 1628 Parliament and the
Petition of Right.
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Charles
hoped that Parliament would rally behind his war effort. Instead,
it was extremely hostile. It laid aside the subsidy Bill and began
discussing grievances. |
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The Forced Loan and billeting
of troops were condemned as grave violations of the fundamental
laws of England. |
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The House of Commons went still
further and denied that the King could exercise emergency powers,
ever tax without consent, or impose martial law while Common Law
courts were still sitting.
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The opposition to Charles was
led by Sir John Eliot, Sir Edward Coke,
Sir Robert Phelips, John Selden and Sir
Thomas Wentworth. Unlike some
other members of the opposition, Wentworth did accept that the
King had some extra-legal emergency powers, he simply insisted
that Charles had used them unwisely. |
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The House of Commons detailed
all its objections to Charles' actions in the
Petition of Right - so called because it was held not to be an
enactment of new law, but a declaration of established rights. |
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Despite some squabbles between
Civil and Common Lawyers, the Petition of Right had an easy passage
through the House of Commons, but in the House of Lords it met
significant opposition. Many of the Bishops and a number of lay
peers believed that the King must have some discretionary powers
to deal with emergencies.
The Lords inserted a clause in the Petition "saving the king's
sovereignty" - that is stating that (despite the Petition) the King
had ultimate power to govern in what he regarded as the public
interest. |
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The House of Commons refused to
accept this clause, which they saw as nullifying the whole
Petition, but an ambiguous compromise was reached between the two
Houses. |
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Initially, Charles refused to
consent to the Petition and give it the force of statute. But he
was still in desperate need of money. He consulted prominent
judges about what status the Petition would have. When their
answers made it clear that they would enforce his emergency
powers, such as arbitrary imprisonment, even if he did consent to the
Petition, he did so on 7 June 1628. |
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The leading opponents of
Buckingham had agreed in advance of the Parliament not to repeat
their attempts to impeach him. But they did impeach Maynwaring for
his sermons in support of the Forced Loan. In June 1628, the House
of Lords declared Maynwaring incapable of any office in church or
state. |
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The Subsidy Bill was finally
passed, but rancorous debates soon followed over voting Charles I
tonnage and poundage for life. |
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The House of
Commons began attacking Charles Arminian advisors, William Laud
and Richard Neile, and soon began to speak against Buckingham. |
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26 June 1628,
Charles I dissolved Parliament. |
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One of the main
grievances in the opening years of Charles I's reign was Buckingham,
but in August 1628 his assassination disposed of this problem. |
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John Felton,
a disgruntled, unpaid, unsuccessful soldier took revenge for
Buckingham's contemptuous dismissal of his petitions by stabbing him
to death, 23 August 1628. |
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Felton gained himself
national popularity and death by hanging. |
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Buckingham's murder
allowed a number of his personal enemies to advance in royal service -
especially, Thomas Wentworth and John Digby, whose progress at court
was now unimpeded by their personal hostility to Buckingham. |
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But Buckingham's removal did
nothing to improve relations with the House of Commons. Charles
continued to use the emergency powers complained of in the Petition of
Right. As soon as the 1628 Parliament had dissolve, Charles I pardoned
Maynwaring and promoted him; he also appointed Montagu to the
Bishopric of Chichester.
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"…we
will, that all further curious search be laid aside, and these
disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set
forth to us in the holy scriptures, and the general meaning of
the Articles of the Church of England according to them. And
that no man hereafter shall either print, or preach, to draw
the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain
and full meaning thereof; …"
Charles I on predestination,
Declaration prefixed to the Articles of Religion, November
1628. |
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In 1628, Charles
forbad the clergy to discuss the question of predestination. But in
practice, Laud ensured that only the printing of Calvinist works was
stopped, whilst Arminian books were allowed. |
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William Laud
became Bishop of London, 15 July 1628, and from then on effectively
controlled both the English church and the London presses. |
10. The Parliamentary session of 1629
| "No
sooner therefore was the Parliament set down but these
ill-affected men began to sow and disperse their jealousies, by
casting out some glances and doubtful speeches, as if the
subject had not been so clearly and well dealt with, touching
the liberties, and touching the Petition answered the last
Parliament." The King's Declaration showing the
causes f the late dissolution, 10 March 1629. |
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After the death of
Buckingham, Charles I hoped that the House of Commons would at last
co-operate with him, so he recalled Parliament, which assembled 20 January 1629. |
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Instead, the
House of Commons began to complain of the "subtle and pernicious
spreading of the Arminian faction", and of Charles' continued
collection of tonnage and poundage. |
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The dispute was
aggravated by the case of John Rolle, a Member of Parliament
whose goods had been seized by customs officers when he had refused to
pay tonnage and poundage. Charles tried in person to stop the House of
Commons' attack on these officials as subverting his authority. |
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Charles briefly
adjourned the House until 2 March, hoping to arrange some compromise.
When it reassembled, Charles ordered the Speaker, Sir John Finch,
to adjourn once more. |
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To prevent
this, Denzil Holles and Benjamin Valentine held
the Speaker in his chair, while Eliot's
three resolutions were read out. |
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In the ensuing
chaos, no formal vote was taken, but some Members did shout their
approval. |
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Charles
immediately dissolved Parliament.
Denzil Holles, Benjamin Valentine, William Strode, John Selden and
John Eliot were all arrested. Strode and Valentine were not freed
until 1640. Selden submitted and was released. Holles escaped abroad.
Eliot died in the Tower of London in 1632. |
| March 1629 saw another event - this one more
important for the future than for its immediate effect.
Charles I granted a
Charter to the Massachusetts Bay Company for the
settlement of New England. Some of those most discontented
with Charles' religious and political policies would move
there in the following decade. |
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