After James death in 1625, his son Charles I had inherited the throne and took over from where his father had left. Charles had married a 15-year-old French princess named Henrietta Maria. Parliament did not like this because now that Charles is married to a French princess and not to a Spanish princess, England has lost all hopes of becoming a catholic country again as it is not likely for their Children to be brought up as Catholics. Very soon Charles began to have Quarrels with the parliament, the argument were mostly about religion and money, this shows a complete repetition of what his father had been doing all through his reign over England. The arguments did not stop they kept going on one after the other.
In 1629,Charles decided that enough was enough and could not take any more people criticising him and his adviser about their ideas of running England and to that he sent all the members of the parliament home and ruled without them for the next eleven years. It had not been easy for him as he was always been short of money. He had to think of way of getting money without asking the parliaments help. He used the court of chambers to deal with people who criticised him. He made them pay heavy fines and made rich men pay to become knights. If they had refused, he still made them pay a fine anyway. The major argument began when Charles tried to make everyone pay ‘ship money’. This was a special tax to help pay for the navy. One man, who was a former member of parliament named John Hampden stood up to Charles and said that Charles could only collect tax if the parliament had agreed. Hampden was put on trial and was found guilty. But many people found him as a hero for standing up to the King. There were other arguments going on, there was one other major argument going on between the king and the puritans. The King had upset the puritans by not letting them decorate their church how they had wanted it to be. I think that Charles had been out of order when he did not allow their church to be decorated because it is part of their religion and he should have been more respectful that arguing with them. I believe this was one of the main causes of the civil war because now that he had upset the Parliament, the people of England and the puritans, he made himself more unpopular and more hated than before.
Charles had upset other people too, one of them were the Scots, in 1640, Charles made a big mistake. He thought that as he was the king, he had the power to make the Scots use English prayer book instead of the Latin ones. The Scots were furious after hearing this; they decided that they would rather fight Charles instead. Charles had to call a Parliament to raise an army to fight the Scots. It met in 13th April, the first parliament for eleven years. Charles soon started to argue with it. Parliament insisted on discussing its grievances (the things it did not like about the way Charles had run the country) before voting money for the war. After receiving the money he shut it down again after almost a month after he had recalled it after eleven years. This was also known as the ‘Short Parliament’. I believe that this was another reason for why the civil war had started because this shows that Charles had no intension to change his actions.
Charles decided to go to war against Scotland anyway. It was a disaster. Not only he was defeated, the Scots army have also invaded the northern England. They now have the power to stop Charles getting into Scotland for good. The Scots agreed to return to Scotland, but only if Charles paid all costs of their army as well as his. Until then, the Scots army stayed in England and Charles had to pay £850 everyday to keep them there and away from London. This meant Charles had to call another Parliament. Only taxes voted by Parliament would give him enough money to pay off the Scots.
This was when the ‘Long Parliament’ came in (so called because it sat until 1653). Charles could not shut it down, as he needed taxes to pay off the Scots. MPs, led by John Pym, made it clear that they would only vote taxes after the grievances had been settled. He wanted to make sure that no king could ever rule again without calling a parliament. Charles’s two chief ministers, Strafford and Laud were imprisoned; Strafford was soon executed for treason (going against the king). I think that Parliament went over the limit when they ordered Strafford to get executed for treason when all the time he was on the King’s side. This made Charles even angrier because one of his favourite ministers has been killed for a crime he did not commit.
Parliament forced Charles to agree to many reforms. The most important one was a law that there must be a parliament at least once every three years, and that Charles could not end the ‘Long Parliament’ until it agreed. He also had to accept that most of his schemes to get money during the 11 years of ruling without parliament were illegal. It is important to realise that nobody wanted a civil war when Parliament first met. Parliament wanted to be more important, Charles wanted to keep as much power as he could and also defend the Church of England against puritans, and puritans wanted the Church of England to change and allowed to set up their own church and worship in their own way. I think that it is important to realise that they might all not want war but they still cannot stop arguing with each other.
While Parliament were worrying about whether they could trust Charles, an Irish Rebellion had started. The rebellion was between the Catholics and the Protestants. It was shocking when the people of England had heard about the killings in Ireland. The Irish rebels claimed that Charles approved of their rebellion, although this was not true. Even people who did not think Charles was involved in the Irish rebellion wondered if he could be trusted with an army to put it down as he might use to shut down Parliament first. This made Charles very angry because he should have been given an army to protect his people.
On 4th January 1642 Charles tried to arrest the five members- his leading opponents in parliament. They had already left the house, but his actions came as a great shock. How could Parliament discuss the country’s problems if the king might force himself in with armed men and try to arrest people who criticised him? I believe parliament found this as a treat and did not want to trust Charles with anything ever again.
Crowds in London demonstrated in defend of parliament. Charles thought it would be safer to leave the city. Six days later, Charles left London and headed north to raise an army. In February the Queen went abroad to pawn the crown jewels to pay for it. The two sides prepared for civil war. On 22nd August Charles raised his standard, the traditional declaration of war.