Download Charles I - Lide UHK

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The Early Stuarts
James I.
Charles I.
The English Revolution
Long Parliament
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Civil War
Oliver Cromwell
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The Cromwellian Regime
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The Restoration
Charles II.
James II.
William of Orange
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The last of the Stuarts
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The Union with Scotland
1707 Act of Union
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The English Parliament often clashed with King James I of England,
the first Stuart king and the monarch who united the thrones of
England and Scotland. James I believed strongly in the divine right of
kings, as he declared in this speech before Parliament in 1609.
James I: "Kings Are Justly Called Gods„
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James I (of England) (1566-1625),
king of England (1603-25) and, as
James VI, king of Scotland (15671625).
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Born on June 19, 1566, in
Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, James
was the only son of Mary, Queen
of Scots, and her second husband,
Lord Darnley. When Mary was
forced to abdicate in 1567, he was
proclaimed king of Scotland. The
country was at that time divided
domestically by conflict between
the Protestants and the Roman
Catholics, and in foreign affairs by
those favouring an alliance with
France and those supporting
England. In 1582 James was
kidnapped by a group of
Protestant nobles headed by
William Ruthven, earl of Gowrie,
and was held virtual prisoner until
he escaped the next year.
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In 1586, by the Treaty of Berwick,
James formed an alliance with his
cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of
England, and the following year,
after the execution of his mother, he
succeeded in reducing the power of
the great Roman Catholic nobles.
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His marriage to Anne of Denmark
in 1589 brought him for a time into
close relationship with the
Protestants.
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After the Gowrie conspiracy of
1600, James repressed the
Protestants as strongly as he had the
Catholics. He replaced the feudal
power of the nobility with a strong
central government, and maintaining
the divine right of kings, he
enforced the superiority of the state
over the church.
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In 1603 Queen Elizabeth died
childless, and James succeeded her as
James I, the first Stuart king of
England. In 1604 he ended England's
war with Spain, but his tactless attitude
toward Parliament, based on his belief
in divine right, led to prolonged
conflict with that body.
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His severity toward Roman Catholics,
however, led to the abortive
Gunpowder Plot in 1605.
It was conspiracy to kill James I, king
of England, as well as the Lords and
the Commons at the opening of
Parliament on November 5, 1605. The
plot was formed by a group of
prominent Roman Catholics in
retaliation against the oppressive antiCatholic laws being applied by James I.
The originator of the scheme was
Robert Catesby, a country gentleman
of Warwickshire. The conspirators
discovered a vault directly beneath the
House of Lords. They rented this cellar
and stored in it 36 barrels of
gunpowder.
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In the final arrangement, Fawkes was to
set fire to the gunpowder in the cellar on
November 5 and then flee to Flanders.
Through a letter of warning written to a
peer, the plot was exposed. Fawkes was
arrested and examined under torture on
the rack. He revealed the names of his
associates, nearly all of whom were killed
on being taken or were hanged along with
Fawkes on January 31, 1606.
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James tried unsuccessfully to advance the
cause of religious peace in Europe, giving
his daughter Elizabeth in marriage to
Frederick V, the leader of the German
Protestants.
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He also sought to end the conflict by
attempting to arrange a marriage between
his son, Charles, and the infanta of Spain,
then the principal Catholic power. When
he was rejected, he formed an alliance
with France and declared war on Spain.
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James I died in Hertfordshire on March
27, 1625, and was succeeded to the throne
by his son, Charles I.
Charles I (of England) (1600-1649),
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Charles was born the second son of James I, and became heir apparent when his elder
brother, Henry, died, and was made Prince of Wales in 1616. In 1625 Charles
succeeded to the throne and married Henrietta Maria,the French princess. Charles
believed in the divine right of kings and in the authority of the Church of England.
These beliefs soon brought him into conflict with Parliament and ultimately led to civil
war.
He came under the influence of his close friend George Villiers, 1st duke of
Buckingham, whom he appointed his chief minister in defiance of public opinion and
whose war schemes in Spain and France ended unsuccessfully. Charles convoked and
dissolved three Parliaments in four years because they refused to comply with his
demands ( paymants for military expenditures and imprisoning those who did not pay).
When the third Parliament met in 1628, it presented the Petition of Right, a
statement demanding that Charles make certain reforms in exchange for war funds.
Charles was forced to accept the petition.
However, in 1629, Charles dismissed Parliament and had several parliamentary leaders
imprisoned. Charles governed without a Parliament for the next 11 years. During this
time forced loans, and other extraordinary financial measures were sanctioned to meet
governmental expenses.
In 1637 Charles's attempt to impose the Anglican liturgy in Scotland led to rioting by
Presbyterian Scots. Charles was unable to quell the revolt, and in 1640 he convoked the
so-called Short Parliament to raise an army and necessary funds. This body, which sat
for one month (April-May), refused his demands, drew up a statement of public
grievances, and insisted on peace with Scotland. Obtaining money by irregular means,
Charles advanced against the Scots, who crossed the border, routed his army at
Newburn, and soon afterward occupied Newcastle and Durham.
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His money exhausted, the king was compelled to call his fifth Parliament, the Long
Parliament, in 1640. In 1641 Charles agreed that this Parliament would not be
dissolved without its own permission. The king also agreed to more religious liberties
for the Scots and to submit to the demands of the Scottish Parliament.
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While still in Scotland, the king received word of a rebellion in Ireland in which
thousands of English colonists were massacred. When he returned to London in
November, he tried to have Parliament raise an army, under his control, to put down
the Irish revolt. Parliament, fearing that the army would be used against itself, refused,
and issued the Grand Remonstrance, a list of reform demands, including the
right of Parliament to approve the king's ministers. Charles appeared in the House of
Commons with an armed force. The country was aroused, and the king fled with his
family from London.
Both sides then raised armies. The supporters of
Parliament were called Roundheads, and those
of the king, Cavaliers. The first civil war of the
English Revolution, now inevitable, began at
Edgehill on October 23, 1642. The Cavaliers
were initially successful, but after a series of
reverses Charles gave himself up to the Scottish
army on May 5, 1646. Having refused to accept
Presbyterianism, he was delivered in June 1647 to
the English Parliament. Later he escaped to the
Isle of Wight but was imprisoned there. By this
time a serious division had occurred between
Parliament and its army. The army's leader,
Oliver Cromwell and his supporters, the
Independents, compelled Parliament to pass an
act of treason against further negotiation with
the king.
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Eventually, the moderate
Parliamentarians were forcibly
ejected by the Independents, and
the remaining legislators, who
formed the so-called Rump
Parliament, appointed a court to
try the king. On January 20, 1649,
the trial began in Westminster Hall.
Charles denied the legality of the
court and refused to plead. On
January 27 he was sentenced to
death as a tyrant, murderer, and
enemy of the nation. Scotland
protested, the royal family
entreated, and France and the
Netherlands interceded, in vain.
Charles was beheaded at Whitehall,
London. Subsequently Oliver
Cromwell became chairman of
the council of state, a
parliamentary agency that governed
England as a republic until the
restoration of the monarchy in
1660.
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The problem of settling the government on a permanent basis was never solved. The
new Council of State had to depend on the force of the army and the Rump
Parliament. Cromwell was the dominant individual. From 1649 to 1651 he subdued
Ireland and Scotland and brought them into the Commonwealth. In 1653 he dissolved
the Rump.In December 1653 accepted the Instrument of Government, England's only
attempt at a written constitution. The protectorate, which it created, was governed by a
House of Commons and Cromwell as Lord Protector. Parliament challenged the
restrictions of the Instrument and then proposed the so-called Humble Petition and
Advice to amend it. Cromwell accepted a second house of Parliament and the right to
name his successor, but refused the title of king.
After a Royalist uprising in 1655, Cromwell divided England into 11 military districts
commanded by major generals. This, more than anything except the killing of Charles,
turned people against Cromwell and taught them to hate Puritans and standing armies.
Cromwell pursued an active foreign policy. The Navigation Act of 1651 provoked the
Dutch War of 1652 to 1654, from which England gained some success. Jamaica was
taken from Spain in 1655. Allied with France, England in 1658 won the Battle of the
Dunes and took Dunkerque in France. Not since Elizabeth's reign had English ships
and arms been so successful and so respected.
The protectorate collapsed after Cromwell died in September 1658, and his son,
Richard, was unable to gain the respect of the army. In the ensuing confusion, General
George Monck, the commander in Scotland, marched to London, recalled the Long
Parliament, and set in motion the return of the dead king's eldest son from exile.
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James II soon lost the goodwill he had
inherited. He was too harsh in his
suppression of a revolt by James Scott,
Duke of Monmouth (an illegitimate
son of Charles), in 1685; he created a
standing army; and he put Roman
Catholics in the government, army, and
university. In 1688 his Declaration of
Indulgence, allowing Dissenters and
Catholics to worship freely, and the
birth of a son, which set up a Roman
Catholic succession, prompted James's
opponents to invite William of Orange,
a Protestant and stadtholder of the
Netherlands and husband of the king's
elder daughter, Mary, to come to
safeguard Mary's inheritance. When
William landed, James fled, his army
having deserted to William.
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William was given temporary control
of the government. Parliament in 1689
gave him and Mary the crown jointly,
provided that they affirm the Bill of
Rights listing and condemning the
abuses of James. A Toleration Act
gave freedom of worship to Protestant
dissenters. This revolution was called
the Glorious Revolution because,
unlike that of 1640 to 1660, it was
bloodless and successful: Parliament
was sovereign and England prosperous.
It was a victory of Whig principles and
Tory pragmatism.
Those who would not swear allegiance
to the new monarchs were called
nonjurors or Jacobites—Jacobus being
Latin for James. The Jacobites were
most numerous among the Roman
Catholics in the Scottish Highlands and
in Ireland.
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Before James II's younger daughter,
Anne, came to the throne in 1702, her
many children had all died. To prevent
a return of the Roman Catholic
Stuarts, Parliament in 1701 passed the
Act of Settlement, providing that the
throne should go next to the Protestant
Electress Sophia of Hannover, the
granddaughter of James I, and to her
descendants.
Scotland, angry at its exclusion from
trade with the English Empire,
hesitated to duplicate the act, as it had
the Bill of Rights in 1689. The only
solution was to combine the two
kingdoms, which was done by the Act
of Union of 1707, creating the
kingdom of Great Britain.
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Act of Union, name of several statutes that
accomplished :
the joining of England with Wales (1536),
England and Wales with Scotland (1707),
Great Britain with Ireland (1800),
British provinces of Upper Canada and Lower
Canada (1840) in North America.
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Anne (1665-1714), queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1702-14), the last
British sovereign of the house of Stuart. Born in London on February 6,
1665, she was the second daughter of King James II. Her mother was James's
first wife, Anne Hyde. In 1683 she was married to Prince George of
Denmark. Although her father converted to Roman Catholicism in 1672,
Anne remained Protestant. Becoming queen on William Orange's death in
1702, Anne restored to favor John Churchill, who had been disgraced by her
predecessor, making him duke of Marlborough and captain-general of the
army. Marlborough won a series of victories over the French in the War of
the Spanish Succession (1701-14, known in America as Queen Anne's War),
and he and his wife, Sarah, had great influence over the queen in the early
years of her reign.
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. During Queen Anne's reign the kingdoms of England and Scotland were
united (1707). She died in London on August 1, 1714, and, having no
surviving children, was succeeded by her German cousin, George, elector of
Hannover, as King George I of Great Britain and Ireland.