Why Did Charles Dissolve Parliament in 1629?

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Tom Langrish L6.2

Why Did Charles Dissolve Parliament in 1629?

In March of 1629, Charles dissolved parliament and began the ‘Personal Rule’, which lasted until 1940.  The question is not why did Charles dissolve parliament, it is what were the events and key issues that lead to the complete breakdown in trust between Charles and parliament which resulted in Charles believing he had no option but to rule without parliament?

   Of course, there are some short-term causes, which contributed to Charles’ decision to rule without parliament.  These causes mainly revolve around events that took place during the sitting of the 1628 to 29 parliament. One of the main events in this parliament that severely damaged the trust between parliament and Charles was the publication of the Petition of Right.  Charles included his original and unsatisfactory reply to the petition.  This seriously reduced its impact and the act was seen as highly dubious by parliament.

   The second event of the parliament, which resulted in relations breaking down between Charles and Parliament, was the seizure of goods from merchants who refused to pay tonnage and poundage (one of which so happened to be a MP).  These and other events were the final straw in breaking the trust between Charles and Parliament but there were many long running causes following this issue of trust that also contributed.

  The way that Charles dealt with the finance of the crown and the issue of forced taxation was a major factor in the trust break down:  The failure of the Cadiz expedition had cost the crown greatly but Charles and Buckingham stil wanted to pursue with more costly military actions.  Charles managed to find funds by pawning of the crown jewels but he stil did not have enough.  Charles therefore decided to call another parliament in 1626, with the hope of securing subsidies.  

   However, before he called the parliament, he appointed some of the key ‘troublemakers’ in previous parliaments to the position of sheriff and therefore making them ineligible to stand for re-election (this also caused trust to drop). Even though Charles had purged parliament, they would not grant him the money he required to follow his foreign policy.  Charles dissolved the parliament.

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  The Crown now had enormous outgoings, in excess of 1 million pounds, and no additional income.  The Privy Council met and decided to force a loan worth five subsidies an all those that paid subsidies.  This in affect was parliamentary taxation but without parliament sanctioning and created great unrest amongst MPs.  They now believed that Charles was slowly making parliament redundant and turning the state in to an autocracy.

   By the end of 1627 over £260,000 had been raised and the crown was now out of danger from immediate bankruptcy but the political cost of the forced loans ...

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