influence and military power. Such was the general dislike of Buckingham,
that he was impeached by Parliament in 1628, although he was murdered by a
fanatic before he could lead the second expedition to France. The political
controversy over Buckingham demonstrated that, although the monarch's right
to choose his own Ministers was accepted as an essential part of the royal
prerogative, Ministers had to be acceptable to Parliament or there would be
repeated confrontations. The King's chief opponent in Parliament until 1629
was Sir John Eliot, who was finally imprisoned in the Tower of London until
his death in 1632.
Tensions between the King and Parliament centred around finances, made
worse by the costs of war abroad, and by religious suspicions at home
(Charles's marriage was seen as ominous, at a time when plots against
Elizabeth I and the Gunpowder Plot in James I's reign were still fresh in
the collective memory, and when the Protestant cause was going badly in the
war in Europe). In the first four years of his rule, Charles was faced with
the alternative of either obtaining parliamentary funding and having his
policies questioned by argumentative Parliaments who linked the issue of
supply to remedying their grievances, or conducting a war without subsidies
from Parliament. Charles dismissed his fourth Parliament in March 1629 and
decided to make do without either its advice or the taxes which it alone
could grant legally.
Although opponents later called this period 'the Eleven Years' Tyranny',
Charles's decision to rule without Parliament was technically within the
King's royal prerogative, and the absence of a Parliament was less of a
grievance to many people than the efforts to raise revenue by non-
parliamentary means. Charles's leading advisers, including William Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford, were efficient but
disliked. For much of the 1630s, the King gained most of the income he
needed from such measures as impositions, exploitation of forest laws,
forced loans, wardship and, above all, ship money (extended in 1635 from
ports to the whole country). These measures made him very unpopular,
alienating many who were the natural supporters of the Crown.
Scotland (which Charles had left at the age of 3, returning only for his
coronation in 1633) proved the catalyst for rebellion. Charles's attempt to
impose a High Church liturgy and prayer book in Scotland had prompted a
riot in 1637 in Edinburgh which escalated into general unrest. Charles had
to recall Parliament; however, the Short Parliament of April 1640 queried
Charles's request for funds for war against the Scots and was dissolved
within weeks. The Scots occupied Newcastle and, under the treaty of Ripon,
stayed in occupation of Northumberland and Durham and they were to be paid
a subsidy until their grievances were redressed.
Charles was finally forced to call another Parliament in November 1640.
This one, which came to be known as The Long Parliament, started with the
imprisonment of Laud and Strafford (the latter was executed within six
months, after a Bill of Attainder which did not allow for a defence), and
the abolition of the King's Council (Star Chamber), and moved on to declare
ship money and other fines illegal. The King agreed that Parliament could
not be dissolved without its own consent, and the Triennial Act of 1641
meant that no more than three years could elapse between Parliaments.
The Irish uprising of October 1641 raised tensions between the King and
Parliament over the command of the Army. Parliament issued a Grand
Remonstrance repeating their grievances, impeached 12 bishops and attempted
to impeach the Queen. Charles responded by entering the Commons in a failed
attempt to arrest five Members of Parliament, who had fled before his
arrival. Parliament reacted by passing a Militia Bill allowing troops to be
raised only under officers approved by Parliament. Finally, on 22 August
1642 at Nottingham, Charles raised the Royal Standard calling for loyal
subjects to support him (Oxford was to be the King's capital during the
war). The Civil War, what Sir William Waller (a Parliamentary general and
moderate) called 'this war without an enemy', had begun.
The Battle of Edgehill in October 1642 showed that early on the fighting
was even. Broadly speaking, Charles retained the north, west and south-west
of the country, and Parliament had London, East Anglia and the south-east,
although there were pockets of resistance everywhere, ranging from solitary
garrisons to whole cities. However, the Navy sided with Parliament (which
made continental aid difficult), and Charles lacked the resources to hire
substantial mercenary help.
Parliament had entered an armed alliance with the predominant Scottish
Presbyterian group under the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, and from
1644 onwards Parliament's armies gained the upper hand - particularly with
the improved training and discipline of the New Model Army. The Self-
Denying Ordinance was passed to exclude Members of Parliament from holding
army commands, thereby getting rid of vacillating or incompetent earlier
Parliamentary generals. Under strong generals like Sir Thomas Fairfax and
Oliver Cromwell, Parliament won victories at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby
(1645). The capture of the King's secret correspondence after Naseby showed
the extent to which he had been seeking help from Ireland and from the
Continent, which alienated many moderate supporters.
In May 1646, Charles placed himself in the hands of the Scottish Army
(who handed him to the English Parliament after nine months in return for
arrears of payment - the Scots had failed to win Charles's support for
establishing Presbyterianism in England). Charles did not see his action as
surrender, but as an opportunity to regain lost ground by playing one group
off against another; he saw the monarchy as the source of stability and
told parliamentary commanders 'you cannot be without me: you will fall to
ruin if I do not sustain you'. In Scotland and Ireland, factions were
arguing, whilst in England there were signs of division in Parliament
between the Presbyterians and the Independents, with alienation from the
Army (where radical doctrines such as that of the Levellers were
threatening commanders' authority). Charles's negotiations continued from
his captivity at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight (to which he had
'escaped' from Hampton Court in November 1647) and led to the Engagement
with the Scots, under which the Scots would provide an army for Charles in
exchange for the imposition of the Covenant on England. This led to the
second Civil War of 1648, which ended with Cromwell's victory at Preston in
August.
The Army, concluding that permanent peace was impossible whilst Charles
lived, decided that the King must be put on trial and executed. In
December, Parliament was purged, leaving a small rump totally dependent on
the Army, and the Rump Parliament established a High Court of Justice in
the first week of January 1649. On 20 January, Charles was charged with
high treason 'against the realm of England'. Charles refused to plead,
saying that he did not recognise the legality of the High Court (it had
been established by a Commons purged of dissent, and without the House of
Lords - nor had the Commons ever acted as a judicature).
The King was sentenced to death on 27 January. Three days later, Charles
was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall,
London. The King asked for warm clothing before his execution: 'the season
is so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine
proceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation.' On the scaffold, he
repeated his case: 'I must tell you that the liberty and freedom [of the
people] consists in having of Government, those laws by which their life
and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in
Government, Sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a
sovereign are clean different things. If I would have given way to an
arbitrary way, for to have all laws changed according to the Power of the
Sword, I needed not to have come here, and therefore I tell you ... that I
am the martyr of the people.' His final words were 'I go from a corruptible
to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.'
The King was buried on 9 February at Windsor, rather than Westminster
Abbey, to avoid public disorder. To avoid the automatic succession of
Charles I's son Charles, an Act was passed on 30 January forbidding the
proclaiming of another monarch. On 7 February 1649, the office of King was
formally abolished.
The Civil Wars were essentially confrontations between the monarchy and
Parliament over the definitions of the powers of the monarchy and
Parliament's authority. These constitutional disagreements were made worse
by religious animosities and financial disputes. Both sides claimed that
they stood for the rule of law, yet civil war was by definition a matter of
force. Charles I, in his unwavering belief that he stood for constitutional
and social stability, and the right of the people to enjoy the benefits of
that stability, fatally weakened his position by failing to negotiate a
compromise with Parliament and paid the price. To many, Charles was seen as
a martyr for his people and, to this day, wreaths of remembrance are laid
by his supporters on the anniversary of his death at his statue, which
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