The Stuarts And The Glorious English Revolution

Essay, Research Paper

Even from the beginning of his rule in 1603, James I had problems. He was short of money because of an undervalued tax base, and puritans kept demanding reforms in the Anglican church. For money, James had to sell previously confiscated lands for money. He was also constantly begging Parliament for more taxes. In response, Parliament demanded political reform. James did not like this one bit. But it was something he would have to deal with for the time being.Meanwhile, William Laud the Archbishop of Canterbury was gaining power. He was assigned the task of creating new prayer books for England and Scotland. When they were done, they were distributed throughout England and Scotland. The dean of St. Giles in Edinburgh Scotland was surprised at the reaction a simple prayer book would get. This book caused riots and protestation in the streets of Scotland. The Scots saw this as an attempt to start bringing together Presbyterian and Anglican religion. Well this did not make poor Charles very happy. Considered this rebellion. Charles got some forces put together to suppress the rebellion. The Scots marched right over them and invaded England. Charles was short of money still. He just barely made do with what he had. Now he had to deal with an invasion. He simply did not have the money for it. So, after much thought, he saw that his only choice was to call back Parliament and end the Eleven Years Tyranny. This was hard for Charles because of the many times he had dismissed Parliaments. He was reluctant to ask them for help. Charles was not very good friends with the men of Parliament, but he was dependant on them for money now so he had to listen to them. In 1640, the Long Parliament met. They took their time in dealing with the Scots. Some of them even thought that the Scots may have been right in rejecting the books. Charles was fed up. He had asked for money and/or forces to repel the Scots but Parliament would not even acknowledge his requests. Partially, they were afraid of him turning his forces against them since he could not give the order to dissolve them without their consent. He had to take action. So he did what he saw as his only option: He needed to arrest the leaders of the House of Commons. His attempt failed though. Now he was in trouble. He had to get out of London. He moved his family North to safety. Now Charles was truly angry. In 1642, he declared the leaders of Parliament rebels and the country was divided into Royalists and Parliamentarians. A nasty war followed. Once it ended, Parliament on top, the King merely had to agree to surrender his authority to Parliament and everything would continue the way it should. Charles refused. In 1648, Parliament decided that he must pay for his actions before and during the war and voted to execute him after he refused to plead guilty to their charges.