How Well Did Charles Get On With His Parliaments Up To 1629?

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Pratik Vats 12 N/A

How Well Did Charles Get On With His Parliaments Up To 1629?

From the start of his rule, it was quite obvious that relations with Parliament were going to be less than cooperative at the best of times, as Charles was a firm believer in his royal prerogative, while Parliament thought that he was arrogant, demanding and irrational in the way he would not listen to the views suggested by Parliament, which is all outlined in this essay.

The first Parliament of Charles’ reign met in June 1625, and was solely summoned by Charles to provide money for the costly was with Spain. Parliament acknowledged the request of the King, and voted for a double subsidy worth around £140,000, and confirmed that the Kind was right to collect both tonnage and poundage, which were the main sources of custom duties for one year. Parliament was cooperating with what the king wanted, but the sum of £140,000 was still inadequate to fund his foreign policy obligations, which would cost closer to £1 million. Parliament ‘s lack of generosity to aid the King was partially due to an unrealistic view of how expensive the war with Spain was, and also because they didn’t trust the way Charles was handling foreign policy.

The disagreement between the amount of money the King required and the amount that Parliament was willing to grant him meant that this was a bad start to relations between them. The bad feeling between them was further accentuated due to the fact that Charles appointed Richard Montague (an Arminian theologian) as a royal chaplain. The King’s personal beliefs were closely linked to those of the Arminian group, who had recently emerged from the Anglican Church. The Arminian group believed that the Roman Catholic Church were not evil, but rather misguided tracing the power and authority held by the clergy back to Christ himself. The ideas of the Arminian group were appealing to the King, however Parliament did not agree, and said that these ideas were remarkably close to Catholicism, which was despised in England at the time. The appointment of Richard Montague, therefore was another rift between the King and Parliament. Parliament was subsequently dissolved by Charles after this disagreement, and repeated attacks on the Duke of Buckingham, who was one of Charles’ favourite advisors.

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Parliament was recalled in February 1626, but now its feeling towards the Duke had become even more hostile due to the failure on the Cadiz expedition (which he led) in the autumn of the previous year. The King was again in need of money, which was the reason Parliament was recalled. The MPs agreed to provide four subsidies, but delayed passing the bill until the impeachment papers were drawn up against Buckingham for: dishonestly amassing royal offices, corruption and impoverishing the Crown.  Charles dissolved Parliament again to protect Buckingham, however, this put him in an impossible position, as he ...

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