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established the Church of England. It had been an uneasy
schism, and as many worshipers soon found to their cost,
Protestantism was a multihued faith: pick the wrong shade and
life could be downright miserable, even fatal.
02 evans ch 2 1/30/01 12:09 PM Page 29
Parliament versus Charles I 29
James I had thrown his weight behind Anglicanism, which in
tone, vestment, and ritual was modeled closely on Rome. Down
at the other end of the Protestant spectrum lay the gloomy Puri-
tans, straitlaced and austere, rabidly opposed to any form of reli-
gious ostentation, convinced that pleasure was the invention of
the Devil. Fun-loving James despised them and would, he
gloated, harry them out of the land. Many, most notably the Pil-
grim Fathers, took him at his word and abandoned England to
settle in the New World.
James s death changed nothing. Those Puritans that remained
were left to contend with an Anglican king who not only showed
no disinclination to abandon his father s intolerance, but had
married a queen who brazenly celebrated mass at court. Rum-
bles of discontent began to grow.
Public opinion didn t count for a jot with Charles. A dyed-in-
the-wool  Divine Rightist, he intended to rule the country
absolutely, with no limits to his power, much like the monarchs
of France were doing. So far as Charles was concerned, he had
been put on this planet by God to rule England and nothing
would be allowed to come between himself and that belief, cer-
tainly not those elected upstarts at Westminster. When the new
king faced his first Parliament in 1625, he walked into a bear pit,
although most of the brickbats were aimed at the Duke of Buck-
ingham, the hugely influential royal adviser Charles had inher-
ited from his dead father. An inveterate meddler, especially in
foreign affairs, Buckingham had now wrapped his tentacles
around the impressionable king.
Figuratively, at least, Buckingham lingered in the shadows
while Charles stood before Parliament and demanded that it
grant him tonnage and poundage (an import/export tax) for life,
as had been accorded to preceding monarchs. He badly needed
the funds to make good on his promise to Henrietta s brother,
King Louis XIII, to assist in the suppression of the chief Huguenot
stronghold of La Rochelle, just one of the many bloodthirsty con-
flicts between Catholics and Protestants that had wracked
Europe since the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1618.
When Parliament thumbed its nose at Charles s demands, he
angrily dissolved the assembly.
His dealings with the second Parliament (February 6 June 15,
02 evans ch 2 1/30/01 12:09 PM Page 30
30 GREAT FEUDS IN HISTORY
1626) were no more fruitful. Dominating all other business was an
attempt to impeach Buckingham, whose disastrous military
exploits in Europe were threatening to bankrupt the nation. When
the noted parliamentarian Sir John Eliot compared Buckingham
with Sejanus, the homicidal favorite of the Roman emperor
Tiberius, the implication was unmistakable. Intentionally or not
and it is hard to imagine that such a slur was accidental Charles
had been cast in the role of Tiberius the tyrant. It was an insult he
never forgave. With relations worsening daily, Charles came to
Buckingham s rescue by once again dismissing the legislature.
What followed was a sulky twenty-month hiatus, during which
the country had no Parliament. Charles and Buckingham per-
sisted in their flamboyant foreign policy, attempting to finance
their foolishness with a mix of private loans and heavy-handed
coercion that amounted to nothing more than mugging by
monarchy. When five knights, thrown into jail for refusing to
hand over money to the royal exchequer, applied for a writ of
habeas corpus, Charles, anxious not to have the legality of his
actions tested in open court, instructed the jailer to inform
the knights they were incarcerated  by His Majesty s special
commandment. 1
It was a grievous blunder. Charles s political judgment rarely
astute had failed him completely as furious members of Par-
liament (MPs) added complaints of arbitrary imprisonment to
the old standby of arbitrary taxation.
Blinkered by his own stupidity and heartened by news that
impeachment proceedings against Buckingham had been
dropped, Charles, as always in urgent need of money, agreed to
a third Parliament. When it met on March 17, 1628, the atmo-
sphere fairly crackled with tension. Again and again MPs took
the floor to complain that Charles s arrogance in policy matters
amounted to a flagrant renunciation of Magna Carta, a dissatis-
faction best captured by the leading parliamentarian, John Pym,
who thundered,  There is no sovereign power but the law. 2
The upshot of all this rancor was a Petition of Right, four sim-
ple demands that went to the heart of the Commons s grievances:
no taxation without consent of Parliament; no imprisonment
without due cause; no billeting of soldiers or sailors with house-
holders against their will; and no martial law except for military
02 evans ch 2 1/30/01 12:09 PM Page 31 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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