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 had been immense. The loan was seen as an attack on basic civil liberty and this view was seen even greater when Charles imprisoned the 76 people who refused to pay the loan.
Judges refused to pronounce the loan as legal so five nights brought a case against the crown due to the fundamental law of habeas corpus (if you are not charged within 24 hours of detention, you must be released). The Privy Council deemed this to be a too risky case to be allowed so it was stated that they were being held ‘by special command of our lord the king’. Now the king was not only taxing on his own but also imprisoning ‘by command’.
I believe that the way that Charles handled his finances and the political turmoil that came from it are a key reason for the total break down in trust. Because Charles had shown himself incapable of funding foreign policy and then breaking basic constitutional rights made parliament think very little of Charles and because they felt he was pushing them out, they lost a huge amount of trust for him.
Charles was not the only figure involved in the disastrous foreign policy that led to a poor financial situation, Buckingham was too and he was also a key reason for the complete breakdown in trust.
Buckingham first cam under the scrutiny of parliament in the 1625 session. In this session, Charles went against president and asked parliament for more subsidies than the two is offered. Parliament grew frustrated with Charles’ calls for money when they ‘know yet of no war nor of any enemy’. Charles’ persistence angered parliament and so they blamed Buckingham for mishandling the session and providing the king with bad advice. Charles took the attack personally and so he dissolved parliament. Both Charles and parliament lost trust in each other.
The failure of the Cadiz expedition, apart from the financial affects, had implications for Buckingham. This is so because the commons wanted someone to blame for the disasters in foreign policy and who better to blame than the Lord Admiral, Buckingham.
After the first accusations against Buckingham were made, Charles warned parliament that parliaments were under his power. The present parliament took little notice and made moves to have Buckingham impeached. Charles again took the attack personally and dissolved parliament to bring an end to the impeachment. Charles had sacrificed trust between him and his parliament for the sake of a friend. Buckingham then contributed again to the disintegration of trust by making a series of political moves, which would in turn remove opposition from the Privy Council. This was seen as a further step towards an autocracy.
Buckingham was also blamed for the poor discussions over the Petition of Right and one MP went as far as to say ‘Buckingham is the cause of all our miseries’. Parliament also said that the failures of Buckingham’s foreign policy were a judgment from God. In 1628, a man named Felton assassinated Buckingham. Even after his death, Buckingham stil managed to sour relations because Charles blamed parliament for Buckingham’s death. This is so because Felton said he had drawn inspiration from parliaments view that Buckingham was the cause of the nations problems.
I believe that Buckingham was the principal cause of trust collapsing between parliament and Charles. This is so because Buckingham was used by Parliament as a scapegoat; Charles took any attacks on Buckingham personally so therefore grew to dislike and distrust parliament because they attacked the closest advisor to him.
However Buckingham and the issue of trust is not the only reason why Parliament was ultimately dissolved in 1629, Charles’s character and beliefs played a key role. Charles was not a good 16/17th Century monarch, he did not know how to handle and negotiate with Parliament, and this ultimately would have led to Charles embarking upon the Personal Rule.
Charles had not been groomed in his youth to be the King because he had an elder brother, named Henry. He had a natural speech impediment and had a short attention span. When Henry died, his life was transformed. He was suddenly thrown into the limelight and did not know how to cope.
Charles was also very opinionated. He believed very strongly in the divine right of monarchs and that parliament was just there to grant him subsidies when he needed them.
He also believed that actions spoke louder than words and that he didn’t need to explain himself to a chamber full of ‘commoners’. All these factors would have resulted in a very poor working relationship between Charles and his parliaments, which culminated in the dissolution of the 1629 parliament.
Charles marriage to Henrietta Maria also made the working relationship quite hard. Henrietta Maria was Spanish and openly Catholic. This caused further controversy when Charles’s son was born. This is so because it was believed that Charles (II) was being educated in the Roman Catholic faith and therefore the future king would be a Catholic. Parliament was dominated by protestants so they did not like this and it heightened the fear that the country would go the way of Spain and become a Catholic absolutist state.
Charles possible support for Catholics went further than family but his close links with Armenians did little to cut the tension. Charles gave a number of key roles to Armenians. The most notable of these were the appointment of Montague as Royal Chaplain and Bishop of Chichester and Laud as preacher at the first parliament and Bishop of London. Montague’s appointment would have caused controversy because it now meant that the most senior religious figure to the royal household was Armenian and therefore possibly Catholic. The appointment of Laud meant that the numbers two figure in the church was Armenian.
There is also a political impact of Charles Armenian appointments. By appointing various Armenians within the church, it meant that Armenians held all leading posts. Because of this Protestants were becoming excluded from king’s councils.
These appointments further worried parliament that England was moving towards Catholicism however attempts were made to heal the dispute. The York House conference was one such example. This conference was hosted by Buckingham and was a meeting between Puritans and Armenians. However all this conference did was show that Buckingham and therefore Charles backed Armenians over protestants.
The whole issue of Armenianism would have contributed to the dissolution of parliament because M.P. grew angry at seeing the church altered around them with no official power to prevent it. The Armenianism issue also caused the formation of the three resolutions that ultimately lead to the Personal Rule.
When the speaker announced that the 1629 parliament was to be adjourned, in order to prolong the session, the speaker was held down. This gave Sir John Eliot time to call out three resolutions. They stated that any one who promoted Armenianism or church innovation was a ‘capital enemy of the state’ as well as any one who counselled the collection of tonnage and poundage without parliament or any one who paid it. These three resolutions finally linked the two main issues that had caused the complete and utter breakdown of the working relationship between Charles and Parliament: Religion and finance.
I believe that the Armenian issue is on a par with the breakdown of trust as to why Charles dissolved parliament in 1629. This is so because religion was an issue that was very important in 17th Century England and because Charles and Parliament had such contrasting views, it provided a fundamental disagreement, which would hinder their working relationship. Also it prompted one of the three resolutions which would have made Charles not want to recall parliament after 1629.
To conclude a mixture of reasons resulted in Charles dissolving parliament in 1629. These reasons can be split into two main groups: those of trust and those of politics/religion. The political issues all came together in the three resolutions, which affectively brandished Charles a ‘capital enemy of the state’. The issues of trust were continuous and would have only caused the working relationship to decrease to a point where Charles and Parliament could no longer work together. One of them would have to go.