Personal Rule of Charles I Essay Example

so they felt they were in control and in the position to make demands of the king.

Parliament were not only united in their decision to make Charles correct his mistakes but the majority also had no desire to punish him personally, merely wishing for their country to be happy and for the grievances not to be repeated. But this majority however did no include everyone, and Parliamentarian John Pym and his initially small group of supporting MP's, were not satisfied with just redressing grievances; they wanted more radical action to be taken against Charles.

Pym's contacts made him an influence inside Parliament and the Short Parliament in April 1640 was a contingent cause for the division of Parliament because it was in this brief period that they had opportunity to meet, acquire useful contacts and find out what tactics they would need, so here the opposition group effectively took shape, creating a trigger for division and conflict.

By the time the Long Parliament was called in November 1640 Pym's group had their planned strategy and launched straight into an attack on the current grievances - the cause of them being Charles - and, while the mood of the other MP's on arrival in November had been one of optimism, he had now successfully stirred up fears by telling them of a plot by the army to dissolve the House of Commons and release Strafford, which caused panic and Pym's Act of Attainder that would condemn Strafford to death and remove the possibility of Parliament being dissolved without its permission was passed by a large margin.

So Pym was clearly a tactical and determined leader who knew how to

manipulate the other MP's into his way of thinking. But the method Pym had used to condemn Strafford to death with no trial and by manipulating people into choosing this option, disturbed some of the MP's and many did not like Pym's radical ways, so they began to feel a returning sense of loyalty to the king and began to back away from Pym's radicalism.

All the MP's shared the common goals of dismantling and getting rid of the machinery of the Personal Rule, making sure it could not happen again by securing the future of Parliament, and disposing of the king's evil councillors, particularly Laud and Strafford.

When united, the Long Parliament achieved many aims such as a Triennial Act that ensured Parliament would definitely be called every three years and the removal of the king's powers to deal with legal cases such as the impeachment of Strafford, and their three main aims were broadly achieved so the Long Parliament appeared to be a great success but this success was at a cost: many feared they had pushed Charles too far and that the relationship between king and parliament was so severely damaged that they themselves had triggered an anger in the king that would eventually lead him to call on a war.

Charles was now furious at the reduction of his power, the way the Parliament had manipulated not only judicial but political matters, and many MP's were fearful of being punished, of the king reversing Acts, and now that they had put Strafford to death illegally, many MP's were deeply disturbed by what they had done and were beginning to turn against Pym and his

ruthless aims. Here was a crisis because Pym knew that he could not be punished and his power was great only when he had full support of the Parliament, but now it was dividing with the view that the MP's had no option now but to either appease the king or further weaken him.

A final trigger to the complete collapse of Parliamentary unity was when Pym drew up the Ten Propositions of 1641 that stated that Parliament will not allow Catholics in court, and they will control his choice of advisors and even the education of his children so they could mould future monarchs. Understandably Charles reacts badly and many MP's can see why. These rules were no longer reactive but were now proactive as they were initiating proposals, and seriously encroaching on the king's rights.

Many had begun to realise that the old agenda they had all agreed on had been slowly replaced by this radical new one that they had not given their support to. The religious changes in his Personal Rule had clearly made MP's unhappy and despite their unity over their dislikes, once the Laudian reforms had been removed, views began to differ over what to do now. Some wanted the Presbyterian model while others felt no need to remove bishops, instead just reducing their power.

When Parliament had the common enemy of the Laudia reforms to fight they were united, but remove the common enemy and they began to fight amongst themselves. The Irish Rebellion was a focus for reuniting Parliament again. Strafford had been ruling Ireland for the king but his Policy of Thorough was ruthless so as to rule by

the king's will. In fact it was so ruthless that it united three groups in society against his rule: the Catholic native Irish, the Old English and the New English and Scots.

The Catholic Native Irish and the Old English, both Catholic, were worried by the events in England and their obvious hatred of Catholicism, and were scared that Parliament would form an alliance with the Protestant New English and Scots and attack, so from this position in October 1641 the two Catholic groups rebel. They massacred innocent Protestants and England became fearful of a similar invasion into their Protestant country.

This is where two events triggered the final collapse of any remaining Parliamentary unity and created the beginnings of civil war. On one hand MP's wanted to help the Protestants in Ireland but did not want to grant Charles the funds for an army, as they feared what he would do with a force in his power. So they proposed Parliament should control the army, which was a serious challenge to his authority, and many MP's recognised they were going too far.

The second trigger, and perhaps the ultimate push for collapse, was The Grand Remonstrance on November 22nd, a document introduced by Pym, summarising the achievements of Parliament when they were united to show what they were capable of when fighting for the same causes, and also it set out the remaining challenges they wanted to achieve in an attempt to reunite them. Pym gave it to Charles so he knew their plans, then on December 6th he presented the king with a militia bill that stated Parliament should approve his choice of commanders, another power

taken from him.

The last straw came when Pym decided to publish the Grand Remonstrance on 15th December so the public could read it and insight a mob against the king. A huge amount of the MP's were now in uproar, knowing this was serio0usly overstepping their rights and realising that they were taking away too much of the king's power, and were no firmly on the king's side. Pym had turned his group from a majority to a minority and now found that people were willing to fight against him.

The unity of Parliament had effectively collapsed and the king now found himself with support and now that he was angry, he was much more likely to use military means than legal. Charles could have used this to his advantage but yet again, it is his personality and manner of ruling that became the final trigger to war. Pym threatens to impeach the Queen so Charles takes rash action and forces his way into Parliament with three hundred armed guards in an attempt to arrest five members for treason who weren't even there, making him look stupid and this insights fury.

The tide of support turned against him once again due to this going against Parliamentary tradition, his force has failed so he flees and sets up court in York to protect family. Some MP's move with him, leaving the rest of Parliament in the South and the great divide is clear. On 22nd August 1642 Charles raises his standard and the first battle on Edgehill in October 1642 breaks out between his supporters and those opposed to him.

But because war looked highly unlikely in 1640 but

by 1642 there was a civil war, does that mean there was no influential conditional causes? I believe there had to be long term causes to create the conditions for war and the main cause being Charles' Personal Rule from 1629-40. For a start, ruling without Parliament for this length of time is going to create bad feeling between king and Parliament but what Charles did about religion during these eleven years was one of the major factors in crisis and war.

By appointing William Laud as his advisor, they began to change religious ways in England and the people were not happy. The Laudian reforms such as lavishly decorating churches, moving the altar out of public reach and changing the way services were preached, were not welcomed by the protestant people as they seemed to be changes towards Catholicism, and to many he was attacking the very heart of their Protestant faith.

During his Personal Rule people began to fear that Charles was trying to become an absolute monarch and his pro-Catholic stance strengthened these fears. On top of this, Charles was demanding taxes without Parliamentary consent, such as in the case of Ship Money, and also when they granted him Tunnage and Poundage for only a year instead of for life, he dissolved Parliament, leaving him with the problem of where to get the money from. So he began to collect it illegally and instated a 'forced loan' from the people as he needed money to live his lavish lifestyle.

Clearly the people were not happy about this and Charles was slowly damaging his relationship with not only them but also Parliament, so already conflict was

brewing, and a mixture of religious and political grievances had created bitter opposition to the king which meant Parliament had substantial support, if a war became necessary. As Charles was so unpopular by 1640 this is an important conditional cause because if he had been a popular king the country would have been happier, and there would not have been people willing to fight against him so he brought much of the opposition on himself by imposing policies that were detested.

It is the Whigs interpretation that Charles was reducing Parliament's power which was preventing progress that just had to be rebelled against so civil war was inevitable so Charles' manner of personal rule, the religious and financial changes he enforced, and his ignorance of the people's objections was a conditional cause as it left his people in a state of defiance and Parliament in a state of stark opposition. It could be argued that Charles left Parliament with no choice but to fight him as he was not going to allow religious and financial problems to be resolved peacefully.

There has to be conditional causes because it is these causes that lead to the crisis of 1640. Along with the country's unease and dislike of the king due to religion and finance, it is his dealing with the three kingdoms that caused the crisis because he ruled England, Ireland and Scotland, and had successfully established religious rules in Ireland to remove any of their freedom, but Scotland proved more difficult.

They had independence through the Presbyterian Kirk that was a Protestant Reformation run by a committee of ministers and this was a Scottish symbol of they religious

and cultural identity. Charles tried to enforce his changes and angered the Kirk so much that the Scottish clergy and nobility signed a covenant vow to defend it, resulting in a Scottish army easily defeating a weak English army and forcing him to sign the Treaty of Berwick to give them religious freedom.

Now the culmination of all Charles' actions and his awful relationship with Parliament resulted in his political isolation so he was forced to call Parliament. Now this brought Parliament's power back, the building of a fierce and structured opposition to Charles could begin and this is why I believe that his Personal Rule meant that when Parliament returned eleven years later with the full support of the people, they had the power over the king, and so it was a conditional cause to the war as it was when they regained power that Pym's supporters began their plight against him.

Here it is clear that Charles manner of ruling is a factor because now it was his choice to either make concessions to return the country to normal, or remain stubborn and resolute and make matters a lot worse. And he chose the second option, leaving Charles in a pitiful state of isolation, and although there was no chance of war whilst he had no support, the contingent causes lead to him gaining support and the conditional causes meant he was strongly opposed in the first place so both contingent and conditional causes lead to the war.

In conclusion, the MP's found themselves at war because of a number of conditional and contingent causes. The conditional causes such as his religious changes caused fear of

Catholicism and absolute monarchy so he became unpopular and mistrusted, which meant that opposition slowly built up as he angered more and more people. Another conditional cause was his ongoing bad relationship with Parliament which meant that they too began to oppose him, and his decisions and choices he made with his dealings with Parliament just made matters worse and worse until they ended in the ultimate outcome of war.

His Personal Rule was a conditional cause that started the dislike for the king and the policies that were so detested, so those eleven years were a major factor in turning his people against him enough to fight him. But I believe it was the contingent causes that were what made MP's find themselves at war by 1642 because although at 1640 Charles was unpopular and in a bad position, there wasn't a threat of war, just redress of grievances.

But in the two years between 1640-42 the contingent causes of the Irish Rebellion, the Short and Long Parliament, Pym and his supporters, the publish of the Grand Remonstrance and the attempted arrest of five members of Parliament, were all triggers one after another that lead inevitably to war. The MP's could not just blame Charles for the outbreak of war because many of the contingent causes were orchestrated by themselves and it could be looked upon that they forced Charles into calling a war, but mistakes and errors of judgement were made by both sides.

Many believe that it was more Charles fault than Parliaments because of the mistakes he made in his reign but on the other hand it can be argued that Parliament, through Pym

and his supporters, became the radical side, not the king, so it was down to them. I believe both share the blame and they found themselves at war because of conditional causes creating an atmosphere that created a possibility for war, then numerous trigger causes that lead to the outbreak.