The personal rule of Charles I, 1629-40: finance; roles of Strafford and Laud and the extent of opposition

TOPIC ONE: The personal rule of Charles I, 1629-40: finance; roles of Strafford and Laud and the extent of opposition

Timeline of Events

1929

• 2nd session of Charles’ third Parliament

• Speaker Finch prevented from adjourning the Commons until three resolutions were passed against extra-Parliamentary tonnage and poundage and religious innovations

• King dissolved Parliament

• Peace made with France.

1630

• Closer relationship with Henrietta Maria after death of Buckingham.

• Exchequer judges confirmed the King’s right to fine landowners worth £40 per annum or more who had not received a knighthood

• Peace made with Spain

1631

• Bad harvests ‘29 and ‘30, soaring food prices and food riots prompts privy council to issue Book of Orders

1632

• Wentworth appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland

1633

• Charles visited Scotland (crowned in June) and decides to introduce Prayer Book there

• Prynne sent to the Tower for writing Histomatrix, condemning stage plays (ears cut off in ‘34 as a punishment)

• Abolition of the Feoffees for impropriations, established in 1625 to buy impropriated tithes + use them to employ Puritan lecturers

• Laud archbishop of Cantebury

1634

• Sir Robert Heath, chief justice of the common pleas, dismissed for opposition to Laudianism

• First ship money writs to maritime counties

• Restoration of the monopoly of the Company of merchant adventurers

1635

• Commission on depopulation established to raise money by selling licenses confirming illegal enclosures

• Ship money levied on whole country

• Revival of forest courts to raise money by fines

• Judges declared that Ship money was illegal

• New ecclestial canons issued in Scotland

1637

• Prynne, Bastwick and Burton branded + ears cut off for publishing anti-episcopal pamphlets

• Riots in St. Giles Church, Edinburgh against the English Prayer Book

• Petitioning movement Scotland against new prayer book

• Trial of John Hampden for refusing to pay ship money began in the exchequer court, final judgement against Hampden was given by a majority 7:5 vote in June 1638

1638

• Scottish National Assembly drew up a National Covenant abolishing the Book of Common Prayer

• Scottish Assembly abolished Bishops, provoked military action by the English against the Scots (the First Bishops’ War)

1639

• First Anglo-Scottish Bishop’s War ended by the Truce of Berwick

• Wentworth returned from Ireland and advised the recall of Parliament in England

1640

• Wentworth created earl of Strafford and lord Lieutenant of Ireland

• Short Parliament met + dissolved

• Second Anglo-Bishops’ war began. Scottish troops occupied Newcastle; Scottish conservative nobles signed the Cumbernauld Bond against the Covenanters

• English troops defeated in second Bishops’ War, ended by Treaty of Ripon

• Long Parliament called November, attacks on ship money, impeachment proceedings began against Strafford and Laud, new ecclesiastical canons condemned

• London Root and Branch Petition against bishops presented to Parliament

Personal Rule: Finance

• Magna Carta forbade King from raising taxes without Parliament’s consent, needed to be careful

• War years left crown in financial distress - deficit £2 million by 1629

• Sir Richard Weston Lord Treasurer: reduced pensions by over a third, increased fines on Catholics by five, Kishlansky “a manager rather than a reformer”

• William Noy, Attorney General instructed…