During my years in graduate school, I had the great good fortune to take a historiography class and a research class under a serious Stuart-era historian. His focus for the research course was the Stuart "crisis of the aristocracy" and the clash between the Court and Parliament. Being more interested in trade and empire, I had difficulty really immersing myself in the topic. But now, given what we are experiencing now, I am very glad I took that course, and, more importantly, kept every single book and article he assigned.
It is not my purpose today to give a blow-by-blow description of the preconditions to the English Civil War. But there are enough similarities to the situation we find ourselves in now that I do think some discussion of it is warranted. As with my diary on Plantagenet era common law development, this is essay is geared towards non-historians. Follow me below the fold for more:
As others have noted elsewhere, royal authority increased significantly under the Tudor kings. What they did not note was the financial straits Elizabeth I found herself in, terrible budgetary problems her heir, James Stuart, VI of Scotland and I of England (r. 1603-1625), inherited and could not overcome. Traditionally, English monarchs lived off their lands and had to call Parliament to raise taxes for extraordinary expenditures, such as wars. Elizabeth waged plenty of them, and she clamped down on her household expenditures as much as possible for a Renaissance monarch, for she hated being in debt. It was easy in that she had no children to maintain and support. James, however, did have a family, and he had no terror of debt. The royal income was totally insufficient for his needs, and he constantly had to go back to Parliament for funds, for only Parliament could authorize taxation.
Fundamental structural weaknesses in the early 17th century prefigured the Civil War. Religious conflict was a feature of late Tudor and early Stuart England (as well as contemporaneous Scotland), what with the emergence of the Radical Reformation. Much of the Stuart-era struggle during Charles I’s reign had to do with the tension between Arminians and Puritans. The Court itself was riven with factions, and the blatant favoritism shown to certain courtiers by both James I and Charles I genuinely affected the government’s effectiveness. But the weakness that seems to me to be most relevant to our current issues was the tension between Court and Country, the central government and the localities who sent their MPs to London and the House of Commons.
A key historian of James I’s reign, S. J. Houston wrote:
The House of Commons, though certainly more active in legislation, was politically less important than the House of Lords. Parliament had no capacity for independent action, and was bent neither on extending its influence nor on diminishing the royal prerogative. The constitutional ideas of MPs were strongly conservative and they rarely bargained over supply. They sought a harmonious relationship with the crown in order to reap a harvest of legislation that would benefit the commonwealth in general or their constituents in particular....
When we consider that James I really believed in the divine right of kings, the problem for the House of Commons becomes obvious. They would not push hard against the king unless they felt truly threatened. When faced by a common threat, such at the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, king and Parliament could and did move in unison to crack down on dissenters. But when their own prerogatives were threatened, the House of Commons in particular had no qualms about standing firmly against the king’s encroachments. For example, Parliament presented two petitions of grievance to James in 1610, one regarding Church matters and the other secular, mainly fiscal impositions, or taxes. While most of the grievances are not analogous to our times, the sentiment of Parliament is: their fear was that Elizabethan precedents were taking on a life of their own under James, and that the monarch just might one day decide to dispense with Parliament altogether, and rule solely on his own authority. The Commons’ greatest fear was the James’ successors would institute absolutist rule, and they were determined to avoid that at all cost. Similar arguments over funds for the king created Parliamentary chaos again in 1614, the so-called Addled Parliament: if the king could raise taxes over Parliament’s objections, he could make and institute laws without Parliament as well. Concerns over foreign policy, a royal prerogative, and funding disrupted the Parliament of 1621, and sparked a very troubling message from James:
...your Privileges were derived from the grace and permissions of our Ancestors and Us. ...Yet we are pleased to give you our Royal assurance, that as long as you contain yourselves within the limits of your Duty, we will be as careful to maintain and preserve your lawful liberties and privileges....
After all, James had a power George Bush hasn’t got: the ability to call and dismiss Parliament at his pleasure or need. But without calling Parliament, the king could not raise taxes. Still, James did just that – he dismissed the 1621 Parliament and dissolved it, ruling without them until his need for funds grew so great that he had no choice but to call for a new Parliament in 1624.
For all his tendencies towards absolutist rule, James I had two saving graces. He was genuinely concerned about the legality and legitimacy of his governance, and he was willing to explain his decisions and actions in a manner that preserved the consensus of his government and its constitution.
Charles I did not have this saving grace. Some on this site have compared George W. Bush to James I; I disagree, for I see more similarities between Charles I and Mr. Bush. Charles I was a very proud man, convinced that his opinions were superior to everyone else’s. He isolated himself from outside opinions, and surrounded himself with courtiers whose behavior bordered on the sycophantic.
When, in 1625, Parliament refused to grant the all of the taxes he felt were required, Charles resorted to forced loans, payable to the crown. This was wildly unpopular and caused widespread discontent, for the lenders had no practical guarantee that the loans would ever be repaid. Some of those to whom the appeal for funds were made refused to provide the funds demanded on the basis that the forced loan was an unauthorized, illegal tax. They were promptly jailed. Many in the judiciary were deeply troubled by these events. Charles even went so far as to fire the lord chief justice, Sir Randolph Crew, for refusing to accept the loans as legal. One case is illustrative of how far Charles was willing to push his agenda and authority, the Five Knights’ Case. These minor noblemen had been jailed without any charges being formally made, and the remaining judges, under pressure from the king, declared that they were not entitled to bail. Two conclusions were popularly arrived at as a result: the loans’ legality was going to be upheld, and the judiciary had just lost its independence, even its will to protect the rights of subjects from being infringed upon by the king.
Good relations were restored, albeit temporarily, in 1628. Charles accepted the Petition of Right, which both the Lords and Commons drew up and presented. The Petition of Right declared the forced loans illegal, reiterated the illegality of imprisonment without specific charges being declared, prohibited the quartering of troops in the homes of private citizens, and forbade the use of martial law during peacetime. The latter two items had been perpetrated by one of the most hated of royal favorites, the Duke of Buckingham. But when one member, Sir John Eliot, introduced resolutions that would, among other matters pertaining to the religious disputes of the period, label as enemies of the realm those who paid the forced loan or advocated for it. Charles, hearing of the measure prior voting, shut down Parliament and dissolved it.
The next 11 years have been called Charles’ personal rule, for there were no more Parliaments called until 1640. It was unwise, but not technically illegal, since he was not obligated to call Parliament. Charles, with the advice and assistance of Archbishop Laud, went forward with his program of restoring more of the sacraments and pomp of the Church of England, upholding the authority of bishops and in pushing Arminian ideals of grace and free will, as opposed to the more popular Calvinist practice of plainness, belief in predestination, and preference for the Presbyterian mode of church governance. The establishment of the Plymouth colony occurred as a direct result of this policy. Puritans were harassed and imprisoned, and many fled for the Netherlands and from there to the Americas. Extraparliamentary modes of raising funds for the state were developed, such as the raising of tariffs on international trade, and the reviving of medieval customs like the distraint of knighthood (a fine on commoners worth more than a certain amount), the fines for encroaching on royal forests, and renewed discontinued civil offenses in order to collect the fines traditionally levied as punishment, and extended the levy of Ship Money to cities inland. When even these measures failed to provide sufficient funding, Charles reconvened Parliament in April 1640. It lasted only three weeks, passing nothing, before Charles dissolved it yet again, thus earning the moniker the Short Parliament. But the same monetary strictures applied, and Charles called for Parliament to meet yet again in early November 1640, and remained in session until 1660 through the Civil War, Charles’ execution, and the Commonwealth.
The Long Parliament pushed an aggressive policy in its first months. They demanded the release of those who had been arbitrarily imprisoned under Charles’ personal rule, most of whom were Puritans. They began a purge of those who had helped Charles implement his policies. One of Charles’ favored nobles, the earl of Strafford, had threatened to turn his forces against all of the king’s opponents in England and Scotland. Parliament charged Strafford with treason, and he was executed in 1641. They passed the triennial act, which declared that no more than three years could elapse between Parliaments. If the king failed to summon a new one, the previous Parliament was authorized to convene themselves. Another act forbade the king from dissolving the Long Parliament without its consent. Ship Money and distraint of knighthood, among other exploitative fiscal measures, were declared illegal. Prerogative courts, like the Star Chamber, were abolished, with Parliament reasoning that they had abandoned the common law and principles of equity when judging cases.
By January 1642, Charles had had enough. With 400 armed retainers, Charles arrived at Parliament and forced his way in to arrest the five members he found most implacably opposed to his policies. These five lawmakers got word in advance, and escaped successfully. It was this attempt that made civil violence inevitable.
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Our situation at present is very different in many ways. We do not have the religious unrest that Stuart England had. Prejudice against our religious minorities has not led to widespread repressive taxation and economic oppression, as it existed for both Catholics and Puritans. Instead of illegal taxes being waged by the federal government (although the District of Columbia has a valid complaint about the lack of representation and thus consent), we have an absence of fair tax policy.
But the excesses of the crown, the royal Court, violated the traditional respect for the common law. Parliament and their constituency in the Country felt their prerogatives, their participation in and consent to the government to be profoundly threatened. And while I did not mention them, there were failed military adventures during Charles’ rule that exacerbated the problems with fiscal policy.
The biggest similarity between the early Stuart period and our own time is this: the executive power is not listening to the people. It is not respecting the accepted legal precedents for habeas corpus, nor is it respecting the independence and equality of our legislative branch. It is packing the courts with toadies, and forcing out honest lawyers whose first allegiance is to justice.
While it can be said that we have an advantage that the early Stuart Parliamentarians did not, a formal written and ratified Constitution, with powers, privileges, and rights clearly spelled out, it is under threat. Charles I instituted personal rule by simply declaring it. He was king and precedent was on his side. George W. Bush cannot do that, for he is an elected President who can, theoretically at least, be removed by impeachment. That is spelled out in our Constitution. But George has, through his signing statements, undermined, even wiped out, the laws Congress passes. It is the Court versus the Country all over again. He and his officers of state, the Cabinet, have instituted violations of our laws, such as FISA, and the privacy of our communications. Charles regarded Parliament as his personal body of yes-men, rather than as representatives of those who elected them. George wants Congress to lay down and give him everything he wants, including more troops, more money for his war in Iraq, more powers for the executive, despite the clear and unambiguous rejection of these very same things by the voters in November 2006. He has shown that he does not respect our Constitution, and habeas corpus is the key to our rights as citizens under that Constitution. How bad could that be? Think about this: Charles’ agent, the Duke of Buckingham, quartered troops on the English, and, with habeas in abeyance, they could not protest for fear of imprisonment, and perhaps worse.
Our situation is not yet the same as Charles’ personal rule, and there is still time to stop these encroachments peacefully and in full accordance with the law of the land. I know that I certainly have no wish to see civil strife here, in our time. But the parallels are too close for my comfort and peace of mind. I believe there is only one remedy, and Congress must put it on the agenda: impeachment of the President and all officers whose actions have served to violate and weaken the Constitution.