8.1 The Early Stuarts, 1603 -1649

Roots of the Crisis

On the death of the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, in 1603, the crown of England passed to the closest male heir, 37-year-old King James (Stuart) VI of Scotland.  The new king took the title James I of England but remained James VI of Scotland.  Although the two kingdoms had the same man as king, they remained independent of each other.  James preferred his wealthier new kingdom and moved his government to London.  There he would begin to experience a conflict of forces that would severely threaten the monarchy and strengthen the constitutional powers of Parliament.

            James Stuart and his heirs would rule England for more than a century.  During that time England would experience a constitutional crisis that would see civil war, the execution of the king, a republic under a military dictatorship, restoration of monarchy, and a "Glorious Revolution" that would not only expel the legitimate king and make his daughter and her husband joint rulers but establish a Bill of Rights as the basis for government.

             The roots of the crisis lay in three conditions of the early Stuart monarchy (the reigns of James I and Charles I).  The first was religious.  While the great majority of English accepted Anglicanism, there was opposition to the Anglican supremacy.  A small minority of conservative Catholics refused to recognize and accept England's spiritual break with the papacy.  The Catholics, however, did not represent as great a threat to the Anglican establishment as did the more enthusiastic Protestants, particularly the Calvinists.  Calvinist elements existed both within and outside of the Anglican Church.  Those Calvinists outside the Anglican Church (Separatists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Independents – of which the Pilgrims were part) remained a tiny minority of critical and vocal extremists.  Of far greater concern to both the Anglican Church and the monarchy were those Calvinists within the Church.  These were the Puritans who saw the Church as too "Catholic" in its doctrine and liturgy and wanted to "purify" the Church of its "papist" elements.  The enforced religious conformity to Anglicanism angered the Puritans and caused them to become increasingly antagonistic to the crown.

            The second condition underlying the crisis was political.  Parliament, particularly the land-owning gentry and wealthy merchants in the House of Commons, saw the unpopular Stuarts' ambitions to increase royal sovereignty as a threat to Parliament's traditional (i.e., constitutional) rights to a voice in royal government.  James I and his son, Charles I, both aspired to be as absolute as possible in the governing of England.  Both considered Parliament a nuisance and an obstacle to effective royal government and sought to rule by calling Parliament as little as possible.  When Parliament was in session both monarchs would lecture the Parliament and tell it how to think and act in the conduct of its duties to the crown.  Most MPs (Members of Parliament) angrily resented what they saw as the crown's arrogance.  Parliament's resentment was heightened as increasing numbers of Puritans were elected to the House of Commons.

            The third factor was the Stuarts themselves.  James had the misfortune of being successor to the most popular monarch in English history to that time, Elizabeth I.  The fact that he was a Scot made him unpopular with the English people.  He was the son of the executed Mary Queen of Scots and had been raised as a Presbyterian.  He was well educated, had written several books, and was recognized within academic circles as a scholar.  When he came to England he welcomed the opportunity to be head of the Anglican Church; as head of both church and state he could realize his ambition to be an absolute monarch.

            Both James and his son, Charles, believed in divine right monarchy.  In 1598 James had written a book, The True Law of Free Monarchies, in which he expressed his views on kingship.  James saw the king as the "father" of his people, responsible for their welfare as was a father for his family.  The king's authority to rule came from God, and to God alone was a king responsible for his actions.  Because royal power came from God, the king was "above the law," free from parliaments, churchmen, and laws and customs of the past.  Always pedantic, James expressed it up in Latin: "A Deo Rex A Rege Lex"  ("From God the King from the King the Law") . Both James and Charles sincerely believed in this concept of monarchy.  Their views, however, were not shared by those in Parliament.

            The Stuart personality also served to cause opposition.  Both James and Charles had extravagant personal tastes and enjoyed lavish spending.  Both men were scholarly, arrogant, and pedantic (inclined to want to impress others with their knowledge).  Because they were not popular rulers, they surrounded themselves with sycophants (self-serving flatterers). Thus, they were told what they wanted to hear, causing them to have an unrealistic view of the world around them.  King Henry IV of France was reputed to have referred to James as "the wisest fool in Christendom." 

            They were both absolutist in their thinking on monarchy and were jealously protective of royal "prerogative" rights. (A prerogative is an exclusive right or privilege held because of one's position or rank.)  Both considered within the realm of royal prerogative all matters pertaining to religion, foreign policy, and the making of war and peace, and would not tolerate parliamentary "interference" in these matters.  Parliament did not see these areas as exclusively the crown's prerogative.

             Both monarchs were strongly Anglican (seeing the Church as a means of strengthening royal sovereignty) and vowed to strengthen and protect it against the heresy of Puritanism.  Both were pro-Spanish in their foreign policy, and this was highly unpopular with the English people.  Both were opposed to working with Parliament in matters of royal finance (taxation), because it was through consent to new taxes that Parliament exercised its most effective restraint on royal power.

The Reign of James I, 1603 - 1625

                                                                                           King James I by Daniel Mytens, 1621

            James' 22-year monarchy saw the beginning of the tension that would underlie the constitutional crisis.  In matters of religion James made it very clear that he supported the Anglican supremacy and considered any criticism of the Anglican Church as disloyalty to the crown.  To reinforce religious conformity, James summoned Anglican leaders to a conference at Hampton Court in 1604.  There he rejected the Puritan grievances and stated that he "would harry them out of the country or worse" if their dissent continued.  The king's attitude caused some Puritans and other radical Protestants to seek a freer religious environment in the new American colonies.  The Pilgrims founded a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, and inaugurated the Calvinist emigration to New England.  The Hampton Court Conference also authorized the drafting of a new English-language Bible.  The resulting King James Version of the Bible (first published in 1611) became a milestone in the development of the English language.

               On November 5,1605, a plot to kill the king and the assembled Parliament was discovered when one Guy Fawkes was found with kegs of explosives in the vaults beneath the Parliament building.  Under interrogation, Fawkes revealed a plot by Catholic nobles and Jesuits to destroy the government.  The "Gunpowder Plot" served to bolster the king's resolve to strengthen Anglican conformity.  With the Parliament's resulting passage of new and repressive anti-Catholic legislation, a wave of anti-Catholic feeling swept through England. "Remember, remember the Fifth of November" begins a popular poem that marks annual torchlight parades and bonfires that have commemorated the failed plot to the present. 

             In seeking to increase his royal authority, James antagonized Parliament.  The financing of royal government proved troublesome.  Both the king and Parliament recognized that the effectiveness of government was dependent upon its power to tax.  When James sought to collect new taxes without the consent of Parliament, he was roundly criticized.  The king's opponents in Parliament argued that the king's actions were in violation of the law.  James lectured the Parliament on his prerogative rights and reminded them of their responsibility to their God-given king.

            Throughout James' reign the issue of royal prerogative was hotly debated in Parliament.  When the king attempted to limit the matters that the Parliament could discuss, the House of Commons issued a "Great Protestation" (1621) boldly declaring Parliament's right to discuss freely and resolve any matter of concern to the nation.  An outraged James dissolved Parliament and tore the page with the Protestation from the Commons' record.

            In the exercise of foreign policy James was not above criticism.  In 1604 he ended the state of war with Spain (begun in 1588) and later sought to arrange a dynastic marriage for his son, Charles, with the daughter of the Spanish king.  Both policies were extremely unpopular with the English people who regarded Catholic Spain as a great threat to English security.  James, however, recognized the political benefit of peace.  War was expensive and kept the crown dependent on Parliament for needed revenues.  Peace would lessen that dependence and make the crown more sovereign.  He refused to involve England in the great war between Catholic and Protestant Europe raging on the Continent (The Thirty Years War) even though his son-in-law was the leader of the Protestant forces.  When the Spanish marriage negotiations failed, James secured Charles' marriage (1625) to the Catholic Princess Henrietta Maria, sister of King Louis XIII of France.  Perhaps his one success, although certainly not evident during his lifetime, was the founding of the first permanent English colony in America.  In 1607 a small band of English colonists seeking gold and other riches scratched out of the Virginia woods a miserable little settlement they named in honor of their king, Jamestown.

The Reign of King Charles I, 1625 - 1649

Charles I: A triptych by Anthony Van Dyck, 1636

            The reign of Charles I saw the increasing tension between king and Parliament reach crisis proportions and explode in civil war at the end of which the unfortunate king would be captured and executed.  Charles inherited the conditions left unresolved in his father's reign and, despite his personal charm and ability, he also inherited his father's arrogance and uncompromising attitude on monarchy.  It would soon be evident that Charles and Parliament had little common ground on which to get along.

             Putting great trust in the unfounded abilities of his advisors and favorites, Charles opened his reign with a badly managed war with Spain (1625 - 1630) and then authorized English military support for the French Huguenots in rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu.  Both of these policies were half-heartedly pursued and failed to achieve desired ends.  Critical of the king's military policy, Parliament took action to curb royal spending.

            When Parliament refused to renew the king's power to collect tunnage and poundage (a special tax on imports and exports traditionally granted to a new king as a courtesy), Charles dissolved Parliament (1626) and continued to collect the tax.  Charles then authorized the collection of a forced loan ordering select persons, usually wealthy gentry and merchants, to lend sizeable sums to the crown.  Failure to contribute to the loan could result in imprisonment.  As a further cost-saving measure, Charles authorized (by means of a martial law) the quartering of soldiers and sailors in private homes.

            In 1627 seventy gentry including 27 MPs were arrested and imprisoned for refusing to contribute to the loan.  Five brought legal action against the crown for arbitrary arrest and sued to be charged with a crime or released.  This celebrated "Five Knights Case" resulted in the court's ruling in favor of the king, but revealed the extent of the crown's unpopularity with the political nation.

            Needing additional funds, Charles called for parliamentary elections in 1628.  The new Parliament responded to the crown's policies by issuing a Petition of Right.  The Petition of Right reminded the king of rights that must be respected by the crown.  In summary the Petition forbade the crown's collecting any tax or loan without consent of Parliament, stated that no man could be arrested or imprisoned without cause, and denied the crown's power to declare martial law or quarter troops in private homes without parliamentary consent.  Charles reluctantly agreed to accept and abide by the Petition.  Parliament allowed the king a small tax but refused to renew tunnage and poundage.  Charles prorogued (temporarily adjourned) Parliament for six months.

            When Parliament reconvened in 1629 Charles lectured the House of Commons on his prerogative rights.  In angry response the Commons considered for adoption three resolutions directly challenging the crown.  Introduced by Sir John Eliot, a Puritan and outspoken critic of the king, the resolutions identified as traitors any churchman or royal officer suspected of Catholicism or advising the king to collect revenues without parliamentary consent, likewise anyone who paid an illegal tax.  Charles attempted to prevent adoption of the resolutions by ordering the Parliament dissolved.  When the king's officers arrived at the Commons, they were barred from entry while the Speaker of the House was forcibly held in his chair until the stormy debate was concluded.  (Were the Speaker to stand, the session of the Commons would be legally ended.)  Having illegally stayed in session until the resolutions were adopted, the Commons adjourned.  It would be eleven years before Charles summoned another Parliament.

            Between 1629 and 1640 Charles exercised a "personal rule," governing without Parliament.  Charles would be absolute.  The success of his monarchy depended upon his effectively cutting costs and raising revenues through the existing tax structure and other legal means.

            As war was perhaps the most costly activity of government, Charles made peace with both Spain and France (1630).  He renewed the practice of collecting forced loans and raised the amounts collected through taxes that were his right to collect.  He continued to collect tunnage and poundage, justifying it as a prerogative right that had been held by his predecessors.  He raised the fines collected through the exercise of royal justice.  He authorized the sale of titles of nobility and created a "new nobility" of people seeking the benefits of the royal connection.  He ordered his lawyers to dig into feudal custom and find ancient revenue sources never formally abolished.  The result was the revitalized collection of feudal rents, fees, and aids owed the king as feudal lord.  While these measures were unpopular, none were as controversial as Charles' collection of ship money.

            Ship money was a special tax for the construction of naval vessels to be paid by people living in England's port cities.  Reasoning that naval defense was in the interest of all people, Charles ordered ship money collected throughout England.  The king's action was challenged in court by one John Hampden.  As with the Five Knights Case, the court ruled that the extension of ship money was legal.  Nonetheless, the Hampden Case revitalized landed opposition to the king.

            As the policies of Charles' personal rule aroused hostility so did the men he selected to implement those policies.  Particularly objectionable to the parliamentarian opposition were Thomas Wentworth, the Duke of Strafford and the king's principal advisor, and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.  Laud was a high churchman whose direction of the Anglican Church greatly angered the Puritans.  In 1637 Laud, with the king's approval, ordered the Presbyterian Church of Scotland to adopt the Anglican prayer book and episcopal structure (hierarchy of bishops).  The result was a crisis that would destroy Charles' monarchy.

            The Scots refused to accept a foreign liturgy for their national church and in 1638 declared war on England.[1] The small English army was unable to resist the Scots who invaded northern England.  Charles, realizing that he needed greater armed force to deal with the crisis, was compelled to call for elections to a new parliament.  The Parliament that met briefly in 1640 refused to grant the king the supplies he needed without his first redressing their grievances.  Charles angrily dissolved this "Short Parliament."

            Unable to fight the Scots, Charles again summoned Parliament.  Known as the "Long Parliament," the body that assembled in London later in 1640 would exist in one form or another for some twenty years.  The Parliament was angry.  Many of the MPs were Puritans, and some of the more outspoken members of the Commons were radical Protestants.  The lawyers among the MPs resented Charles' abuse of royal power during the eleven years of personal rule.  As men of property all MPs were angered by the king's fiscal (financial) policies.  Unbeknownst to Charles, his new Parliament was about to begin a revolution.

             Desperately needing its support, Charles agreed to Parliament's demands to reduce royal power.  Parliament abolished the king's power to dissolve Parliament and secured the king's approval to a law requiring Parliament to meet at least once every three years.  The collection of ship money was ended, and the Court of the Star Chamber (a hated royal court established by the Tudors) was abolished.  In 1641 Parliament impeached both Wentworth and Archbishop Laud and forced Charles to order their execution for subverting the laws of England.

            In 1641 the Puritans in the House of Commons called for a law that would exclude the Anglican bishops from membership in the House of Lords.  Charles refused to accept this Exclusion Bill and in January 1642, personally led an armed force of 300 men into the Commons to arrest its leadership.  To the more radical MPs, Charles' violation of the sanctity of the Commons was an act of war against the English people.  Charles removed his family and court from London to the friendlier environment of York. 

            Sensing their growing control over Parliament, the Puritans successfully called for the expulsion of all Lords and MPs still loyal to the king.  The political nation was beginning to divide against itself.  In June 1642, Parliament presented to the king some 19 proposals necessary to preserve his reign.  Among these were: parliamentary control of the army and all fortifications; parliamentary control of the Anglican Church; parliamentary power to appoint all the king's advisors; and the exclusion of any newly-created nobility from the House of Lords.  Charles rejected these demands and called upon the English people to support him against those who would take his crown.  The Civil War began in August 1642.

Civil War and the End of the Monarchy, 1642 - 1649

             The English Civil War (1642 - 1649) was largely a political and military matter and, except in those areas where fighting took place, did not disrupt the economic and social life of the English people.  Campaigns were largely a matter of strategic maneuvering and battles were short skirmishes involving only a few thousand men at a time.  The opposing forces were those loyal to the king and those loyal to Parliament.  Because their distinctive style of hair and dress identified them with the aristocratic style of the Continent, the royalists were called by their opponents "Cavaliers."  In protest the parliamentary forces cut their hair short and were derisively labeled as "Roundheads." 

             The royalists, led by the king, tended to be nobility and wealthy gentry, largely Anglican but with some conservative Puritans.  The parliamentary forces were supported generally by gentry and wealthy merchants.  (The fact that the merchants of London supported the parliamentary forces was a major factor underlying their final victory.)  The "Roundheads" were largely Puritan and the more radical Calvinists (Presbyterians, Independents, and Separatists).  The parliamentary armies were most ably led by Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan MP who had been instrumental in the parliamentary opposition to Charles.  Because of his popularity with the armies, Cromwell would emerge as the political leader of the parliamentary forces.  Cromwell’s “New Model Army” was made up largely of Independents who saw the struggle with the King as religious.

            The war went badly for Charles.  Taking advantage of his problems with Parliament, the Catholic Irish had rebelled against English rule in 1641.  Now that his English subjects were in rebellion with him as well, Charles accommodated the Irish demands for greater religious freedom and won their support in the Civil War.  This alliance with Catholic Ireland did not endear the king further to those English still loyal to him.  Charles' armies lacked effective leadership and his generals had no common strategy with which to fight Cromwell's forces.  The "Roundhead" army was highly disciplined and spirited.  (It went into battle singing hymns.)  Defeated in the Battle of Naseby (1645), the king surrendered himself to the Scots (1646) and was later turned over to the parliamentarians (1647). 

            The parliamentarians and various religious sects, all formerly unified in their opposition to Charles, now began to differ among themselves on the future direction of England.  During the Civil War steps had been taken to reform the Anglican Church and make it more like the Presbyterian Church, but some of the more extreme Calvinists (mostly Independents) disliked the Presbyterian structure and demanded further reform.  It looked as if the parliamentarian armies were going to divide against themselves.  On the background of this conflict Charles escaped and raised a new army.  The Civil War was renewed.

            In December 1648, with Cromwell's approval, units of the parliamentary army, led by Colonel Thomas Pride, entered the Parliament and expelled all remaining Anglican and Presbyterian MPs.  "Pride's Purge" left a "Rump Parliament" of sixty Independent MPs in control of the nation.  The radicals, supported by the army, then set about to remake England.

             In 1649 the Rump Parliament undertook to complete its revolution.  The king had again been captured, and this time there would be no escape.  (The Queen and her children – princes Charles and James and Princess Mary – had fled to France.)  Parliament ordered Charles brought to trial for treason against the English people.  Following a three-day trial in which the king conducted himself with impressive and solemn dignity, Parliament's appointed court found Charles guilty and ordered him put to death.  To the great shock of the nation, Charles was publicly executed by beheading on January 30, 1649. 

            The Parliament followed up on the king's execution by declaring the monarchy abolished.  The House of Lords was also abolished.  England had become a republic, the Commonwealth, in which theoretically the people, through their representatives in the Commons, were sovereign.  In reality the Independents were sovereign, and their sovereignty was dependent on Oliver Cromwell and the army.  England had experienced the transition from monarchy to military dictatorship.

Sources for the Early Stuarts

Blitzer, Charles. Age of Kings. New York: Time-Life Books, 1967.

Durant, Will and Ariel. The Age of Reason Begins. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.

---. The Age of Louis XIV. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963.

Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution. New York: Norton, 1961.

Knapton, Ernest. Europe 1450 – 1815. New York: Scribners, 1958.

Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: Norton, 1996.

Palmer, Robert R et al. A History of the Modern World. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.

Shapiro, James. The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015.

Trevelyan, George Macauley. England Under the Stuarts. London: Putnam, 1916.

Tucker, Albert. A History of English Civilization. New York: Harper, 1972.

Wedgwood, C. V. The King’s Peace. New York: Collier, 1969.

[1] Both Scotland and England had the same king, yet they were then at war with each other! The Scottish opposition to Charles was led by a body of Presbyterian clergy and laymen called the “Covenanters,” a de facto government that proclaimed its loyalty to Charles as King of Scotland but not as King of England. 

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The images of James I and Charles I are from the Wikipedia articles on the two monarchs.