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An experiment in Absolutism, Charles' Personal Rule 1629-40,…
An experiment in Absolutism, Charles' Personal Rule 1629-40
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Religious problems
Laud and Arminianism
- Charles I admired Laud's desire for order within the Church ( perhaps reflected Charles own beliefs of hierarchy and authority)
- Charles promoted Laud rapidly
- Laud was an Arminian but he developed and executed his own particular vision of Anglican churchmanship and therfore the term 'Laudian' is more appropriate than 'Armenian' because it emphasises the unique nature of his reforms
Laudianism
- By the end of the decade most protestants were able to unite against Laudianism as a common enemy
Alter controversy
- The earliest reformation churches had downgraded the status of the alter, turning it from a sacred, quasi-magical shrine into a plain table and moving it into the central body of the church
- Laud reversed this policy and insisted on a new alter policy where:
- The alter would be covered with a decorated embroidered cloth
- raised by steps and separate by a rail
- changed location to where the catholic alter would have been
Consequences
- Contemporaries through this might presage a return to the Catholic mass, one contemporary wrote 'It is generally thought that the times will grow every day better for the catholics'
- Many felt alarmed at such a dramatic break with tradition as it was often necessary to have to rearrange the church in order to accommodate the new elevated Alter in the new location
- People thought it to be innovative and showed a lack of respect for tradition and the social status quo
politicisation of the clergy
- Laud placed an emphasis on the sacred status of the clergy that mirrored the way Charles promoted them into other areas of public life
- Charles promoted many religious figures into political posiitions, this overlap between religious and political spheres meant Charles' circle of advisors narrowed further and made his clergy vulnerable to political assualt
- Churchman began to feel more powerful and began to be perceived as a threat to the influence of the gentry
Conformity in the church
- The drive for conformity within the Church was evidence that Charles was absolutist at heart
Asserting conformity
- Clergy were given reviewed instructions about the format and words to use in each service
- tightened up on the use of liturgy as a way of creating uniformity in church services
Auditing conformity
- 1629, Laud ordered all Bishops to return to their districts and take responsibility for enduing that their priests were obeying instructions
Enforcing conformity
- Star chamber and Court of High Commission were used with much greater frequency and punishments were harsher
Laudianism in Scotland
- When Charles became king he showed a terrible lack of awareness of the delicate balance that needed to be maintained between the churches of Scotland and England and the distinctive nature of Scottish Protestantism
Conformity
- 1629, all Scottish subjects were told they had to kneel to take communion in their parish church, To a Scottish Protestant, kneeling carried dangerous connotations of Catholicism and it indicated that Charles was ensuring his royal authority extended across the Church
- Raised the bar in 1936, published a new set of Scottish rules, for the first time Scottish canons were based off the English canons and were not based of the traditional Scottish articles and were dramatically different in many respects
New rules
- The new canons were to be imposed on the Church without needing to be ratified by the Scottish General Assembly
- There would be a new prayer book which everyone had to use and Dissenters would be exocummunicated
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Fears of catholicism
- Throughout the 1630's fears grew and people feared a catholic world would overthrow the Protestant church
- Many factors that contributed to these fears
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The spread of religious radicalism
- Religious radicalism is characterised by a drive for tolerance, the relaxation of conformity regulations and the mobilisation of ordinary people, inspired by God, into changing the political landscape for the better
- It was during the 1630's that the seeds for religious radicalism were sown, it only began to truly surge between the 1640s-60s
- Men who would play big roles in the radicalism were at university during the PR and found themselves in an atmosphere on noisy religious debate sparked by the controversy of Laudianism
Independent communities of faith
- Towards the end of the 1630's opposition to the Lauding Church also began to result in an increasing number of congregations splintering out of the Anglican Church and forming their own 'independent' communities of faith
Political issues
Thomas Wentworth
Role
- Wentworth was a vocal critic of the crown in parliament when Charles first came to power
- He was a fierce opponent of Buckingham's pro-spanish policy to such an extent that Charles maneuvred him out of parliament
- 1627, imprisoned for refusing to pay the forced loan
- 1628, One of the MP's that devised the Petition of Right
- however in the same year Charles gave wentworth a key royal appointment and thereafter he was a loyal servant to the king
- Wentworth was protestant but not Puritan so did not share the same anxieties about Charles religious ideals as Puritans such as Pym did
Thorough
England
- 1628, Wentworth became Lord President of the Council of the North and as one of the kings representatives he approached his job with zeal and efficiency
- The 1631 book of orders did a lot to ensure that the lower classes saw their lives improve e.g provisions for the poor were properly enforced and distributed
- The north of England was however distant from London and it was not prepared for the imposition of central government control that Wentworth vigorously implemented
- Local Gentry families resented the loss of power signalled by thorough and were offended by Wentworth's authoritarian style of communication
- Wentworth used the council as prerogative court to enforce submission to his authority
Ireland
- July 1633, Wentworth was promoted to Lord Deputy of ireland due to the reputation for loyalty and efficiency that he gained whilst in the North
- Previous Lord deputy's in ireland had been drawn from within the elite families so Wentworth was an outsider and showed favouritism to none
Three main goals for Ireland
- Impose authority of the English Crown : Deployed trusted English advisors to ireland and appointed them as secretary which alienated political elites who found their influence reduced
- Impose religious uniformity and conformity, in a Laudian style on the Irish church : 1634, The Laudian 39 Articles were introduced into the Irish church which antagonised the Protestant Irish who saw Laudianism as quasi-Catholic
- Make Ireland profitable for the king : The book of rates was re-issued so that crown income from customs doubled between 1633-40 which impacted merchants and traders who had to pay significantly more in customs
- Wentworth set out to achieve this through his thorough policy
The 'Graces'
- In 1628 the previous Lord deputy had reached an agreement to smooth parliamentary business
- In return for three parliamentary subsidies the Deputy agreed to grant concessions
- Expectation was that Wentworth would honour this agreement but once the subsidies were voted, the graces were not addressed
Reactions in Ireland
- On Wentworth's departure in 1639 Ireland was more profitable, more efficient and with a reformed church but at a cost for the future
- Every group in Irish society had been negatively impacted in multiple ways by his policies
- However, there was not yet an organised opposition against Wentworth or the Crown because of Ireland's fractional bases of politics and complex ethnicities making it hard to unite into an opposition. Furthermore Wentworth's ruthless suppression of critics meant he could swiftly crush any opposition that did potentially emerge
- Wentworth and Laud corresponded frequently and they used the term 'Thorough' to encapsulate what they were trying to achieve
- They believed corruption should be rooted out of public life and order should be returned to Church and State
- Believed non conformity was a challenge to the King's authority
Reactions in England
By the late 1630's, opposition to the King's personal Rule was becoming more visible and sustained :
- Hampden Ship money case mobilised a significant network of Puritan men and was the main reason for the drop in ship money conformity
- Trial + punishment of prynne, Bastwick and Burton was widely knwon and discussed, Casted a light on the king's severity and also the presence of dissenting voices
- King's circle of advisors continued to shrink further alienating the gentry (King's natural supporters)
- The efficiency of thorough provoked opposition, the King's authority reached further into localities than previously possible and angered individuals who had previously benefitted from the lack of efficiency from government
Demands for the recall of parliament
- Growing swell of opposition demonstrated that tension was building across England. However, The opportunity to vent their opinions and troubles were little because:
- Absence of parliament prevented debating and expressing their opinions to the king
- Thorough's control of the region meant that those who normally had voices of dissent had been clamped down on
- Charles' increasingly narrow court meant the nobility lost their personal access to the monarch
Finance
- After dissolving parliament again because they exploited his need for financial help to impose authority Charles needed to find alternate ways to fund the crown that would not mean recalling parliament
Prudence
- 1626, Charles had a debt of £2 million which had dramatically increased since James came to power (300,000 in 1603)
- Weston and Corrington therefore counselled Charles to cut expenditure:
- They wanted to reduce spending on foreign affairs by concluding peace with France (1629 treaty of Susa) and Spain (1630 treaty of Madrid)
- Wanted to reform Charles' household
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The Bishop's wars
Reaction in Scotland to the prayer book
- The Kirk was ordered to use the new prayer book from July 1637 onwards
- Knwoing the strength of popular opposition, some priests took pistols with them to church in case they needed to defend themselves
- Further riots broke out causing the Scottish Privy Council to abandon Edinburgh in October
- Charles refused to yield and was convinced the authority of the crown would prevail, on feb 1638 he made it treason to protest against the prayer book
King or covenant
- Led by the nobility the Scots took decisive action and a small group within the Scottish Parliament formed
- They drew up a 'national covenant' in February 1638 and it was a promise to the king that they would not comply to the transformation of the kirk
- Thorough had not extended into Scotland so regional government was still functioning in its original way and made the 'covenant' a final remaining avenue of opposition for the king
- Hundreds of thousands of Scots put their names to the covenant and became known as the covenanters
- Charles was persistent in his inflexibility and refused to back down, both sides began to mobilise for war
The Bishop's war
- Became known as the Bishops' war as the struggle over episcopacy was so central
- Scots voted to remove episcopacy and abolish the new prayer book in Nov 1638
Covenanters vs King's army
Speed of mobilisation
- Rapid for the covenanters however slow and patchy for the King's army
Size + Leadership
- Covenanters = 12,000 men led by General Leslie (Good)
- King = 15,000 men lead by the earl of Essex who Charles annoyed by placing Holland in charge of the cavalry
Discipline + order
- Covenanters were disciplined and highly motivated with expert command where as the king's army was ill-prepared and there were riots within them as they marched up North
Resources
- Covenanters, Support for them were strong enough for local committees to be able to increase taxes in order to fund mobilisation
- King, Charles struggled to fund his army with only non-Parliamentary financial means and they werent very effective at the time- ship money receipts dropped to 20%
Pacification of Berwick
- English Army mustered up North and began to march into Scotland towards the Scottish army lead by Leslie
- Holland poorly let his cavalry go too far ahead and Leslie had distributed his army cleverly to emphasise their strength, Holland's forces returned and told exaggerated stories of their strength
- Charles was running out of money and had failed to intimidate the Scots so decided to negotiate the Pacification of Berwick 18th June 1639
- The document contained an agreement for both sides to disband their armies and Charles would recall the Scottish parliament
Second Bishop's war
King's options after the pacification of Berwick
- Raise more money and launch a proper military
campaign
- Surrender to the Scottish demands
- Rethink his Scottish policy
- Despite the pacification neither King nor covenant disbanded their armies
- The Scottish parliament met and confirmed the abolishment of episcopacy and set about dismantling royal power within Scotland
- Charles decided to renew war against Scotland and sent an army up to York
- The scots launched a pre-emptive attack recognising the King's lack of support and financial position
- The covenanters took Newcastle and advanced to York
- Charles knew he needed peace with the covenanters now in talks with leading opponents of the king in England
- The King signed the **Treaty of Ripon with the covenanters
Impacts
On England
- People were optimistic that the wars would force Charles to recall parliament
- The Wars created an atmosphere of anxiety surrounding the monarch, religion and money
On Scotland
- August 1640, A group of Scottish nobles signed an agreement expressing their loyalty to the king and their desire to defend his authority
- They did this because they were alarmed at the development of radicalism within the ranks of the covenanters and felt they were being pushed to far, they didn't want to break out into outright rebellion against the monarch
Charles' chief ministers
- No one in 1629 could have predicted Charles would rule without parliament for 11 years as dissolution was not perculiar
- It had only been a handful of years since James had ended a 7 year period of governing without parliament
- People would have looked to the absolutist monarchies of France and Spain and be concerned on what Charles' intentions were
- Charles dissolving parliament was not innovative or radical it was a display of the Kings right to rule as he saw fit and Charles was merely exerting this power
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- A consequence of the assassination of Buckingham was that Charles could redistribute the patronage and titles that he had accumulated during the period
- In the absence of Parliament political influence began to be concentrated within an elite group + alienated many in the broader political nation
- This smaller concentrated elite group provided well-defined targets when opposition gained strength
Richard Weston, 1628-35
- Lord treasurer of England
Henry Montague (Earl of Manchester) 1628-40
- keeper of the privy seal
- William Laud 35-40
- Archbishop of canterbury
Thomas Wentworth 32-40
- Lord deputy of ireland
Lord Cottington