Charles reign was a failure PDF

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Essay regarding why Charles reign was considered a failure ...

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Part B: The crisis of government in November 1640 shows that Charles I’s reign was a failure. Assess the validity of this view. Charles’ reign during the personal rule or the 11 years of tyranny can be mostly seen as a failure. This is because if the reforms of religion, foreign policy and finance are to be considered then it is apparent that Charles inspired discontent with not only the gentry but also with the ordinary people, creating many groups of oppositions. Charles’ unpopularity was at it’s peak during 1640 that caused there to be divisions within the government as to what should be done in order to deal with Charles especially regarding the uprising of Catholics in Ireland and how to deal with the ‘evil ministers’. The factor of Foreign Policy contributed to the crisis that led to the failure of the Charles I’s reign as it presented the monarch as being mostly incompetent in gaining victory in foreign affairs which caused the parliament to question the King’s prerogative. Charles and his first Parliament disputed over inadequate funding that consisted of two small subsidies and tonnage and poundage for a year to finance a war against Spain which was shortly followed by the disastrous defeat in the antiSpanish intervention to the thirty years war. The disappointing collapse of the attack in 1925 was largely due to the lack of training of the German mercenary who lacked the motivation to fight a war that was of little importance to them, and due to the lack of food causing the English fleet to fail to reach the Cadiz port and capture the Spanish treasure fleet. Charles’ failure was due to the fact that he did not consider removing Britain from this attack as he did not have the sufficient funds to supply for the English fleet and train the mercenary to expect any form of victory. Moreover, much to the dismay of the Parliament, Charles sought advice from Buckingham about foreign policies which proved to be fatal as Buckingham lacked the experience and the knowledge of organising such attacks. Another example of failure occurred at the La Rochelle in 1627 when the Lord High Admiral, Buckingham, was in charge of Charles’ reversal of the crown policy in helping the Catholic French monarch against the Protestant Huguenots. The unfortunate failure was initially due to the scaling ladders being too short so the direct assault inevitably failed miserably but the role reversal policy also deemed to be pointless as the King of France had made peace with the protestant Huguenots. Therefore Buckingham’s attack signalled that Britain was now at war with not only Spain, but France as well at a time when Charles’ funds had been spent on this attack which could only mean one thing – calling another parliament to negotiate yet another subsidy. However Charles’ success with the Thorough in Ireland during Personal Rule cannot be dismissed. The aim was to make Ireland financially independent of England and allow an increase of crown income as a result; so Wentworth employed a few strategies to ensure just that. Wentworth began by calling the Irish Parliament in 1634 and this resulted in four subsidies in the meeting in 1640. The Crown income from customs doubled with the conversion of all doubtful land into tenures from the Crown and a new Book of Rates helped to increase the income from £40 000 in 1633 to £80 000 in 1640, thus tackling the recurring issue of finance. But such manipulation of the Irish Parliament and the policy of plantation distressed the Old English as they did not appreciate importing Calvinist population at the expense of the existing population in Ireland. Overall, Charles’ reign was mostly a failure as he failed to get the support for his policy aims as proven in the failure of Cadiz as the Parliament would only provide enough funding for a naval war and not a land war. But he had also gained success in some of his aims in ensuring the Crown income increased but the aim was achieved at the cost of angering the Old English in Ireland. However just like when the 1925 Parliament challenged the King’s prerogative

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by refusing to provide the money for the anti-Spanish war, in 1640, the Long Parliament once again infringed the King’s power as they were unwilling to supply the King with an army to go to Ireland because they feared Charles would turn against the Parliament. The Parliament’s doubts about Charles’ intent was justified as the King sought to make no statement regarding the accusations about supporting the Catholics in Ireland, thus fuelling the mistrust between the crown and the parliament as . As some MPs wished to maintain control over the army and some believed it was an infringement to the King’s prerogative, there was a division causing the crisis of the government. Charles’ increasing inclination towards Arminianism and Laudianism can certainly be viewed as a reason for the failure of his reign as many groups of people like the New English, the Scottish gentry and the puritans heavily opposed the ceremonies with catholic connotations proposed by Laud and supported by Charles which caused the King to distance himself from many groups of people. In the Policy of Thorough, Laud and Charles wished to bring the Church of England under the control of Laud and the Arminian. This included enhancing the interior beauty of churches with the addition of stained glasses, providing a new meaning to transubstantiation as well as changing the position of the communion table from the centre to being set ‘alterwise’ which proved to be incredibly controversial due to Popish connotations. Therefore in Ireland, the Protestant New English deeply resented Charles’ attempts to impose Laudianism. Furthermore, Welcoming papal agents to court prompted a number of high profile conversions in court which confirmed the suspicions that Charles was warming up to Catholicism, inspiring fear and a lack of trust from his people. Charles’ managed to anger the Scottish too in 1625 by forcing the Articles of Perth through the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland and also commanding the observation of the Articles which included kneeling at communion and confirmation by Bishops. Consequently, the Covenanters rose to protect the Kirk and oppose such religious reforms as they were angry about Charles not consulting the Kirk prior to the religious reforms being made. The Puritans too felt alienated because of the harsh treatment of Bastwick, Prynne and Burton that clearly emphasised that Charles would not tolerate any form of rebellion that opposed his religious reforms. Charles’ affinity to Laudianism made it evident that he intended to suppress opposing religious groups in order to restore the power of the church which caused rifts between his people and himself as many felt subjugated to his reforms which came with punishments if opposed, causing his reign to resemble a tyranny that had to ultimately fail. However there were some aspects of success within the religious reforms implemented by Charles and Laud like the Book of sports and the changes in church service that had not caused any specific opposition apart from the disgruntled murmurs of the Puritans. Hutton notes that the ‘number of those prosecuted and punished were small’ and those who were noticed to be absent from church services over a period of 6 months were to be brought before the Justice of Peace, which eludes to the sense that were not a great deal of opposition to the reforms to the church service and the punishments were not so harsh that it caused an eruption of rebellion. This is largely because of the continuation of the belief that the king can do no wrong so the only way to question it’s supremacy was to ‘raise the cry of No Popery’, according to Hugh Trevor. However, overall the religious reform introduced by Laud and Charles was a failure and this is evident when the Long parliament accused Laud of treason and called for his imprisonment as a direct result of his unwanted reforms. Through the act of attainder, the Parliament executed Laud thus portraying the deep and widespread resentment that was present regarding the religious reforms. The extent of the failures within religious reforms can be identified in the crisis of November 1640 when the new Laudianism prayer book was introduced into Scotland without any consultation with the Scottish Kirk that was specifically made for Scotland. This

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prayer book acted as a provocation to the Scots as it clearly favoured Catholicism and thus threatened their religious independence. It was this prayer book that ultimately triggered the conflict at St Giles Cathedral which started the Scottish rebellion and initiated the civil war from 1637 to 1660, proving that religious reforms had a huge impact that caused Charles reign to be a failure. From the Tudor period the crown has suffered from the many debts but Charles’ financial reforms including feudal dues as well as recusancy fines lead to the crown finance to considerably increase which could suggest that Charles’ reign was a success. However by introducing taxes like the ship money he was faced with many oppositions that outweighed his efforts to pull the crown out of debt. Charles’ prerogative taxation included Distraint of Knighthood, warship and the recusancy fines. What was different through Charles’ reign in comparison with James’ was that even though both believed in the their right to issue Prerogative taxation was that Charles ensured that the money was actually collected. Charles’ attempts to increase the crown income seems evidently fruitful due to the result of bringing £27000 per annum after applying the recusancy fines more rigorously. The Distraint of Knighthood meant that anyone who owned land over £40 per annum had to be knighted or else fined. The fines caused a total of £174000 from total of 9000 people. Charles had Juxton to reduce the royal expenditure and by applying forgotten feudal dues and collecting outstanding revenues unlike in James’ reign which is arguable what caused the crown debt to increase significantly. Therefore it can be perceived that by fixing the problem of finance that the other monarchs could not solve and funding for the crown without the parliament, his reign was successful. However the great anger and surge of animosity that came with the financial achievements cannot be dismissed and this is most evident with the ship money. This taxation was levied on coastal towns and counties raising £200000 annually. Yet the problem remained that the king continued to impose this taxation illegally without he support of the parliament which lead to the John Hampden’s case. Hampden was taken to court because he refused to pay the ship money and this case significantly portrays how Charles was adamant and determined to reintroduce old taxation and expect there to be no opposition all in the name of funding for the crown. It was of little value that such taxations caused the distress and discontent to the people as long as his financial independence was not jeopardised which makes it evident that Charles’ reign was mostly a failure. The extent of the troubles caused by the financial reforms are present during the crisis of government in 1940 during the First Bishops’ War. Despite the increase in the crown revenue Charles still did not have the sufficient funding for employing the mercenaries. The MPs and the JPs who were all alienated by Charles when imposing taxation without conferring with them and they offered no support financially which ultimately lead to the signing of the Treaty of Berwick. Thus it is incredibly clear that even though the financial reforms were valuable in terms of preventing the the crown from drowning in further debt, the reforms were a cause of great discontent with the MPs and the gentry which makes the reign of charles mostly a failure. The reign of Charles I was seen to be a time of distress especially when compared with the peaceful reign of James due to the provocative religious reforms that alienated lots of religious groups. Charles’ being a dogmatic authoritarian also meant that he did not tolerate any opposition in both his religious and financial reforms causing him to be incredibly unpopular. Despite Charles’ successes with increasing the crown revenue, he was impartial with the widespread hatred he inspired from the people he taxed by introducing archaic feudal dues which ultimately caused him to lose support in the Bishop’s War, proving that the reign of Charles was mostly a failure....