Charles I, 1625-1649

Charles I

  • Inherited an empty treasury, in debt by £2M

  • Parliament refused to grant Tonnage and Poundage

  • Arminiansm

  • 1625 Marriage to Henrietta Maria

  • Buckingham’s foreign policy; failure of Cadiz Expedition & La Rochelle was an international embarrassment, caused debt, ruined alliance formed through marriage to Henrietta Maria and forced Charles I to dissolve Parliament after they tried to impeach Buckingham.

  • 1626 Forced Loan

  • 1627 Mantua Purchase - £15,639

  • 1627 Five Knights Case

  • 1627 Suspension of George Abbot (Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) for refusing to licence an Arminian sermon

  • 1628 Petition of Rights - no forced loans, no imprisonment without trial, no billeting or martial law

Charles I’s Personal Rule

  • Crown household expenditure £260k annually

  • Lord Treasurer Richard Weston helped achieved near solvency by 1635 - he was catholic, solvency meant parliament didnt need to be called so it looked like catholic absolutism

  • 1630 Treaty of Madrid reduced annual war spendng from £500k to £70k - english traders flourished, had to pay excise duty, increased crown revenue, spain fighting Holland meant english merchants gained a near monopoly over Iberian trade

  • 1636 Ship Money levied to all counties and established as an annual tax - £200,000 annually

  • Distraint of Knighthood - £170k by 1630s

  • Forest Laws

  • Wardship

  • 1636 Hampden Case - Test case, held in Royal Court and favoured the King 7:5 - opposition in his own nepotist circle

  • 1638 20% revenue decrease from Ship Money

Evil Advisors

Buckingham

  • Social upstart

  • Arminian

  • Failed foreign policy with France and Spain

  • Parliament attempted to impeach him but Charles dissolved Parliament - 1628 assassination, parliament celebrated his death.

William Laud

  • Social upstart

  • Arminian

  • Promoted a conservative church with episcopacy

  • 1628 Bishop of London - seat in the HoL

  • Privy Council

  • Responsible for “Thorough” policy with Wentworth

  • 1633 Archbishop of Canterbury

  • 1640 - Arrested

Laudian Reforms

  • Enforced in universities - influence educational institutions

  • Rial and punishment of dissidents; Wiliam Pryne, Henry Burton and John Bastwick

  • Catechism

  • Enforced canons

Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford

  • Social upstart

  • Arminian

  • Appointed President of the Council of the North

  • Privy Council

  • 1632 Lord Deputy of Ireland

  • Forcefully implemented “Thorough” policy in Ireland with administrative & financail success, making Ireland profitable to the Crown for the first time - increased resentment and reinforced the idea of an absolutist King.

  • 1640 Arrested - Impeached by Parliament & Trialed by Lords

A Relative Timeline to War

The Bishops Wars

  • 1637 Book of Common Prayer enforced on Scots

  • Responded with National Covenant to protect the kirk and restore religious rights - tantamount to a declaration of war.

  • 2nd Bishops War - failure caused fundamental loss, unpaid army threatened mutiny, troops ignored Catholic officers and sympathised with Presbyterian Scots.

Failure for Settlement - John Pym

  • 1641 Triennial Act

  • 1641 Charles I forced to sign the Act of Attainder for Strafford’s execution

  • 1641 Irish Rebellion - rumours spread that 20,000 Protestants have been killed by Catholics (It was actually 4,000)

  • 1641 Grand Remonstrance - a publication detailing all of Charles I’s previous mistakes

  • 1641 Militia Bill - claimed Parliament should have control over army

  • 1642 Attempted arrest of the 5 MPs

  • 1642 Militia ordinance passed by Parliament, allowing them to take control of armed forced.

1642 - The 10 Propositions

  • Choose King’s advisors

  • Control army

  • Dicate reform and government of the chuch

  • Control over foreign policy

  • Decide who could sit on HoL

  • Control the education and marriage of King’s children

First Civil War

Division

  • Commons; ⅓ for the King & ⅔ for Parliament

  • HoL; ⅔ for King & ⅓ for Parliament

1647 - Heads of Proposals

  • Drafted by Henry Ireton

  • Parliament to be called every two years

  • Army control to be given to Parliament

  • Bishops to no longer have authority in civil matters

  • Book of Common Prayer not mandatory

  • Act of Indemnity to be passed absolving the army’s troops from any supposed offences committed during the war

Second Civil War

Radicalism in the New Model Army

  • 35,000

  • Developed as a political and religious body

  • Agitators formed their own settlement, “The Agreement of the People”

The Agreement of the People

  • Parliament to be dissolved

  • Parliament to acknowledge they exist solely by the permission of the people

  • Freedom of worship

  • Law to be applied to all men equally

1648 Pride’s Purge

  • 60 MPs survived the purge

  • Remaining MPs formed the Rump

1649 Execution of Charles I