Charles: 1625-1629

1625 Parliament

• Charles assumes subsidies will be given, wanted immediate grant
• Would only grant two worth £140,000- no war declared, doubt about commitment to Protestant cause, relaxation of recusancy fines, no account of 1624 grant
• Unprecedented request for more-unites Commons against him. Dissolved in August when it attakcs Buckingham

Expensive foreign commitments

• Fit out navy assemling in Plymouth for expedition. In a poor state-needed food, clothing
• End of August only £600 in treasury 
• Queen's dowry of £120,000, borrowed £70,000 for international financer
• 1/2 million spent but still short of many essentials

October 1625 Cadiz

• Soldiers get drunk and attack abandoned. Achieved nothing, Buckingham gets blame, 12,000 went 5,000 came back

October 1625- failed second attempt to attack Spain

• Needed to go, supplies would not keep over Winter
• Struck by violent storms - why is Buckingham preparing war with France?

• September 1625, Treaty of Southampton. England and United Provinces, offensive and defensive. 

December 1625, Treaty of the Hague

• France and others invited, only Denmark accepts
• Charles to pay King of Denmark £30,000/week for army and some ships
• France's refusal arouses suspicion about how trustworthy it was

September 1625-embarrassing incident 

• English ships on loan to France used to defeat Hugenots at La Rochelle
• P thought it was a sign Charles was becoming Catholic- Charles should protect them

Peace of Monzon Feb. 1626 and Buckingham's planned attack on France(to destroy Richelieu)

• France can't be trusted- make seperate peace with Spain
• Need to remove Richelieu to damage policy- plans three pronged attack - needs parliamentary funds
• P want rid of Buckingham and Parliament dissovled

Money shortage and forced loan:  Jan 1627 workers in Cheltnam dockayrd demand £8,000. Charles decided to levy forced loan from richer subjects

June 1627- La Rochelle, what happened; Blame Buckingham?

• Went well, citadel besieged. Went wrong - Buckingham inexperienced, ladders too short
• Buckingham not completely to blame for failure but responsible for policy leading to it 

Impact

• France and Spain agreed upon attack on England (came to nothing)- required more defence
• Danes not given neccessary money and beaten in Germany , had to withdraw
• Hugenots need aid, Protestantism apparently retreating 

Spring 1628 La Rochelle

• Failed, Buckingham already dead
• P in session when returned snd fuelled a crisis; determination to remove Buckingham

Assasination of Buckingham

• April 1629 Treaty of Suza with France
• November 1629 Treaty of Madrid with Spain, agreed to restore Palatinate

Charles ' Relationship with Parliament

• Poisons it; apparent lack of direction gave way to bungled military expeditions
• Raises issue of money, power, religion and favourites

Effect on Finance

• Unwilling to vote large subsidies that would be frittered away
• Drove Charles to find money from other places, despite unpopularity
• Continued to collect tonnage and poundage 
• Forced loan 
• Meant foregin affairs less successful
• Troops billeted on unwilling households

John Eliot becomes prominent member of opposition and did much to turn commons against king's policy

• William Laud preaches opening sermon of first parliament; Richard Montagu AB of Chichester
• Laud becomes AB of London 1628 and all leading church posts filled by Arminians
• Calvinists progressively excluded
• Teaching of predestination forbidden at Cambridge when Buckingham is Chancellor 1626
• Support king's prerogative- appealing to Charles

• Majority of Commons low Church, Calvinist, anti-Catholic, and favour of an active Protestant foreign policy 
• Although Charles was the last of these, the war with Spain wasn't turning out well
• Led to attacks from outspoken MPs
• 1627 Roger Mainwaring supported non-Parliamentary taxation and was impeached, fired, imprisoned and barred from office, but after only a few weeks Charles pardoned him and gave him a new living
• Actions like this undermined trust in Charles as protector of their rights

1626

• Attempt to heal religious divisions by holding conference of Puritans and Arminians
• Served merely to confirm that the Arminians had support of Buckingham and by implication, Charles
• Commons could protest at direction of religious policy but could do little to stop it 
• One MP,regarding the Puritan label as bad and suggesting they were part of a sect said of Montagu: "casting the odious name of Puritans..upon his Majesty's loving subjects"
• By 1629 religion taking precedence in the Commons
• Charges of heterodoxy made against Laud 
• Sir Robert Phelps: "two sects...ancient Popery... and Arminianism"
• Commons felt Protestantism under threat- Catholicism being openly celebrated at court

1629

• Atmosphere of alarm
• Against Arminianism and tonnage and poundage 
• First protested about "innovation in religion". Anyone who sought to extend or introduce Popery or Arminianism would be regarded as a "capital enemy to the king and the commonwealth"
• Charles not impressed- determined to impose his own sense of order in religion

• "Arminians are the spawn of papists"

• Dissolution of Parliament left enormous outgoings of war with no additional income except the captured French ships which brought in £50,000 in 1626
• Drop in the ocean- undertakings of 1 million
• Forced loan worth two subsides
• Levied on Charles' richer subjects 

• Against some opposition from the council 
• Worth five subsidies and levied on all subsidy payers
• Ill feeling- it was a parliamentary taxation that had not been sanctioned by parliament
• "never any monies demanded and paid with greater grief"- the Commons
• Subsidy payers individually summoned to meetings where pressed to pay
• Had some loyal supporters
• By the end of 1627 over £260,000 had been raised -removed threat of immediate bankruptcy

Critcism

• Heavy political cost
• Only a bit of support- highly placed clerks seeking to further their career saw it as kings right "as the reward of their pains and protections'
• Many saw it as invasion of fundamental liberty - that they held the rights to their own property and for the king to take it was theft
• Move to tyranny and arbitary government- could he rule without parliament now?
• Wentworth and 76 others arrested 

• When the judges wouldn't pronounce it legal, Charles dismissed Chief Justice of King's Bench Ranulph Crewe- shows Charles not following and respecting the law
• Five Knight's challenged for haebus corpus, but Charles didn't want it to go to court in case they got released
• Council stated they have been imprisoned by 'special command of our Lord the King'.
• Imprisoning at pleasure
• Insisted on publications of sermons in favour of Forced Loan
• E.g 1627 George Abbot refused to authorise the publication of the Arminian Robert Sipthorpe's sermon justifying it which led to temporary suspension

Billeting and marital laws 

• Make matters worse. Southern counties where expeditions against France and Spain were being fitted out> liberties of all kinds being attacked

• Forced loan had helped short term but in Sept. 1627 a treasury official wared Buckingham "revenue of all kinds is now exhausted"
• Charles had already extracted another loan from the City but only by giving it the last major body of crown lands worth £350,000 to cancel past debts and as security
• Ended traditional role of land as major source of royal revenue and meant the City was unwilling to lend in the future
• Now the crown had to rely almost exclusively on customs farmer (imports/exports etc) but they could not supply king's needs>> had to call parliament

• Increased role under Charles
• Stories began to circulate that the duke was the real leader- rode in the carriage
• After 1625 favoured Arminianism-suspcious when combined with lax enforcement of laws against Catholics
• Control of armed forces prompted fears he was planning to establish Catholic state
• Commons identified him as "source of all miseries" and refused to work with Charles as long as he was in power
• So Charles had to use prerogative measures> made P even more suspicious
• Death did not solve problems- Charles blamed P; became even more remote ; no shield of b anymore so he was to blame for all his increasingly unpopular policies