What Were the Main Strengths and Weaknesses of the Early Stuart Monarchs?
By Stephen Wass
“King James slobbered at the mouth and had favourites; he was, thus, a Bad King” (Sellar and Yeatman 1930: 66)
Introduction
Few periods of history have been so avidly contested by historians as
the early Stuart one (see for example the account in Burgess 1990) but
the settling point seems to be that such was the complexity of the
times that no single approach guarantees the telling of the whole truth
and so a more pragmatic synthesis is attempted or as archaeologist
Bruce Trigger expresses it,’ a very important technique for promoting a
more objective understanding of the past is multivocality’ (Trigger
2006:515). This is not to say that difficulties in hearing many voices
simultaneously should be overlooked, ‘ The tensions between seeing the
demands of the 1620s, say, in their own terms, and placing them in a
process culminating in civil war (that is a narrative process) are
acute’ (Burgess 1990: 617). These tensions are perhaps even more
acute when we move to the task of evaluating the role of specific
performers.
On one level any enterprise which begins with a triumphal progress
through the country, as with James’s descent on London in 1603, and
ends with execution and abolition in 1649 must be deemed a failure,
however, one is struck by the multiple opportunities that Charles had,
even after his delivery to the parliamentary commissioners in January
1647, to reach some kind of a settlement and if he had done so,
arguably, he could have ushered in a more progressive form of
constitutional monarchy. If this had been the case the historical
perspective on his entire reign and indeed the whole period would have
been quite different. Still the fact is he did not and it is almost
impossible to ignore the fact that it was on his watch that the
institution of English monarchy ended on the block – at least
temporarily. Even so it still seems profoundly unsound to see nearly
fifty years of political development solely in terms of this outcome,
indeed what should one make of the thought that towards the end Charles
actively embraced the role of martyr, with conviction if not
enthusiasm? He may have seen his apotheosis as a triumph rather than a
disaster. Tosh argues that ‘Historians’ interest in the actions of
long-dead individuals cannot be confined to the intentions of those
individuals’ (Tosh 2002 : 647) but nor is it appropriate to apply
standards or make judgements which are entirely anachronistic about
matters on which we have lost a degree of acuity and indeed experience
– religion being one of them.
The primacy of religion in many forms of discourse in the early
seventeenth century is perhaps one of the hardest things for modern
commentators to accommodate. Whilst there are, of course, many telling
analyses of the religious dimension of the period on the whole there is
far more coverage of the social, economic, military and political
outcomes of Stuart rule because these are categories that continue to
be familiar. Furthermore because of the general decline in those
subscribing to religious views, concepts, such as martyrdom, which
would have been familiar in the seventeenth century. seem increasingly
perverse and baffling to western society today. Tyacke puts it this
way, ‘The ideas of a past society challenge our understanding, because
they are often alien to more modern ways of thought. This is especially
the case as regards that area of human experience which we call
religious (Tyacke 1990:1). This is unfortunate because when we look at
statements made by both monarch and parliament it is clear that
religion was at the fore front of everyone’s thinking in
terms of measuring up the performance of the monarch. It is not the
case that contemporary historians ignore the significance of religion
but rather that the coverage does not stand in proportion to its
original importance.
The difficulty becomes immediately apparent if we take as our starting
point James’s early declarations of what should be in effect the aims
and objectives of a monarch in his Basilikon Doron of 1599.
Published in London in 1603, but originally penned as notes of guidance
to his son Prince Henry, this extended letter was written in three
sections, ‘The first teacheth you your duty to towards God as a
Christian: the next, your duty in your office as a King: and the third
informeth you how to behave yourself…’ (Basilikon Doron: Preface 6).
Although the first part is the shortest its primacy over the other
three sections is clear, ‘… so can he not be thought worthy to govern a
Christian people knowing and fearing God, that in his own person and
heart, feareth not and loveth not the Divine Majesty’ ( Basilikon
Doron: 1). The King has a double obligation to God both for his
own creation and his appointment as a ‘little God’ or monarch. There is
a very strong scriptural basis to this as the knowledge needed to
‘discharge your duty both as a Christian and a King’ can only be
obtained through detailed study of the Bible. Prayer, conscience and
lastly and almost in passing, the church are commended to the prince.
The second section, which could be reasonably described as being
political, is nevertheless riven with scriptural quotations and
exemplars. The key concept is that a good king, ’employeth all his
study and pains to procure and maintain by the making and execution of
good laws the welfare and peace of his people’ ( Basilikon
Doron: 18). He also notes the importance of good personal
conduct which will then be adopted by the lesser orders who will
‘counterfeit (like Apes) their Prince’s manners’ ( Basilikon
Doron: 18) an extension of this being the principle of cuius
regio, eius religio, a doctrine established after the Peace of Augsberg
in 1555 whereby the state was supposed to follow the religious
proclivities of its leader.
Of course one must be aware that James was writing in a particular
context and there may well be a healthy dose of ’do as I say’ rather
than ‘do as I do’, nevertheless it is not unreasonable to take
this as an account of James’s own hopes for kingship, especially in
anticipation of his new realm of England. We find similar sentiments
expressed by MPs at the first session of parliament in the summer of
1604 who proclaimed that ‘a general hope was raised in the minds of all
your people that under your Majesty’s reign religion, peace, justice,
and all virtue should renew again and flourish; that the better sort
should be cherished, the bad reformed or repressed, and some moderate
ease should be given us of those burdens and sore oppressions under
which the whole land did groan.’ (Tanner 1930 quoted in Coward 1987:
104). A less celebratory tone has been identified by some historians
codified within popular entertainments of the day, for example in King
Lear (1604), ‘scene 18 is a crucial moment, for in its
botanical-political field of imagery, it brings together the departure
of Queen Elizabeth (as goddess of wheat) with the very ambivalent
presence of King James I (as king of darnel). For James, witnessing
this scene, the question is clear: will he manage the nation's
resources in a way that is just, responsible, and above all
sustainable?’ (Archer 2012: 542)
There appears, at least at the outset of the period, to have been a
fair degree of consensus as to what James’s success criteria were:
first and foremost he had to maintain a standing as a Christian prince
and a prince amongst Christians a role which was enormously
enhanced when he became the head of the Church in England. From this
lofty position he had to enact the passage of laws and see to their
just application in order to guarantee the peace of the kingdom and the
prosperity of its inhabitants. Using modern terms we have
questions of law and order at home and foreign policy abroad being the
main instruments of peace – or lack of it – and, partially following on
from that peace, comes welfare in the sense of the promotion of
economic prosperity rather than just state support of an individual.
How well did James and his son Charles do?
King James I
James wrote little in the way of confessional pieces although he did
comment in a marginal annotation in a rather self-congratulatory
fashion in 1609, ‘my care for the Lord’s spiritual kingdom is so well
known, both at home and abroad as well as by my daily actions as by my
printed books’ (Quoted in Fincham and Lake 1985: 169). We cannot
be entirely sure as to what extent he viewed his role as a Christian
prince a success on a personal level but what does survive is evidence
of his conduct in the public sphere of religion which naturally goes on
to overlap with the political sphere. It appears that James, in a
manner which reflected his own character and his political thinking,
aimed to steer a middle way between the competing extremes of
popery and Puritanism, so when confronted in 1603 with the reforming
Millenary Petition he adopted a course cherished by politicians today
and set up an enquiry, the Hampton Court conference of 1604, and again,
echoing with contemporary resonance, ‘the purpose of the conference
remains unclear’ (Fincham and lake 1985: 170) but there was, ‘an
element of “rehearsed drama” about it, “which makes on suspect that it
was a kind of enacted proclamation”’ (Shriver 1967 quoted in Fincham
and Lake 1985: 173). The outcome of the conference was unusually
positive, ‘with a long list of reforms affecting both the government
and the worship of the church – and it is clear that some, though not
all of these reforms were put into practice during the next decade’
(Smith 1997:263), not the least of these being the publication of the
Authorized Version of the Bible in 1611. All this created a climate
about which it is possible to say that, ‘Religion was never a major
divisive issue between James and his parliament’ (Coward 1987: 114).
This path of gentle reform and general moderation characterised much of
James’s reign, even the challenges of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 were
not used as an excuse for a witch-hunt amongst Catholics nor were
puritan clerics unduly hounded with only around 90 of the most
troublesome sort ultimately being deprived of their livings (Houston
1994: 60) although one of them was, of course, John Dod, ejected from
Hanwell in 1607.
Without going any deeper into the religious debates and controversies
which on the whole James managed to steer an even course around
throughout his reign, and avoiding entirely the added complexities of
the church in Scotland, it is possible to say that on both a personal
and national level the king’s approach to religious questions was
successful – a point widely recognised at the time, ‘The zeal of your
Majesty toward the house of God doth not slack or go backward but is
more and more kindled, manifesting itself abroad in the farthest parts
of Christendom’ (Preface to the Authorized Version). There was a sense
that James’s reign was a golden age of the English church, ‘during
which time a sublime vernacular Bible had been produced, learning and
godliness flourished... and there were no harsh controversies’ (Houston
1994:107). Unfortunately, as is often the case the situation began to
deteriorate towards the end of his reign. In particular issues
linked to the Arminian controversy as discussed at the Dutch Synod of
Dort (1618 – 1619) began to impact on the English church. James in his
desire to embrace the brightest and best in the way of scholars and
preachers rather let his guard down in doctrinal matters thus leaving
for his son a legacy which some might argue was to prove fatal.
Beyond the narrow and not so narrow confines of religious discourse
James’s other stated ambitions, as we have seen, were to ensure the
peace and welfare of his people. One of the most discussed tropes of
James’s reign was his commitment to peace particularly in his approach
to foreign relations. Although he was no doubt sensitive to the
financial and dynastic implications of foreign wars again he makes it
clear that his stance is primarily taken in response to a
religious imperative, ‘ the first… of these blessings which God hath,
jointly with my person, sent unto you is outward peace… which is no
small blessing to a Christian Commonwealth’, however, he follows this
up with the comment more closely anchored in realpolitik, ‘for by peace
abroad with their neighbours… the towns flourish, the merchants become
rich, the trade doth increase’ ( James to parliament, March 1604,
quoted in Coward 1987:107). The practical steps he took can be readily
be charted. In 1604, despite pressure from the French and the Dutch, he
put an end to war with Spain with a treaty which was balanced and
generally favourable to all interested parties. James continued to
remain abreast of developments on the continent through an effective
network of spies and reporters who were able to inform him in such
terms: ‘The Almains are disunited; Denmark not potent: Spain remote and
busied about other matters; but France gathering force as if it were to
wrestle with somebody’ (Sir George Carew quoted in Carter 1964: 60). He
was instrumental as mediator between Spain and Holland which resulted
in the 1609 Truce of Antwerp and tried with very limited ultimate
success to intervene in the affairs of the Rhineland by marrying his
daughter Elizabeth to the Elector Frederick in 1613. The same year saw
the arrival of the Machiavellian Spanish ambassador, Don Diego
Sarmiento de Acuna, later Count of Gondomar. A traditional view has
been that Gondomar generally dominated and out-maneuvered James but a
more nuanced reading of their relationship indicates, ‘a mutual respect
between two subtle and wily politicians’ (Wormald 1983: 189).
A growing rapprochement with Spain went hand in hand with a growing
distance from the Dutch to the point that when war was expected between
Spain and the United Provinces in 1615 the idea of a Spanish marriage
was heavily promoted. This was to no avail and eventually England was
sucked into a European war during the Palatine crisis when in 1620
Spanish forces invaded the territory and were unsuccessfully opposed by
a small Anglo-Dutch force. Frederick, James’s son-in-law became a
‘vagabond king’ and the opening shots had been fired in what was to
become the Thirty Years War. Despite some measure of preparation
the 1621 parliament rapidly fell into disarray and in any case was more
preoccupied with the consequences of a widespread depression in trade
and the remedying of a whole host of grievances. James’s application
for a subsidy, probably half-hearted at best, to further prosecute the
war only served to stir up controversy about the privileges of
parliament in response to which James dissolved it. Subsequently
negotiations were reopened with Spain ending in Prince Charles
ill-advised and ludicrous attempt to marry the Infanta, an enterprise
ruined by, ‘his own brand of irresponsible haggling’ (Houston1994: 89).
Although not in good health James continued his efforts at mediation in
respect of ‘the German question’ despite the humiliated Charles and
Buckingham actively lobbying for war with Spain. During the 1624
parliament an ailing James was finally pushed into an expensive
military intervention but it perhaps signifies his lack of conviction
that , ‘The reign ended with parliament committed to financing a “real
war”; but where, how and against whom was not made absolutely clear
(Houston1994: 94). Charles was not to prove so circumspect. Right up to
end of his reign James maintained the conviction that, ‘He is an
unhappy man, that shall advise a king to war; and it is an
unhappy thing to seek that by blood which may be had by peace’
(Rushworth 1659: 128 quoted in Carrier 1998:137). It has been
suggested (see for example Smith 1997: 271 ) that James simply avoided
war because he could not afford it but it is clear that his policies
were interventionist rather than isolationist and there was a genuine
working towards peace and reconciliation informing his diplomatic
strategies which on the whole were successful.
Of course to early seventeenth century sensibilities ‘the cure of
souls’ was the ultimate welfare question but in more general terms the
grievances of the common sort of people could be summed up thus: ‘to
starve is woeful, to steal ungodly and to beg unlawful but to endure
our present estate any while is almost impossible’ (Petition of
Wiltshire cloth workers 1620, quoted in Underdown 1987: 117). Economic
well-being and its concomitant alternative hunger were an key element
in the over all health of the nation. Unfortunately the measures
available to the early Stuart monarchs were rather limited and there
was very little they could do about managing, let alone preventing the
two main challenges to the ‘welfare of the people’. The first element
was population growth, exact figures are debatable and although
evidently the boom years of the late sixteenth century were past
nevertheless in general terms the population of England rose by
around 20% (for example from 4.2 to 5.2 million according to
Wrigley 1969: 78) during the first half of the seventeenth century.
Wrightson outlines the consequences of this alongside the attendant
inflation,’ unprecedented opportunities for profit to those who
supplied the market and at the same time the gradual impoverishment of
those who depended for their living upon wages or fixed incomes’
(Wrightson 2004: 134), although as Healey points out the pattern
was subject to strong local variation (Healey 2011).
The second unmanageable element was the inevitable cycle of good and
bad harvests with years of notable dearth during James’s rule being
generally given as 1607 and 1608, and 1621 to 1623 with 1622
being particularly disastrous (analysis drawn from Hoskins, W.G. 1964
and 1968). Again the pattern could vary from region to region but at
its worse the fate of those rendered destitute, and perhaps Shakespeare
was referring back to the bad years 1594 – 1597, could be described
thus, ‘ (He) eats cow dung for salads; swallows the old rat
and the ditch-dog; [and] drinks the green mantle of the standing pool;
who is whipped from tithing to tithing and stocked, punished and
imprisoned’ (King Lear Act scene 11). It is hard to determine
quite how James felt about what today would be termed the most
vulnerable in society: the poor, the hungry, the dispossessed who
constituted a, ‘surfeit of peasants’ (Healey 2011 : 153). In his
second speech to the ‘parliament of love’ in 1614 James, ‘reemphasized
his “ sincerity and love” and declared his “intension to unburthen” his
subjects of their “grieves”’ (Mondi 2007: 153) but a closer reading of
related proceedings reveals perhaps inevitably that it is the concerns
of the middling sort which are being aired here and the needs of
the lowest stratum of society were generally only referred to when they
threatened the peace and security of the gentry.
Perhaps parliament is not the best place to look for evidence of
James’s care for his poorest subjects. In general measures for the
relief of poverty were administered through a system of Books of
Orders, the first in 1587 coming on the back of an earlier famine,
Slack explains that they, ‘were… an established practice of using the
Crown’s prerogative powers to publicize its social policy, educate
magistrates in its main principles and supervise its application … the
uniformity of print and the detailed instructions possible when social
policy was defined without the constraints of parliamentary statute’
(Slack 1980: 3). Administered through the privy council and by the
exercise of the King’s prerogative powers arguably these orders
demonstrate the direct and personal application of remedies to succor
the poor. Were these measures successful? Slack is unconvinced: ‘The
chorus of complaint suggests that many of the provisions in the dearth
orders seemed cumbersome and ill-devised at a time when regional
specialization in agriculture was increasing, and when the causes of
destitution were seen to lie as much in unemployment, over-population
and low wages as the weather and the harvest’ (Slack 1980: 13).
Nevertheless the argument has been made that despite these
inefficiencies the measures were sufficient to spare England some of
the worst excesses of continental famine and disorder ( see for example
Walter and Wrightson 1976) and so were relatively successful.
It appears that contemporary discourse relating to the welfare of the
generality of the King’s subjects was more closely tied to questions of
trade so that Lionel Cranfield could stress, when speaking to
parliament in 1621, ‘If eighteen years with a flourishing trade and one
third part improvement of all the staple commodities of the kingdom for
so long time together will not make the people rich, they have
strangely abused God’s blessing under his Majesty’s government’ (Quoted
in Carrier 1998: 121). In a system traditionally dominated by
monopolies and patents it is salutary to read of the debates from the
parliament of 1605 - 6 relating to free trade ( Croft 1975: 17 ) of
which Walter Cope was a notable champion whilst continuing to subscribe
to a number of monopolies of his own. James’s personal profligacy and
financial ineptitude is too well rehearsed to detail here but to what
extent was the overall package of economic management successful during
his reign? Clearly the state was taking an increasing role in finance
during the period, ‘Under… the early Stuarts the central government
working through the privy council increased its intervention in nearly
every aspect of the English economy’ (Neilsen 1997: 2) but with limited
impact. ‘Though the total burden of taxes was light in the early
seventeenth century, the collection was inefficient, unpredictable and
subject to political influence and corruption’ (Clarke 1995: 11)
and again ‘The private economy of England after 1540 seems to have been
largely insulated from political events and even from the strife of the
Civil War (Clarke 1995: 37). So we see a situation where we have
a number of interventionist policies relating to trade but of
questionable efficiency occasionally having positive outcomes but
equally, sometimes, resulting in disastrous ones, as with the Cockayne
affair relating to the export of fully finished cloth in 1614 (for
background Wilson 1960). Coward argues that there was no coherent
approach to the economy, merely a series of ‘fire-fighting’ measures
and in any case the most significant economic determinants as far as
exports were concerned were associated with the decline in
northern European markets attendant on the Thirty Years War (Coward
1987: 25). Smith suggests that whatever the wider impact of James’s
fiscal policies were, essentially, with generally good harvests and
comparatively stable prices, the years up to 1620 saw rising prosperity
with ’increasing demand for non-essentials’ but this was more the
result of good fortune than good management (Smith 1997: 254).
As James’s contemporary William Shakespeare put it, ‘The evil that men
do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones’ (Julius
Caesar Act 3, scene ii) and whilst it feels necessary to itemize and
justify claims to James’s possible strengths his weaknesses seem to
speak for themselves. Setting aside the more vituperative remarks of
the disaffected courtier Anthony Weldon even his description of the
King’s personal qualities is not wholly negative. His physical
weaknesses and personal peculiarities were probably of greater
significance to observers in the seventeenth century that we would
allow for today (unless your name is Ed Milliband) on account of the
doctrine that the King as father to the nation should embody all its
virtues but there seems no evidence that his defects, whatever they may
have been, compromised his ability to develop and communicate
effectively his ideas and policies. His main failing that most modern
commentators agree on was his essential slackness when it came to
pursuing matters of policy and following up on their implementation, so
for example in the instance of church reform, ‘James, perhaps because
of his administrative laziness, failed to carry out the reforms agreed
on at Hampton Court and a major opportunity to reform the church was
lost’ (Coward 1987 : 113).
James’s personal fecklessness when it came to spending at court and his
consequent battles with parliament have attracted much unfavourable
comment, memorably Kishlansky notes that, ‘the King had the financial
acumen of a child in a sweet shop’ (Kishlansky 1997: 83). As crown
expenditure soared old debts were repaid by taking on new ones and the
perception of profligacy drew understandable comment and criticism. In
an interestingly watery extended metaphor Thomas Wentworth commented in
1610, ‘… to what purpose it is for as to draw a silver stream out of
the country into the royal cistern, if it shall daily run out thence by
private cocks’ (Gardiner 1862, quoted in Coward 1987: 121). Although it
sounds worryingly like current political speak to say that James
had inherited a financial legacy, ‘that was a relic of creaking
antiquity and dangerous inadequacy’ (Houston 1994: 23), a more acute
administrator may have taken more active steps to shore up these shaky
financial foundations. Despite the efforts of figures such as Robert
Cecil and Lionel Cranfield essentially there was a, ‘whole complex of
weaknesses throughout the government machine: duplication,
amateurishness, defalcation, the lack of able and committed
administrators’ (Hurstfield 1971: 240). Nevertheless James missed many
opportunities to remedy the situation, perhaps the most noteworthy
being the collapse of negotiations relating to the ‘Great Contract’ in
1611.
In the universe of Sellar and Yeatman second only to James’s
slobbering were the uses he made of his favourites and the uses they
made of him. This is not to say that there were not great men in
attendance, indeed, ‘a monarch served by the Earl of Salisbury, Lord
Chancellor Egerton, Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Edward Coke probably had
as much advice as he needed’ ( Kishlansky 1997:68) but working
within a situation when at the best of times, ‘the ambitions of the
court factions and the working of the patronage machine were the
central feature of political life’ Smith 1997 : 259) and where, in
effect, favourites were instruments of government, James’s operation of
the system revealed some basic flaws. Essentially in the early days
this was reflected in a preponderance of Scots at court and later on
the dominance of Buckingham in the King’s final years caused some
unease as did James’s seemingly homosexual interest in some of his
younger courtiers. James’s tolerance of homosexual behaviour and
abhorrence of tobacco may seem like very modern virtues but as Coward
points out, ‘he could not afford to be “a man ahead of his time”; he
had to be a man with whom his contemporaries could identify (Coward
1987: 105).
The most conspicuous failure of all James’s policies was with the one
that lay perhaps closest to his heart, the union of the two Kingdoms of
Scotland and England. James described this project eloquently in terms
of the solemnity of marriage, ‘I am the husband, and the whole
isle is my lawful wife’ (James I to the Commons March 1604 quoted in
tanner 1961: 26) but vested interests both sides of the border remained
unconvinced. Reporting to Commons in April 1604 no less a figure than
Sir Francis Bacon listed a whole raft of objections ranging from the
cogent, ‘acts, instruments and forms of policy and government run now
in the name of England and upon the change would be drawn into
uncertainty and question’ to the trivial, ‘the contracted name of
Britain will bring in oblivion the names of England and
Scotland’’ (Quoted in Galloway 1986: Appendix). James’s failure
to obtain parliamentary support dismayed him and coloured his
relationship with the institution thereafter, ‘ the King angry and
disillusioned by the narrow attitudes of his English subjects never
forgave the Commons for their virtual rejection of what was for him
undoubtedly the most important parliamentary project of his entire
reign’ (Smith 1997: 257). However, even this piece of received wisdom
has been challenged by revisionists. Cuddy, using as his starting point
Ruben’s depiction of the union of the crowns on the Banqueting House
ceiling begun in 1629, argues that James was thwarted mainly by the
inadequacies of parliament as an effective body to legislate for the
two countries, so that he was forced to use, ‘the court, the Bedchamber
and the Bedchamber favourites to express the Union. His solution to the
problem was ingenious and very successful: nowhere is the inventiveness
and originality of James’s approach to kingship clearer’ (Cuddy 1989:
124). Whatever the case the degree of disunity that continued to exist
between the two kingdoms was a factor that lay behind the ultimate
downfall of his son Charles.
King Charles I
When Charles came to the throne in 1625 it is probably safe to assume
that his aims and objectives were not too dissimilar to those of his
father. He would have been brought up with the precepts expressed in
Basilikon Doron and whilst not groomed for kingship like his older
brother Henry from 1612 onwards his future career path was clear and so
the maintenance of ‘true’ religion and the resulting peace and
well-being of the realm became Charles’s main priorities and indeed it
is against these yardsticks that Charles was tried and ultimately found
wanting. In moving on to consider the rule of James’s second son it is
both easy and tempting to give in to indulgence in cod psychology. A
weakly child isolated and in the shadow of his talented and much fêted
older brother, no wonder he turns out to be both delusional and
stubborn and so loose a kingdom. It is a common perception and as
always must contain elements of truth within it. Cust sums up the
situation thus: ‘Charles’s public profile remained low until about
1619. This was partly a consequence of personal difficulties. There
were still doubts about his health and physical development… he was
also notably shy and diffident, completely lacking in… self-confidence’
(Cust 2007: 3). Possibly Charles was what today would be called a late
developer or a slow starter. What is intriguing is that within a matter
of a few years he was embarking on an escapade to woe the Spanish
infanta which if ill founded at least demonstrated a capacity for
passion and derring-do. Part of Charles up-bringing was exposure to
clerics essentially of the Calvinist persuasion (Cust 2007: 14). The
fact that Charles should turn his back on these influences in such a
marked fashion becomes something of a leitmotif for his reign. Yet
again, perhaps especially so with Charles, religion is a central
concern of the monarch but a concern which extends beyond the personal
and ultimately leads to war. Morrill comments, ‘there were three linked
but separable ‘perceptions of misgovernment' in the 1630s and 1640s,
each playing a different role in the shaping of the civil war: the
'localist', the 'legal- constitutionalist' and the 'religious'; and
that while the first two created political stalemate, the third proved
to have the ideological dynamism to drive minorities to arms’
(Morrill 1985: 105). It is important, therefore to analyse that aspect
of his rule that exposed to his greatest weakness but also
paradoxically his greatest strength.
Charles’s drift away from his father’s moderate and consensual form of
Protestantism can probably be ascribed to the churchman Lancelot
Andrewes who in 1619 engineered a shift in Charles’s religious
instruction towards what became for him a set of guiding principles,
Arminianism. At one level these teachings stood in opposition to the
rather bleak Calvinist doctrine of predestination - that the elect were
selected by God for salvation ‘before time’ - and maintained that
Christian souls may be saved by virtue of their faith and consequent
good works. The doctrinal change also carried with it an imperative to
make liturgical changes further emphasizing the grace obtainable
through the sacraments and resulting in a greater sense of the numinous
as expressed through the dramatic promptings of ritual and the physical
environment of the church setting, what Smith refers to as ‘the beauty
of holiness’ (Smith 1997: 284). During James’s rule the anti-Calvinists
had slowly been gaining influence at the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, for example in 1611 William Laud won the strongly contested
election for the presidency of St. John’s College, Oxford, an
appointment ultimately confirmed by the King (Tyacke 1990: 68).
Following his accession in 1625 Charles attempted to chart out the
future progress of religion. There is some debate as to whether Charles
at this time was a sincere convert to the precepts of Arminianism or
whether he simply wished to quash the debate on predestination in order
to prevent further controversy (Cust 2007: 86). It is probably
also significant that those who supported Arminianism were also
prepared, some of them enthusiastically, ‘to preach up monarchical
authority in defence of [their] beliefs’ (Tyacke 1990: 181). However,
it soon became clear, both in terms of the appointments that he made
and the stance he took on controversies such as Richard Montagu’s
anti-Calvinist publication A New Gag for an Old Goose, where his true
sympathies lay. Attempts were made to ease the growing religious crisis
at the York House Conference of 1626 but a moderate settlement
proved elusive and the failure of the attempt lead to a growing rift
with Parliament (Cust 2007:90). The anti-Calvinist faction further
entrenched themselves during the latter years of the 1620s so that ‘by
mid-1630, with the issuing of new Instructions to the Clergy and other
measures to restrict Calvinist preaching, the world had been made
safe for the anti-Calvinists and the direction of the
church had been fixed for the following decade’ (Cust 2007: 94).
Unfortunately that direction was to lead Charles on a path which
increasingly diverged from that which many of his subjects were on and
did nothing to address popular fears of a Roman Catholic resurgence.
The degree to which Charles lost touch with popular opinion is much
debated but it seems clear that he was missing out on the degree of
discontent that existed particularly with Laud’s custody of the church.
The advancement of William Laud to Bishop of London in 1628 and then
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 (meanwhile he had been made Chancellor
of the University of Oxford in 1630 ) was an indicator of the growing
influence of what has become called Laudianism’ on Charles. It
has been suggested that the new doctrines appealed to Charles so much
because they. ‘mirrored his own obsessions with order and beauty’
(Kishlansky 1996: 128) but there must have been more to it than this
and Sharpe feels that Charles’s primary concern was with the avoidance
of schism and controversy and as far as the differing factions within
the church were concerned Charles was ‘genuinely and impartially
committed to union’ (Sharpe 1992: 283).
As further changes were pushed through the church began to take a
greater interest in secular affairs, a further spur to its growing
unpopularity although perhaps the single most ‘dangerous’ innovation
was the reordering of layout of parish churches by removing the altar
table from the nave and railing it off in the east end of the church.
Whatever the motivations for this alteration, whether to advance the
cause of holiness or simply deter the local dogs from stealing the
communion loaf, many parishioners saw it as depriving them of their
traditional right to an accessible communion and as a ‘plain device to
usher in the mass’ (Kenyon 1966: 76), a perception not helped by the
continual presence of a catholic queen in the person of Henrietta Maria
and hence a court full of ‘popery, painting and playacting’. Charles
with his passion for ‘an ordered ritual and uniformity of worship’ (
Sharpe 1992:279) just didn’t see the dangers. One consequence of all
this was the re-emergence and growing influence of radical sects in the
late 1630s (Coward 1987:151) so whilst Charles may have felt secure in
his own personal faith and observances his drive for uniformity was
starting to have precisely the opposite effect and so the church began
its long descent which ended up in the late 1640s with such a chaotic
kaleidoscope of sects that guidebooks were published to explain them
all (Pierce 2008: 190 – 193).
Of course the early Stuart church could never be considered as separate
from the state both in terms of finance and politics. When
Charles made Bishop Juxon Lord High Treasurer in 1636 his was the
first ecclesiastical appointment to the post for over a century.
Campaigning by the Laudians to ensure a well resourced clergy, however
well intentioned, caused considerable upset amongst the land-owning
classes who had been profiting from their abuse of church advowsons.
Similarly Charles’s ill-considered insistence that the Scots make
use of the English prayer book following his visit to the country in
1633 was another instance unintended consequences. When the
prayer book was finally released in 1637 it drove the moderates into
the arms of the radicals and the radicals into open armed rebellion and
as such the Covenanter army made it as far south as Newcastle in 1640.
At this point they were bought off at a cost of £850 a day for which
Charles had to summon what eventually became the Long Parliament.
(Smith 1988: 289) Charles’s attendant defeat in battle at
Newburn demonstrated just how vulnerable he was and exposed the
real possibility of the violent over throw of legitimate authority.
When that violent over throw arrived in 1649 Randall suggests that on
the day of the King’s execution on January 30th. one of
‘the most egregious blunders’ was over-looking, ’the fact that the
second lesson [ for the day] was the 27th chapter of St. Matthew, on
the trial and crucifixion of Christ. To the King himself, when Bishop
Juxon read the lesson a few hours earlier, the choice seemed
providential’ (Randall1947: 137). A key thread for Charles running
through his understanding of what it meant to be a monarch was the idea
that he should ‘discharge his conscience’ in all things and in
shouldering this very personal burden he was ultimately fulfilling the
primary duty God had put upon him. So once his options had run out, a
situation largely of his own making, he faced death with a degree of
serenity. His final position was sadly not one that had worked for him
over the previous two decades but was essentially that of a
constitutional monarch appointed by God but with a duty to his people,
he was therefore doubly a martyr: ‘ I needed not to have come here; and
therefore, I tell you, (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge)
that I am the martyr of the people’ (Charles I as given in Cole 1649).
Writing of the King’s last moments Cust says, ’Where he was most
successful was in… bequeathing a powerful legacy to his son. Here his
courage and conviction came into their own… Charles II’s return to the
crown was the victory that his father had long anticipated, and it owed
much to his final performance as a kingly martyr’ (Cust 2007: 465).
Whilst Charles’s personal pathway to martyrdom may have brought him
some personal satisfaction the ultimate descent of his kingdom into war
does nothing for his success as a peacemaker. It is possible to
take, on the whole, a positive view of James’s desire to be Rex
Pacificus but it seems clear that Charles did not share his father’s
pragmatic and principled commitment to peace making but was more
influenced by a misplaced sense of personal and by extension
national honour. Unfortunately his enthusiasm for war was not matched,
at least initially, by any great competence in it. Of course he had
inherited an ill-defined joint naval operation with the
French but his intention as expressed to parliament was to lead
the country in support of the Palatinate by drawing down funds from
raids on Spanish shipping (Kishlansky 1996:107). Suffice it to say all
this came to very little except of course huge expenditure and
consequent disagreements with parliament. Eventually Charles was drawn
into peace treaties with France in 1629 and Spain in 1630 which
did nothing to settle the Palatinate question. Charles enthusiastic
support for the navy, whilst leading eventually to the ship money
debacle, did at least build an effective fighting force, it was
unfortunate that this force defected en masse to parliament in
1642. Before that point, however, the navy did more than a little
to make the seas safer for trading which lead to minor booms in some
ports (Quintrell 1993: 71). The eventual ratification of
the Peace of Prague in 1636 rather under-lined how ineffectual his
diplomatic efforts were. Kishlansky sums up Charles’s position on
foreign policy thus, ‘Peace was the key to restoring government to a
semblance of normality, and the terms of disengagement could hardly be
more humiliating than the results of combat’ (Kishlansky 1996: 116).
.
For the majority of the population peace at home was far more important
than peace abroad and questions of law and order continued to vex the
gentry, who as a body provided the magistrates on whose shoulders
rested responsibility for the upkeep of a civil society. Charles must
have been sensitive to some degree regarding this aspect of his
subject’s welfare although, ‘The government of the time was preoccupied
with the conditions of their less fortunate subjects for reasons of
security as well as moral considerations’ (Smith 1997: 282). There
were, however, a number of divisive elements operating within county
society a major source of conflict being the approach to the Sabbath
day. James had first issued a Declaration of Sports in1617 in an
attempt to regulate popular recreations on Sundays in way which was
fairly permissive. This drew the ire of many puritans who thought it
‘morally and socially objectionable’ . Predictably the Laudians were
generally staunch supporters of these country revels and Underdown
cites ‘the Reverend John Lothwaite of Rockland St. Peter’s,
Norfolk, who read the Book with enthusiasm and turned up to shout “well
played” at Sunday football matches’ (Underdown 1987: 67). When Charles
reissued the Book in 1633 to counteract growing numbers of local
prohibitions there was a degree of rejoicing amongst the lower orders
and a section of the conservative gentry so, ‘in the this aspect at
least, Laudian policy was appealing to a large segment of the
population, though not of course, to the middling sort’ (Underdown
1987: 68). Unfortunately for Charles these tax-paying literate middling
sort were the coming thing and in particular formed the core of a
growing electorate who had great expectations of a ‘godly reformation’
and with who he was out of touch and out of sympathy.
From the point of view of the general well-being of the majority of his
subjects the importance of good harvests and a ready supply of food has
already been noted. It is debatable as to what the extent of the
influences of the generally poor harvests of the 1630s were. Smith
points out that the, ‘growing disillusionment of the gentry with
Charles’s government coincided with a difficult period for the
country’s economy’ (Smith 1997:281) but there is not necessarily a
causal relationship between poor harvests and rising food prices and
political dissent. Whilst the late 1620s saw three good harvests in a
row the decade starting in 1630 saw generally poor harvests with1637
being noticeably deficient (analysis drawn from Hoskins, W.G. 1964 and
1968). Coward considered that the application of the Books of Orders’
in the 1630s while attempting to supply relief and give more structure
to local government had only patchy results and were soon over turned
once the crises were past’ (Coward1987:146). Smith glosses those
failures in relief that did occur as being the result of ‘social
policies which were well intentioned but relied too much on direction
from the centre’ (Smith 1997: 282).
As with his father the factors which affected the economy and in
particular trade, still mainly carried out with northern Europe, were
largely beyond his control, however, in trade terms the 1630s
were moderately prosperous, despite the run of difficult harvests, a
situation which perhaps reflected the growing economic
independence of the towns and their comparative freedom from the
vicissitudes that were inflicted on their country cousins. The fact was
that following a range of political settlements on the continent,
’English ships could now travel to any port and, as England was the
major non-belligerent, they did much transshipping. Merchants forgot
their quarrel with the crown’ (Kishlansky 1997: 117). Of course the
crown was still deeply embroiled in the whole business of patents
and monopolies, farmed out primarily to profit the royal purse. There
were genuine if misguided, attempts to promote national industry
employing local workers and materials including the notorious ‘popish
soap’ monopoly which failed primarily because of, ‘the failure of the
soap to meet its advertising claims – that it “did wash both whiter and
sweeter” – than to the Catholics who were among the projectors’
((Kishlansky 1997: 120).
Many of the beneficiaries of trade monopolies were members of the court
and the system seen under his father of favourites and factions
competing for influence continued. Arguably James made the system work
slightly better than his son did.
It was felt at the time that Buckingham’s transition from the confident
of the father, James, to the mentor and comrade-in-arms of the son,
Charles, was a remarkable one. Coward believed that his role with
Charles became an even more dominant one and that he blocked the normal
channels of patronage and understanding thereby substantially
contributing to Charles’s growing alienation from the majority of those
at court. Following the start of impeachment proceedings against
Buckingham in 1626 Charles dissolved parliament to protect him (Coward
1987: 139) and one should also note that one of Charles’s
greatest regrets, right to the end of his life, was that he had also
failed to protect a later favourite, Thomas Wentworth the Earl of
Strafford, who was executed in 1641. If nothing else Charles tried to
be loyal to those he saw as friends but in general their influence
acted to the detriment of Charles’s political career, ’One of the
consequences of Buckingham’s early strangle hold on access to the King
was that disagreements between courtiers tended to be played out in
parliament rather than being settled within the court through the
mediation of the King’(Coward 1987: 137).
The course of Charles’s relationship with parliament has probably been
more closely charted and argued over than for any other British
monarch. His first active involvement with the institution was in
the 1621 when he attended 63 out of 89 sessions and also sat on a
number of committees, not surprisingly Cust notes that his,
‘interventions were rather naïve and ill-judged’ (Cust 2007: 7) but
Coward feels that there were, ‘promising signs of co-operation’ (Coward
1987: 136). Perhaps the most positive view is Sharpe’s who
suggested that Charles, unlike his father, was ‘hardworking with an eye
for detail’ (Sharpe 1992: 198). From other readings one might be
tempted to add that he had a tendency to attempt to micro-manage
situations which were perhaps inherently chaotic or simply
misunderstood. Like his father Charles struggled with expenditure
within the royal household and probably suffered the consequences more
whilst paradoxically managing them better. His use of monopolies
and other measures fund-raising measures such as the notorious
‘ship money’ did provide a better cash flow but, ‘the increased revenue
which these measures bought in was hardly worth the hostility to the
crown’ (Smith 1997: 283). As late as 1635 we see Charles apparently
giving away the concession to mine silver in north Wales to one Thomas
Bushell in exchange for a look round his garden at Enstone in
Oxfordshire (Strong 1998: 132).
As ever, key points of conflict centred on finances. Am ambitious
new king ‘Charles approached his first parliament of 1625 with a
planned budget of close to one million pounds but his requests for
finance fell on deaf ears, the MPs remained deeply unconvinced by
Charles’s war strategy and affronted by the fact that Charles refused
to, explain his position to parliament or even ask for a specific
subsidy’ (Coward 1987: 139). This represents the beginning of a long
chain of failures on Charles’s part to communicate his true intentions.
By standing on his own dignity and often refusing to explain his
position Charles is a marked contrast to his father who clearly
relished the rough and tumble of debate. By1627 with the country at war
and the city unwilling to lend more than £20,000, Charles’s decision to
take emergency powers and institute forced loans with imprisonment
without trial as a penalty for non-payment was severely misjudged
(Coward 1987: 139). The resulting 1628 Petition of Right which demanded
the King recognized the illegality of extra-parliamentary taxation and
other unpopular measures such as billeting and the application of
martial law was probably not seen at the time as ‘one of the great
landmarks in England’s constitutional development’ (Coward 1987: 140).
Unfortunately the King was not in a mood to learn from the experience
and so, ‘the disagreements between Crown and parliament in the 1620s
were universally regarded as shameful, a sign of failure’ (Smith 1997:
274). It has to said that this does represent failure on both sides
characterised by the absence of any systematic programme of
legislation, an inability to manage business effectively and too much
time wasted on side issues such as impeachment.
The breakdown of an effective working relationship with parliament lead
in to the period of ‘personal rule’ that ran from 1629 to 1640.
The traditional view, expressed by Coward, was that decade
saw an increasingly disastrous distance opening up between the King and
his people. ‘In the period after the dissolution of parliament in 1629
it was not yet clear that Charles’s unapproachability, his financial
policies and especially his religious beliefs would eventually make it
impossible for the people to be loyal both to the court and their
“counties’ (Coward 1987: 141). More recent commentators have taken a
more positive view, ‘The navy was strengthened, royal finances were
improved, local order was by and large maintained and some of the much
criticized “projects’ did produce positive results’(Cust 2007: 195).
Quite predictably Charles’s period of personal rule was brought to an
end by the needs for cash to fight the hugely unpopular war against the
Scots and it is remarkable how quickly everything then started to
unravel for Charles. His weak position was exposed both by his
failure to protect his favourite Strafford and by his having to give in
on the question of the Triennial Act, whereby parliament should meet
every three years, irrespective of the King’s wishes. This scenting of
real power on the part of parliament marks the beginning of the
spiraling down to civil war. Coward describes the process thus: ‘The
novel means proposed by the parliamentary leaders to ensure the
permanence of the constitutional gains made in the first session of the
Long Parliament provoked a conservative reaction which culminated in
civil war; the radicalism produced by the war caused a second
conservative reaction which, in turn, forced the army to make its
drastic intervention in the political arena, and so on’ (Coward 1987:
161). Could Charles have done anything to counter this downward spiral
into conflict? It seems that part of Charles’s strategy was to assent
to increasingly oppressive legislation as far the royal prerogatives
were concerned on the understanding that eventually they could be
repealed on the basis of ‘passed under duress’ once the crisis had
passed, unfortunately the crisis did not pass.
Conclusion
In summing up it is difficult to disentangle the personal strengths and
weaknesses of James and Charles from the strengths and weaknesses of
the system of which they were part. It might be argued that they could
stand condemned to the extent that neither of them attempted
thorough-going reform of the body politic but then as neither of them
was especially visionary or even a deep political theorist it seems
unjust to criticize them for not undertaking something which they
neither could have imagined nor comprehended. The key question is
with what success did they operate within the existing framework to
meet their own goals and fulfill the aspirations of the wider populace?
A king is both a leader and a manager, the first role cannot easily be
delegated whilst the second can be and perhaps generally should be. In
terms of management Charles had too much of what James was deficient
in, Kishlansky expresses it eloquently this way, James’s, ‘taste for
platitudes was larger than his stomach for business. Charles’s
appetites were just the opposite: he spoke infrequently and governed
incessantly’ (Kishlansky 1997: 117). Even the time they did spend in
governing was rarely spent to good effect, given that: ‘ when there was
a genuine attempt to by the crown to produce some effective reformative
policies… one has to recognise that the achievement fell far short of
the aim’ (Coward 1987: 142). Was it their fault or the fault of an
unwieldy and inefficient method of managing an increasingly modern
state? Several historians have commented that James, to a lesser
extent, but certainly Charles, were wedded to this tendency to policy
make on the fly and there is little evidence that any administration
systematically developed long term policy objectives (see Coward 1987:
145) and once again perhaps it is a little unfair to have expected them
to. It is tempting to pass this particular baton on and suggest that
Charles II managed, if not brilliantly, then rather better than his
grandfather or father, albeit in different circumstances.
To the reader of parliamentary histories it is easy to gain the
impression that the main business of parliament was to wrangle over the
King’s expenses and although ultimately these disagreements had
deleterious effects in terms of not only wasting parliamentary time but
also contributing to a general perception of waste, luxury and
incompetence on the part of the royal household in many ways these
issues are peripheral. Of course James and Charles fell into the
practice of essentially summoning parliaments when they were short of
cash but we should not forget that productive and effective legislation
was passed from time to time. In other words for much of the period the
country ticked over quite nicely, there is no sense in which it was a
failed state. Good relations with parliament were a means to and end
rather than an end in itself that end being effective government to
deliver the appropriate benefits to citizens. In attempting to evaluate
these we have examined a comparatively limited set of indicators. No
mention has been made of the ‘great rebuilding’ of the first half of
the seventeenth century which certainly saw the day to day comforts of
many householders improved, nor have we touched on the cultural
achievements of the two reigns or the wakening of early scientific
endeavour some of these things taking place under direct royal
patronage. The sad fact is that whatever the ups and downs experienced
by society during the period it did end with one massive down, the
English Civil War which cost the lives of an estimated 190,000 people (
Carlton 1992: 211).
How did James and Charles fare then as leaders? Well it is clear that
they both established a personal following and were able to command
impressive displays of dedication and loyalty amongst some of their
subjects. Of course Charles was put to the test to a far greater extent
than his father in having to lead his party in out and out warfare but
neither of them seemed to have had much time for actively cultivating
popular support. James just ‘couldn’t be arsed’ (literally) and Charles
was too shy. Whilst Elizabeth I was perhaps the supreme maker and
manipulator of the royal image and related political perceptions
neither James nor Charles quite appreciated that, ‘what people believed
to be true was more important than the truth itself in influencing
events’ (Coward 1987: 142) and Charles particularly suffered as a
result.
For James practically every strength could also be read as a weakness
and vice versa: his learning could shade into pedantry, his
administrative laziness made way for the careers of more able
administrators to develop, his desire for peace could be seen as
appeasement and his spendthrift ways spoke of a generous spirit
attracting loyal supporters. Perhaps because of his ultimate lack of
success Charles’s failings are more unequivocal and towards the end,
time after time, opportunities for a settlement which would have spared
the country on-going agony were passed by, something that is hard to
forgive but did Charles forgive himself? Indeed this leads to the
broader question of how would they have seen themselves in terms of
their own strengths and weaknesses and their successes or failures in
living up to their own high ideals of kingship? We can never know.
Afterword.
I was recently in my local primary school to discuss with year 6
the causes of the English Civil War. One girl remarked, ‘It was because
King Charles had no friends and then he fell out with everyone’ (Milly
2015). It took some time to explain why she was so wrong and so right.
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