3A

AQA A-LEVEL HISTORY (7042)

HIS1D Stuart Britain and the Crisis of Monarchy, 1603-1702

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SECTION ONE Monarchs and Parliaments, 1603-1629

Topic 3 The finances of the Crown and attempts at reform

Key Question A: How far was the weakness of Crown finances the responsibility of the Stuart monarchs?

The state of Crown finances and their underlying structural weakness

While Elizabeth was famously careful with money, any chance of a long-term improvement in England’s financial situation during her reign was threatened by the lack of important reforms. The Queen did not support the idea of raising taxes, as she feared that this would alienate those who she most needed to support her. So, when war – always the most ruinously expensive pastime of a monarch – commenced with Spain in 1585, Elizabeth was reduced to borrowing vast sums from foreign bankers.

Parliament was also asked to grant money to the Queen. The gentry collected this at a local level, and the sum recouped in the provinces was often nowhere near the actual total that was sent to London. The rich were also allowed to assess their own contribution and it was an accepted fact that the money they gave was not proportionate to their wealth. However, as these were the same men that Elizabeth needed on her side, nothing was ever done to rectify the system. One way of coping with this would have been for the Queen to have an efficient bureaucracy – which unfortunately she did not possess.

A series of poor harvests in the 1590s and a need to fund the presence of an English Army to quell a rebellion in Ireland had further negative impacts on the nation’s economy. In 1600, the Crown estimated its expenditure to be £459,840. However, the Queen’s income was approximately £374,000 – a shortfall of £86,000. When James inherited the throne in 1603, Crown debt stood at approximately £400,000. This weak economic inheritance was compounded by the fact that Elizabeth had been forced to sell Crown lands (leaving less for James to profit from) and raise forced loans, which she never intended to pay back. This created resentment from the Political Nation and a level of distrust surrounding the future levying of taxes.

There were a few select groups – such as members of the Merchant Adventurers (a successful trading company) – who did very well during Elizabeth’s reign. But as these men did so well out of the existing system, they tended to stifle any chance of fiscal reform. Those who really suffered from the financial problems of Elizabeth’s reign were the poor: from 1558 to 1603, the price of food increased by about 75%. Yet, during the same period, there was a drastic fall in the wages of agricultural labourers. Those with work found that they could barely afford food, while those out of work fell into starvation and extreme poverty.

The various sources of income available to James when he inherited the throne in 1603 are summarised in the table below.

The Financial Weaknesses of the Crown under James I, 1603-25

By 1603, the Crown’s ordinary revenue had ceased to meet the actual cost of running the country. But James’s extravagance concealed this fact. Elizabeth I had spent less than £300,000 a year in peacetime. Under James, this figure almost immediately rose to £400,000 and reached a peak of £522,000 in 1614. Determined to enjoy the greater wealth of his new country, James spent recklessly on his court and was excessively generous to his courtiers. Generally, annual household expenditure was twice that of Elizabeth’s reign (although James did have a family to maintain). Patronage did, however, have the benefit of buying James some much-needed goodwill from the Political Nation at times.

Contemporaries may not have minded so much about royal extravagance had it not gone so largely on conspicuous consumption, or into the pockets of the King’s (often Scottish) favourites. One such favourite was James Hay, Earl of Carlisle. On one occasion he gave a banquet for the French ambassador costing £2,200. With the knowledge that James had paid off Hay’s debts, it is scarcely surprising that the Commons believed that the King would be able to live comfortably on the Crown’s traditional sources of revenue if he could learn to be more economical with his ordinary income.

At the same time, however, there were members of the Political Nation who sought to enrich themselves at royal expense. A good example is Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, even though he was a loyal and dedicated servant of the Crown. In 1609, as Master of the Court of Wards, Salisbury gained £1,400 from a wardship that earned the Crown just £370. More spectacularly, in 1610, he negotiated the renewal of silk duties on their original terms, despite it being a greatly expanding trade. Instead of the modest profit of £430 which he had initially earned, he was now gaining over £7,000 a year. Ironically, Salisbury was Lord Treasurer, meaning it was his job to strengthen the royal finances. This illustrates the problem: too many people had a vested interest in the system remaining unreformed.

Corruption also affected parliamentary taxation. Those who were liable to pay subsidies, which excluded the poorest of society, had to declare what they were worth, yet these assessments were usually hugely underestimated. For example, Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex and Lord Treasurer from 1621-24, privately admitted his total wealth was £90,000, yet ensured he was taxed on only £150, while Buckingham, the richest man in the kingdom after the King, was ‘officially’ worth a mere £400. With major noble landowners refusing to take a responsible share of the costs of running the country, it is small wonder that the Crown found itself in financial trouble. However, the glaring nature of James’s personal extravagance could be used as an excuse for the Commons to ignore the fact that parliamentary subsidies were becoming less valuable. Thus, both King and MPs could view the actions of each other as unreasonable, with some justification.

The record of James’s reign, outlined below, illustrates that the Crown could not rely on Parliament granting sufficient taxation, though it should be said that the King did little to help himself at times.

James’s Parliament of 1604-10:

• The Treaty of London (1604), concluded peace between England and Spain after a nineteen-year war, thereby reducing Crown expenditure significantly. However, some £600,000 was spent on maintaining the English Army in Ireland during this period, and garrisons in the Netherlands to protect English trade were an additional military cost.

• The first session of this Parliament granted no supply on the grounds that taxation levied at the end of Elizabeth’s reign were still being collected.

• The second session, which met in 1606 in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, made the unusually large and unexpected grant of £400,000. This may have misled James into thinking that Parliament would always be willing to pay his debts (even though the motion had been passed by just one vote).

• Only one further parliamentary grant was forthcoming after 1606, and this was for substantially less than £100,000 (James was also able to negotiate a loan of around £100,000 from City of London financiers).

The Parliament of 1614 failed to grant any money, so a variety of money-raising schemes were implemented, but with little success. For instance, the overexploitation of honours and peerages devalued the amount at which they could be sold. James had already created a significant number of knights when he first came to power in 1603, and he had allowed some of his courtiers to buy themselves this honour at a price to raise extra cash. This had devalued the title, so in 1611 a new hereditary position of ‘baronet’ was created and sold to any interested parties for the sum of £1,095. Two-hundred baronets were established by 1614, bringing in a revenue of £90,885. By 1622, the title of baronet could be purchased for just £220. James also sold earldoms (for £10,000). In 1615, there were 27 earls; by 1928 there were 65. The number of earls increased from 28 to 65. However, this harmed the Crown’s prestige in the eyes of the Political Nation, as many traditional nobles were appalled that a title that previously had been based on merit was now being handed out to anyone who had enough money to purchase it.

In 1614, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, became Lord Treasurer, replacing Salisbury (who had died in 1612). Unfortunately, his corruption surpassed anything yet seen. In his four years in office, Suffolk built himself a new estate, costing £80,000, and he was eventually dismissed in 1618, having been found guilty of embezzlement. By 1620, the economy had entered a depression and

the royal debt stood at £900,000, more than double James’s inherited debt from Elizabeth.

James’s Parliament of 1621:

• The possibility of being dragged into the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) forced James to call Parliament for subsidies. Only two were granted, totalling around £140,000. MPs feared that if any more money was forthcoming, the King might simply dissolve Parliament before hearing their grievances.

• Parliament used this session to attack monopolies, which were increasingly being granted to ambitious businessmen in return for a fixed sum. There was fierce criticism of the way Giles Mompesson, nephew of the Duke of Buckingham, had abused his monopoly for the licensing of inns. Mompesson fled abroad following a parliamentary investigation, and James subsequently agreed to allow Parliament to set up a commission to examine how other monopolies were being conducted.

• While the commission set about its work, damaging evidence came to light against the Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon, who was impeached for accepting gifts from clients in his exercise of the law. Although this was an accepted custom of the time, James decided to sacrifice Bacon (one of his ablest ministers) to ensure the monopolies commission could not find any further reason to attack Buckingham, whose many other relatives had also been abusing the system. Parliament was swiftly dissolved because of this issue, as well as over disagreements as to whether England should enter the Thirty Years’ War.

James’ Parliament of 1624:

• With war now looking increasingly likely after the failure of Charles and Buckingham’s Madrid Expedition, another Parliament was called. The Commons approved of war against Catholic Spain but were less enthusiastic about the huge sums that would be needed, especially after bad harvests in 1622 and 1623 had further weakened the Crown’s finances.

• A subsidy of £300,000 was granted for the war, but the Commons made it clear that this supply would only be forthcoming if the King signed off on two important pieces of legislation that would limit the Crown’s financial power:

  • The Subsidy Act, 1624: It was agreed that the £300,000 must only be spent in areas that had been agreed by Parliament (the general defence of the realm, Ireland, sending aid to the Dutch Republic and the navy) and under the supervision of officials appointed by Parliament.

  • The Statute of Monopolies, 1624: This act essentially made all past and present monopolies null and void. There was an important exception made for new inventions in a move that has been said to herald the beginning of patent law. Nevertheless, because these new monopolies (or patents) had to be granted in accordance with Common Law (which was subject to parliamentary scrutiny), historians regard the statute as the first major infringement of the Royal Prerogative in the 17th century, as the King could no longer grant monopolies as he alone saw fit.

By the time James died in 1625, there had been no systematic reform of Crown finances, and the King had become over-reliant on prerogative sources of income, such as import duties (known as ‘impositions’) and monopolies, which created mistrust within the Political Nation. Worse still, Cranfield, who had been effective in reforming the royal revenue system as Lord Treasurer after the fall of Suffolk in 1618, was himself impeached after falling foul of Buckingham’s political manoeuvring. Cranfield opposed the war because of its potentially devastating effect on Crown finances and had attempted to clamp down on the amount of money spent on patronage, which had threatened the influence of Buckingham and his allies. Therefore, Charles was bequeathed a difficult financial legacy when he took over from his father as King in 1625.

The Financial Weaknesses of the Crown under Charles I, 1625-29

Charles immediately called a new Parliament in order to obtain money for the war against Spain. However, there was no royal attempt to cultivate the support of MPs behind the scenes, nor were they given a clear indication of the amount that would be required. The result was a series of misunderstandings and confrontations which contributed to the failure of three different Parliaments within the first five years of the reign.

Charles’s Parliament of 1625:

• The new King anticipated expenditure on the war to be somewhere in the region of £1 million, which would include financial support for England’s Protestant allies, Denmark and the Netherlands, the creation of an English military force of 6,000 men, and a naval attack on the Spanish which aimed to capture their shipments of gold from South America. However, Charles failed to adequately explain his military strategy, and a naturally suspicious Parliament granted just two subsidies, totalling only £140,000. Perceiving this amount as totally inadequate, Charles took the unprecedented step of requesting more money.

• In a further setback for the King, Charles was denied the traditional right of a new monarch to be able to collect Tonnage and Poundage for life. Instead, Parliament granted this right for one year only, in order to gain time and leverage over the King so that he would be more willing

• to engage with them over the various grievances of James’s reign, most notably the ever-growing influence of Buckingham, whose appointment as Lord High Admiral had put him in charge of England’s forthcoming naval campaigns against the Spanish. However, Charles interpreted the move as a direct attack on the Royal Prerogative, swiftly dissolved Parliament, and continued to collect the duties without parliamentary consent.

Charles’s Parliament of 1626:

• After a disastrous start to the war with Spain, Charles summoned another Parliament, but found this one no more cooperative than the first. MPs discussed subsidies, but ultimately refused to grant them.

• The King dissolved Parliament just as impeachment charges were being prepared against Buckingham. He also began to harbour serious resentment against a number of MPs, who he now regarded as dangerous radicals. The failure of the Parliament left the war effort in a desperate financial predicament.

Charles’s Parliament of 1628-29:

• By this point, both King and Commons realised that they needed to make concessions if Parliament was to be effective. MPs quickly offered five subsidies for the war, which was unusually generous, and agreed to grant Tonnage and Poundage. Having demonstrated their loyalty, the Commons in return wanted safeguards for their traditional liberties. A joint petition with the Lords was drawn up and presented to the King, who only gave it the proper form of assent when the five subsidies promised had been obtained.

• During the negotiations over the petition (and indeed before), Charles had continued to collect Tonnage and Poundage, even though official confirmation of this right had not yet been confirmed. When this was challenged by merchants who refused to pay, the matter passed to the courts, which ruled that the Crown could seize their assets as payment in kind. MPs took up the cause of the recalcitrant merchants, fuelling distrust between the King and the Commons. Ultimately, Charles ignored the petition and brought his third Parliament to an early and unhappy conclusion.

The necessity of funding the war effort during the period 1625-29 had placed even more of a strain on the Crown’s finances. By 1629, Charles was £2 million in debt, but more dangerously, he had alienated large sections of the Political Nation in his attempts to extract the supply necessary to fund his over-ambitious and ill-planned foreign policy.