THE
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE EARLY STUARTS KINGS AND PARLIAMENT
The Stuarts are recognized as the first
kings of the U.K. Among the Stuarts is Charles 1 who is the second son of James
Vi. King Charles succeeded Prince Henry
and became the second Stuart King of Great Britain. Similarly, king James was
the first king of Scotland, and then he went, and become the Stuart king of
United Kingdom as James Vi. During their reign, there were some issues, but one
of the major issues was the poor relations with their parliament. On several
occasions, misunderstanding and uncertainties were revolving the relationship
between the authorities and the parliament. The parliament was supposed to be
democratic and focus on addressing the concerns of the common people. However,
the parliament received immense opposition from the dynasty. The crown leadership
was only interested in addressing their interest and those of the merchant
classes. The poor relations between the legislators and the crown were because
of the corrupt and selfish Stuarts kings.
The early Stuarts wanted to be financially
sound at whoever cost. The Stuarts monarch ware unable to create their
despotism without making themselves wealthy. Even though the Stuarts were very
popular, they were unable to get a substantial grant from the parliament. The
parliament was recognizing its rights, and they did not want to break it at the
expense of other people to make happy the throne. The parliament resulted not
to give heavy finances to the crown with the idea that they may misuse it [1].
On the contrast, the Stuarts argued that for the ruling of the nation, they
needed a strong and large army. Furthermore, a strong and big army was to put
them in a strategic position to form allies with other kingdoms. The crown
insisted on spending more funds in the army. It led to the multiplication
economic difficulties in the country. For the crown to deal with the difficult
economic, they resulted in the arbitrary taxation. The parliament decided not
to accept the direction of the arbitrary taxation condemning it. The
legislators insisted there should not be taxes without the consent of the
parliament and give out its grouse in the petition of rights. The move created a conflict between the king
and the parliament. The king even though he showed some efforts to avoid
assenting to the petition, he was obliged to give his formal consent. The king
further ordered the adjournment of the parliament, but before the order takes
place the speaker of the house was forced down in its chair and at least three
resolutions were passed complaining about the misconduct of the king. Kind
Charles then realized that his act was capable of turning the people against
him. Therefore, he resulted to rule his kingdom over the decade without using
the parliament. With the king ignoring the advice of the parliament and looked
to be determined to make sure all his wishes are fulfilled; it was clear that
conflict with the legislators was to happen unless either of the two sides
tones down their stand.
The religion was a major factor in the
creation of poor relations between the parliament and the Stuarts kings. At
first, when James was ascending to the throne, numerous religious parties were
working hard to gain concessions from the owner of the realm of the new ruling.
At that time the most powerful party was of the puritans [2].
There was the majority in the house of Commons. This group has organized
themselves to make sure the Ecclesiastical settlement of Elizabeth has been
revisited and revised. The group was catholic, and with the changes in the
dynasty, they were plans to restore and align England’s connection with the
Roman Pope. On the contract, king James had made up his mind. He had concluded
to maintain the same church system that had been started by Queen Elizabeth.
However, after Kind Charles took the throne, he married Henrietta Maria of
France. Considering France was catholic, Charles was destined to be more
favorable of the catholic system. In the end, king Charles under the influence
of his wife, he becomes catholic. Its act did not receive a good reception from
the people. A lot of people were protesting the move, and some even turn
against him. Considering the Puritans were occupying more seats in parliament,
they were not happy with the undue Favours that, were given to the Catholics.
In the end, king Charles’s religious policies resulted in the famous civil war.
King Charles by adopting Catholic in England, was to make happy his wife at the
expense of the general public. His predecessors had laid down the foundation of
a different church system. The Puritans was well entrenched and prevalent in
the whole country, and it was to take more to replace it with another religion.
Therefore, the conflict between the parliament and Charles was formed on the
ground of egocentric.
The
personal nature of King James and Charles created the conflict with the
parliament. The personalities of the two
Stuarts kings of England were to the extreme level and the reason enough to
create a poor relationship between the two houses. The two were working on the
assumptions that they are the representative of God [3].
It made them feel uncomfortable with parliament interference with the affairs
of the throne. They went ahead and set precedence to the future king on the
approaches to raise funds to take care of the personal expenditure. For them to achieve this, they employ
numerous illegal methods to raise cash. Their successors once ascending to the throne
follow the same unorthodox method to raise money for their personal use.
Nevertheless. The Stuarts were living a very expensive life. Thus, the source
assists from the parliament frequently for the economic grant. The parliament
was uncomfortable with the dynasty frequently seeking for financial aid. It
resulted in the parliament questioning the dynasty act and the misappropriation
of the funds [4].
On the other hand, the Stuarts kings did not welcome the move and resulted in
resolving the parliament. The kings have shown that they were unwilling to cut
down their expenses, and they were more ready to take unprecedented more to see
their needs fully fulfilled. Therefore, the extravagant life made the dynasty
to conflict with the parliament.
There
was a fight on the control of the ministries. Both the parliament and the kings
were fighting the supremacy on the control of the ministers. While the kings
argued that they were the one appointing the ministers, the parliament insisted
that they are an oversight body. The parliament based its arguments on the
practices of the Angevin a Lancastrian [5].
Based on this argument, they argued they claim that they had the right to have
control over the ministers. In this regard, the parliament went ahead and,
impeach several ministers working for the Stuarts. The act received great
opposition from the kings and, they were destined to lose against the parliament [6]. On the other hand, the kings remained adamant
and stubborn, and they did not give up their practices. The results are that
the parliament, and the people join hands and condemn the executive. The dispute
made the kings unpopular among the general practices. The general public was
claiming that the executive was defending incompetent people who were only
adding misery to them instead of executing their jobs and improve the living
standard of the people. Most of the impeached ministers were allegedly corrupt
and were involved in various cases of mismanagement and embezzlement of the
public funds. Therefore, it was inappropriate for the executive to keep
defending and encouraging the same people to be in leading positions. Thus, the
poor relationship between the Stuarts Kings, and the parliament was as a result
of the dynasty putting more emphasis on their issues and not the concerns and
desire of the people.
Summerly, in the past kings, were given a
lot of power and were supposed to live a lavish life. Powerful King was
manifested by the number of assets collection, especially valuables assets such
a gold. Moreover, the kings were assumed to be powerful if only they had strong
armies. Therefore, they were compelled to focus more on addressing these
personal issues rather than the plight of the people. On the contract, the
people were to be represented in the parliament by the elected legislators. The
work of the parliament is the dynasty watchdog and make sure they are
protecting the interest of the common people at all costs. With the parliament
trying to execute their job by reminding the executive of their roles, the
dynasty did not take lightly the interference, and it resulted in conflict. The
kings fought back in various ways. They include assuming the directive and
resolutions from parliament, dissolving the parliament and ruling for long
period without involving the parliament.
References
Burgess, Glenn. Absolute monarchy and
the Stuart constitution. Yale University Press, 1996.
Davies, Godfrey. The Early Stuarts,
1603-1660. Vol. 9. Oxford University Press, 1959.
Koenigsberger, Helmut G. "Monarchies and
parliaments in early modern Europe." Theory and Society 5,
no. 2 (1978): 191-217.
Kenyon, John Philipps, ed. The Stuart
constitution, 1603-1688: documents and commentary. Cambridge University
Press, 1986.
Monod, Paul Kléber. The power of kings:
monarchy and religion in Europe, 1589-1715. Yale University Press, 2001.
Reeve, Lovell J. Charles I and the road
to personal rule. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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