The Duke of Buckingham was blamed for these disasters by Parliament as he was believed to have forced Charles I into making these poor decisions. Throughout parliament, there was a wide-spread of hatred for Buckingham as he had too much of an influence over the king. He was also unpopular due to that he had survived the death of James I and still remained the kings ‘favourite’ loyal subject, which consequently caused jealously among parliament. This is due to the patronage (titles and offices) which came to Buckingham as a result of being very close to the crown. Parliament believed that Buckingham had strict control over Charles I, some even said Charles preferred his company more than his wife. Therefore, Buckingham had the ability to suggest expeditions such as these. In 1626 Parliament began the impeachment of Charles’ favourite subject, Buckingham. However, before they did this, they introduced a bill which would give the king a set of 4 subsidies. Parliament stated that they would only pass these this bill if the king allowed for Buckingham’s impeachment to take place. The king saw Buckingham as more of a benefit than the subsidies and as a result decided to dissolve parliament , and so the bill was not granted. This was therefore a fault of both the king and of the Duke of Buckingham which resulted in relations between Crown and Parliament crumble.
In connection with the financial issues already mentioned, a further reason why Charles’ relationship with parliament began to dissolve was due to the issues involving tonnage and poundage. From the years of 1485 until 1603, tonnage and poundage had been voted for the every monarch at the beginning of their reign, and for every year of their reign. However, Parliament only agreed vote this for the king for the first year, in order to make the point that it was a gift from the people to Charles. This was much to Charles’ disapproval as he needed the money greatly and believed that it was his right to claim as every other king before had done so. Therefore, as a result of this, Charles went ahead and collected this money without the permission of parliament. Charles did this by resorting to ‘prerogative’ taxation, such as the forced loan. It was financial disputes such as this which left Charles believing that it would be more beneficial for him to collect funding without the aid of parliament.
However, It could be argued that this is a fault of the Parliament as they took advantage of his youth and inexperience. The house of Commons particularly tried to take away the kings royal power and wealth as they believed that they could have succeeded in doing so. Parliament saw that the king was ill-suited to the task of communicating with them and getting them to co-operate with him. A fault of the king’s was his belief in the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, which led him to believe that Parliament should grant him subsidies whenever he should feel he needs them as they should trust him by not demanding the redress of grievances.
In addition a further reason which led to the king and parliament’s relationship dissolving was due to the conflicts involving religion. Charles I appeared to be a strong promoter of Arminianism. The parliament were strong protestants, some were even Puritans, therefore it was only logical that they would despise the Arminians as they believed that they were ‘Catholics in disguise’ as a result of their religious beliefs. It could be argued that if parliament had supported Charles’ religion and were comfortable with it, other issues, such as the conflicts with Buckingham, would not have been as important. In addition to this, the royal marriage also created tension. Charles had married Henrietta Maria, the Catholic sister of the King of France. The terms made during the marriage stated that Henrietta would be free to practise Catholicism, so therefore she brought her French, catholic priests to England with her, who remained in the Court of Whitehall. Parliament saw this as a threat as this leaves room for suspicion of the king’s motives. Parliament believed in the worst, for example that the king could possibly be aiming for a catholic, absolutist rule, which would be disastrous in the eyes of Parliament. It was the fault of Charles I which led to this conflict in religious beliefs within the crown and parliament. This therefore was a significant factor which led to the relationship breakdown between them, thus causing Charles to resort to personal rule.
A further fault of Charles’ which resulted in poor relations between parliament and the Crown was that the King appeared ill-suited for kingship; Charles was not able to persuade parliament to co-operate with him.
In conclusion, due to faults of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, Charles I and the Duke of Buckingham, relations between the Crown and Parliament increasingly worsened, resulting in the personal rule of Charles I. This included issues such as tonnage and poundage, the Cadiz and Mansfield Expeditions, the religious views of the Charles I and finally the impeachment of Buckingham. Considering all of these factors, I believe that the Duke of Buckingham was the most significant factor which led to the dissolving of Parliament. I believe this not only because the favouritism the king showed towards him led to his unpopularity , but also because of the ill-judged decisions the king made as a result of Buckingham, such as refuses the subsidies which parliament offered him in exchange for Buckingham’s impeachment.