Essay on Charles I

The seventeenth century saw the evolution of two new types of government mainly because of the instability that was caused by religious wars. One type of government was a constitutional monarchy in which rulers were confined to the laws of the state, giving the people some liberties, best exemplified by William and Mary during the Stuart monarchial rule. Constitutional monarchy was successful in mainly in England because of the Magna Carta, which kept the king’s power in check. The other type was absolute monarchy, in which the king has power over everything, shown by the French under Louis XIV. Although these two

in 1629. It was symbolic of a time when the King felt that any joint

The relationship and status of the monarchy in parliament’s eyes had already been in a state of decline even before Charles’ reign. His predecessor had been known as the ‘wisest fool in Christendom’ and there was a lot of resentment

Moving along, the Parliament automatically felt more dissatisfied with their relationship. The parliament detested Charles I because he believed the parliament was a “waste of space”. Importantly, he would refuse to converse with parliament for any government issues but use them if money was desired. These disagreements lead to the civil war. According to our class lecture, “The king must go to parliament to get money to start an army and gets rejected so he closes the parliament and declares himself the single ruler of parliament and this tactic fails because community respects the rules of the parliament. Charles is forced to flea and forced to have an army. Charles has a large army and the dismissed parliament must also raise an army. As a consequence of farmers and artisan of that English class is radicalized” Charles ruled the Parliament government by putting taxes on ships and other products to use for army purposes. When Parliament was not on board with the new taxation, while the king starting arresting members of the parliament madness broke through and civil war took place. Parliament decided to create an army on their own to defeat the king, which they were successful. They put the king

     Charles I considered himself to be an absolute monarch in England in the 1630¡¯s. A large portion of the parliament dislikes him because they wanted more of a say on the government and because the

After the end of the civil war, officers of the New Model Army, formed by Cromwell, decided to put Charles on trial. Parliament voted to negotiate with the King in order to come to a peace agreement, but that was met with a fierce rebuke from Cromwell and his army. In order to kill any hope for the King and to prevent any kind of compromise between the King and Parliament, one hundred and eighty members of Parliament were excluded, and forty five were imprisoned for showing resistance. This act of purging was described simply as a coup d'état. (23 Laughland) If the king is truly guilty and hated by his people, Cromwell wouldn’t have needed to perform this despicable action of arresting and barring Parliament members from their seats. At this point, the authority of Parliament that was supported by the Roundheads, over the King’s, has lost all its legality. Parliament became a military tool in the hand of Cromwell and his army. In addition to this, Cromwell’s son-in-law, Henry Ireton, was the one who submitted a request to prosecute the King, which was naturally accepted by the one third of the Parliament left. A court with the name of ‘High Court of Justice’ was formed to be responsible for the King’s trial. (103-104 TURCHETTI)

Cunning. Crafty. Creative. Cruel. “Charles”, written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, is a rather chilling short story about the vulnerability of a young child’s imagination, about the fantasies of the human mind, about the manipulation of humans, and about the insidious dangers of change. Jackson’s horrific tale stealthy kidnaps the oblivious reader from their seat and takes him or her on a non-stop ride that begins in a simple family home and ends in the darkest corner of the human imagination. By manipulating the innocent thoughts as a young boy into those of a grim reality, by employing innocence to camouflage hypocrisy and duplicity and by hiding behind the faultless nature of a young imagination to hide the insidious nature he possesses,

The English had been under the combined rule of both the king and the assembly for so long that they were not ready to give all the power of government to a single person. The least influential, Charles I, was born in 1600 and died 1649 when he inherited the throne parliament was very upset with the monarchy and sought to lessen the power of the monarchy. Charles I tried to rule without consenting Parliament, but Parliament had so much control at the time that he failed to decrease its power. However, Charles believed in the divine rights of kings. Charles went on to oppress his people by levying taxes without the consent of the parliament. Many of his subjects saw him as a tyrannically oppressive leader. He created

Therefore, the king/queen only had to answer to God, not the people. Since the ruler was chosen by God it was considered axiomatic that the monarch has absolute power, after all God has great power so His earthly representative does as well (Document 7, James I of England 1609). Furthermore, because God chose the sovereign, disobeying the king was considered the same as disobeying God (Document 4, The Ideal State 1697 by Jean Domat). Of course, because the monarchs had such great power and were God’s chosen people they had to govern per God’s will, which was absolute justice. (Document 5, On Social Order and Absolute Monarchy by Jean Domat). As important this concept was in maintaining absolute monarchs, the reason that the Divine Right to Rule was so effective is because absolute monarchies primarily occurred in Catholic countries, where the monarch could gain the partnership of the Roman Catholic Church and thus win power over the

England’s lengthy history of hereditary monarchs and abusive absolutists has led to the system of constitutionalism in 17th century English government. The encouragement of these absolutism practices triggered the need to search for a new way to govern. The reigns of the Stuart monarchy led to the shift from absolutism to constitutionalism during 17th century England. After witnessing the success of Louis XIV's of France establishment of absolutism, England would soon see that James I, and his son Charles I, will fail at establishing absolutism in England and see a constitutional government established.

From 1670 Charles had a new alliance with France and he wanted a third war against the Dutch to avenge the humiliation from the second one. Between the years 1673 – 1674 saw the Dutch war go badly and it proved costly. This again showed Charles as facing difficulties from the foreign policy as he was too proud to let the war lie, and therefore again need more funding, relying on finance. Charles was forced to sign the treaty of Westminster in 1674, which was to end the conflict and England kept New York, whilst the Dutch kept Surinam. In 1675 Parliament only voted £300,000 for the Navy, but due to continuing French success against the Dutch, parliament then voted £600,000. This again shows how the foreign policy was affecting the financial situation, which then continues to drive Charles and Parliament away.

Charles I and the Establishment of Royal Absolutism Royal absolutism is a state of government whereby the monarch rules supreme, with virtually no legislative power placed in other organisations such as Parliament. For the people of England in the 1630s, it was a very real threat. After the dissolving of Parliament in 1629, Charles I embarked on his Personal Rule. Without analysing whose fault the breakdown in relations was, it was probably the only thing Charles could do in the circumstances. Certainly, no dialogue with Parliament was possible.

On January 1st of 1649, the Rump Parliament of England passed a mandate for the trial of King Charles I to which he would be charged with “subverting the fundamental laws and liberties of the nation while maliciously making war on the parliament and people of England.” After years of civil war and various failures in fulfilling kingly duties, Charles faced a trial against a strategically assembled English court that would choose his fate. This stands out in history as one of the most noteworthy and dramatic events in early modern England- a domestic political crisis unlike anything that had ever been seen before. Over the years historians have debated in how they characterize the king’s trial and its end result, referring to the execution as “a crime of the worst magnitude, a regrettable necessity, or a laudable challenge to either an individual ruler or the entire political system.” Due to the overall disapproval of the trial by prominent individuals, biased personnel assembled in the court, questionable legal legitimacy, improper court proceedings and unfortunate socio-economic circumstances during his reign, it can be concluded that King Charles I did not receive a fair trial.

After Charles's execution, England became a republic called the Commonwealth of England. A committee of Parliament ruled the country. Cromwell ended the Commonwealth of England in 1653, as I previously stated by forcibly disbanding the Long Parliament. The Parliament was called Long because part of it had been meeting since 1640. England then became a dictatorship called the Protectorate, with Cromwell as lord protector.

No king of England but Charles I was legally tried for treason and publicly executed. His execution, as a result of influentially social changes, marked the coming end of the English Civil War and the prelude of the Commonwealth. Since then, the English capitalist classes held the real power, as the feudalistic Kingdom gradually progressed to a capitalist nation. Resistance to the tyrannical rule of King Charles I was considered ‘the disenchantment of the English political classes.’ The once popular interpretation is that the religious inclination of Charles I ignited anger of the English political classes. However, the dissatisfaction of religious policies was just camouflage of political and economic conflicts between the King and English political classes. The tyrannically economic, political and religious policies made English political