1. The Protestant Reformation (1517-1648) questioned the
authority of the Catholic Church, and by extension, nearly
every repository of central authority.
2. The Parliaments of 1563 and 1566-67 were active in
petitioning Elizabeth to announce a successor and marry (a
matter of foreign policy). In 1566 the commons attempted
to postpone the Queen's request for money until she had
satisfied their grievances, but Elizabeth managed to
outmaneuver them. In 1587, Parliament pushed for
Elizabeth to accept the sovereignty of the Netherlands, but
the queen refused again. In short, during Elizabeth’s 45
year reign, Parliament was in session for a total of 140
weeks. The magnitude of England’s substantial debt
racked up through repeated wars against Catholic Spain
may be viewed as a measure of Parliament’s weakness.
This debt constrained both James I and Charles I.
3. Educational and political consciousness evolved during
Elizabeth’s rule. Local gentlemen elected to the House of
Commons elevated how well Parliament worked and
created an "institutional memory" by improving
Parliament’s records and establishing precedents. By 1620,
Parliament was quite capable.
4. The Hampton Court Conference of 1604 between James I
and his bishops addressed Puritan complaints about the
Catholic terms Absolution and Confirmation. The outcome
pleased both the King and Puritans: intermediaries
between God’s word and man were eliminated and King
James commissioned an updated translation of the bible,
which became the King James Version used today.
5. Authorities foil Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot of 1605,
leading many to rally round King James and England.
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6. James I to Parliament, 21 March, 1610: “Kings are justly
called Gods, for if you will consider the Attributes to God,
you shall see how they agree in the person of a King. God
hath power to create, or destroy, make, or unmake at his
pleasure, to give life, or send death, to judge all, and to be
judged nor accountable to none: To raise low things, and to
make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both
soul and body due. And the like power have Kings: they
make and unmake their subjects: they have power of
raising, and casting down: of life, and of death: Judges over
all their subjects, and in all causes, and yet accountable to
none but God only. They have power to exalt low things,
and abase high things, and make of their subjects like men
at the Chess; A pawn to take a Bishop or a Knight, and to
cry up, or down any of their subjects, as they do their
money. And to the King is due both the affection of the
soul, and the service of the body of his
subjects.” http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/Jamesdrk.htm
7. During the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618,
James I hesitated to send English troops to the aid of
German Protestants battling German Catholics.
8. James I ordered the clergy of the Church of England to read
The Book of Sports from their pulpits in Lancashire and
perhaps throughout England in 1618. James I was
concerned that Puritans preaching in the county were
insisting that Sunday be reserved exclusively for rest and
study. Such prohibitions might drive the people toward
Catholicism. The Book, which James wrote, read in part:
“For when shall the common people have leave to exercise,
if not upon the Sundays and holy days, seeing they must
apply their labor and win their living in all working-days?
…no lawful recreation shall be barred to our good people,
which shall not tend to the breach of our aforesaid laws
and canons of our Church.” So many of the clergy refused
to read the Book from their pulpits that James I withdrew
his order.
9. Gentlemen beyond London began to hire agents in London
to send them letters containing news of the latest events in
the Commons, at Court and abroad. These news letters
were the precursors of the first newspapers, which began
in the 1620s. [At first, the newspaper was called a
"coranto" because it gave the current news].
10. Fearing continued persecution from James I and lacking
hope for change, two groups of Puritan Separatists fled
England in 1620 for North America. The smaller of the two
founded Plymouth Colony on Cape Cod Bay while the
larger founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
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11. James I re-called Parliament in 1621 to discuss the future
marriage of his son, Charles, to a Spanish princess.
Parliament was outraged. If such a marriage occurred,
would the heirs be brought up as Catholics? The marriage
never took place but the suspicious relationship between
king and Parliament outlived James, who died in 1625.
12. Under James I, Parliament met three times: from 16041611, briefly in 1614 before he dissolved it, and briefly
again in 1621 before he dissolved it. In 1614 and 1621,
Parliament was eager to discuss whether the Crown could
raise funds without the consent of Parliament.
13. When England resumed war with Spain in 1624, Parliament
distrusted James I and refused to adequately fund the war.
Parliament’s refusal compelled Charles I, who succeeded
his father James I in 1625, to levy discontinued taxes and
subject English property owners to a “forced loan”. Charles
I imprisoned property owners who refused these loans to
the crown. To save money and keep a close eye on local
politics, he also quartered troops in private homes.
14. Charles I married Henrietta Maria in 1625. Henrietta was
the Catholic daughter of Henry IV of France, arousing
suspicion among notable Protestants in England that
Charles was more sympathetic to Catholics than
Protestants and alarming Protestants that heirs to the
throne might be Catholic. Every English King was the head
of the Church of England, a very different church than the
Roman Catholic Church.
15. “…as the King is the sacred & supreme Head of two Bodies,
the one Spiritual, the other Secular: so, this high and royal
Text contains in it two parts correspondent: The one Civil,
which is a Counsel of State, or a politique caution; I counsel
thee to keep the King’s commandment: the other Spiritual,
which is a devout or religious reason...The zeal, and fervor
of which Religion, if at any time it fall into a wane or
declination, contempt or derision, portends evermore, the
Ruin and desolation of that State and Kingdom, where, the
service and worship of him who sits in heaven, is set at
naught: and fills the world with terrible examples of God’s
revenging Justice, and most ireful indignation.” Bishop
Roger Maynwaring, in a sermon entitled Religion and
Allegiance, 4 July 1627. Charles ordered the sermon
published and
distributed. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show
.php%3Ftitle=810&chapter=164703&layout=html&Itemid=27
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16. Parliament drafted the Petition of Rights in 1628 and
requested Charles I sign it. The Petition recited many
principles from Magna Carta, including that there should
be no forced loans or taxation without the consent of
Parliament, that imprisonment without due cause and
quartering troops in private homes exceeded the authority
of the crown, and that martial law could not be used in
times of peace.
17. Charles I accepted the Petition of Rights presented in 1628,
but after further conflicts, he adjourned Parliament shortly
after in 1629. Charles next convened Parliament in 1640.
18. Anglican Church Archbishop William Laud (appointed by
and with the blessing of Charles I) attempted to force all
churches in Scotland to use a prayer book nearly identical
to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in 1637.
Accustomed to their own practice of Christianity and proud
of their own liturgy and especially their independence, the
Scots rebelled and declared war on Charles I.
19. Parliamentary leaders in the 1640s like Oliver Cromwell,
Edward Coke, William Prynne, John Pym, John Hampden,
Denzil Holles, Arthur Haselrig and William Strode, among
others, were extremely capable leaders at a time when
many Englishmen rejected absolute monarchy.
20. “Since the breach of the last Parliament, his majesty hath,
by a new book of rates, very much increased the burden
upon merchandise, and now tonnage and poundage, old
and new impositions, are all taken by prerogative, without
any grant in Parliament, or authority of law, as we
conceive…Men’s goods are seized, their legal suits are
stopped, and justice denied to those that desire to take the
benefit of the law. The great sums of money received upon
these impositions, intended for the guard of the seas,
claimed and defended upon no ground but of public trust,
for protection of merchants and defense of the ports, are
dispersed to other uses, and a new tax raised for the same
purposes.” John Pym, speech to Parliament, 17 April 1640
21. The Scots defeated the English army at the battle of
Newburn in the summer of 1640. This defeat compelled
Charles to reconvene Parliament in November 1640.
Parliament promptly determined that it could not be
adjourned without its own consent.
22. Charles I again requested Parliament raise funds for his
army to suppress the Scots rebellion in 1641. Parliament
preferred to become commander-in-chief of the army
rather than entrust it to Charles I. Parliament refused
Charles I request.
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23. Thomas Wentworth became lord deputy of Ireland in 1633
and began a series of reforms which alienated both the
Protestant and Catholic ruling elites in Ireland. Wentworth
challenged land deeds, confiscated Catholic lands,
arbitrarily rejected juries and imposed substantial fines on
local officials. Eventually Wentworth’s imperial attitude
caught up with him—he had made too many enemies in
Ireland. The House of Lords impeached Wentworth in late
1640 and executed him in May, 1641.
24. “Some of the expressions referred to were uttered in
private, and I do protest against their being drawn to my
injury in this place. If, my lords, words spoken to friends in
familiar discourse, spoken at one’s table, spoken in one’s
chamber, spoken in one’s sick bed, spoken, perhaps, to
gain better reason, to gain one’s self more clear light and
judgment by reasoning,—if these things shall be brought
against a man as treason, this (under favor) takes away the
comfort of all human society. By this means we shall be
debarred from speaking—the principal joy and comfort of
life—with wise and good men, to become wiser and better
ourselves. If these things be strained to take away life, and
honor, and all that is desirable, this will be a silent world! A
city will become a hermitage, and sheep will be found
among a crowd and press of people! No man will dare to
impart his solitary thoughts or opinions to his friend and
neighbor!” Thomas Wentworth, 13 April, 1641 before the
House of Lords http://www.bartleby.com/268/3/9.html
25. Rumors circulated in January 1642 that Parliament might
impeach Queen Henrietta Maria. Outraged, Charles barged
into Parliament in January 1642 to arrest his Parliamentary
opponents, but they escaped. In disgust, Charles I left
London to raise his own army. The Parliament passed the
Militia Ordinance of 1642 establishing Parliamentary
control over county militias.
26. Charles I ultimately headquartered in Oxford and raised his
army. After a series of indecisive battles, the
Parliamentary Army crushed the Royalists at the Battle of
Naseby in June 1645 and captured all the Royalists artillery
and stores. Charles I's private papers fell into the hands of
the Parliamentarians, revealing the full extent of his
negotiations to bring over Irish Catholics to fight against
Parliament, and his efforts to secure foreign mercenaries
and money from abroad.
27. Charles I surrendered to the Army in 1648. While
Parliamentary leaders spent fruitless months failing to
negotiate a settlement with him, others allege that Charles
was encouraging uprisings in England and Wales and an
invasion from Scotland.
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28. On the morning of 6 December 1648 Colonel Thomas Pride
and his soldiers stood outside the entrance to St Stephen's
Chapel. As the Commons convened, Pride arrested 45
Members and excluded a further 186 whom the Army
thought were unlikely to support its goal of punishing the
King. These detentions became known as “Pride’s Purge”
29. After this military coup a further 86 Members left in
protest. Pride's Purge left a 'Rump' (as it came to be called)
of barely 200 Members. Among these, a determined clique
unilaterally forced through an 'Act' on 6 January 1649,
establishing a court to try Charles I for high treason ignoring the negative vote a few days before of the small
number of peers still sitting in the Lords.
30. During the trial in Westminster Hall in 1649, Charles I
disputed the authority of the court and refused to enter a
plea. Regardless of the widespread opposition to the trial,
a verdict of guilty was pushed through. The death warrant
was signed by only 57 of the 159 commissioners of the high
court originally established by the Rump.
31. “I stand more for the liberty of my people, than any here
that come to be my pretended judges ... I do not come here
as submitting to the Court. I will stand as much for the
privilege of the House of Commons, rightly understood, as
any man here whatsoever: I see no House of Lords here,
that may constitute a Parliament ... Let me see a legal
authority warranted by the Word of God, the Scriptures, or
warranted by the constitutions of the Kingdom, and I will
answer….a King cannot be tried by any superior jurisdiction
on earth: but it is not my case alone, it is the freedom and
the liberty of the people of England; and do you pretend
what you will, I stand more for their liberties. For if power
without law, may make laws, may alter the fundamental
laws of the Kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in
England that can be sure of his life, or anything that he calls
his own….I never took up arms against the people, but for
the laws .... It is the liberty of the people of England that I
stand for.” Charles I, January, 1949, during his trial at
Commons http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/charles.html
32. “The degree of the punishment, and the consequences of a
crime, ought to be so contrived as to have the greatest
possible effect on others, with the least possible pain to
the delinquent. If there be any society in which this is not a
fundamental principle, it is an unlawful society; for
mankind, by their union, originally intended to subject
themselves to the least evils possible.” Beccaria
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