The Personal Rule of Charles I

 When, historians ask, did the English Civil War (or the War of the Three Kingdoms) start? Well, there is an obvious answer, of course, which is when Charles I raised his standard in 1642. But historians tend to look further back. Was the cause of the civil wars the Scottish rebellion, the Irish rebellion, the general lack of money, the ship money demands, the ‘eleven year’s tyranny’ of Charles I, the state of religion or other causes? Similarly, if you look to structural explanations we can have the rise of the gentry, the decline of the gentry, the climatic conditions of the early 17^th Century, increases or decreases in trade, inflation due to the influx of silver from South America and, I am sure, many other ‘explanations’.

Another book which I wished, many years ago, that I could afford, was this:

Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, Yale, 1992).

As I observed a long time ago on Facebook, this is a weighty tome: 954 pages of text, more or less. It has taken me ages to read but, as the Estimable Mrs P observed, I did rather enjoy it. She also asked whether I had changed my mind at all about Charles I. The date of his execution, commemorated in the lectionary of the Church of England, was fast approaching, and she wondered if I would say the collect that day. I might come back to that later.

Sharpe’s argument, so far as I can grasp it, is that 1637, the date of the Prayer Book riots in Scotland, was the key date in the personal rule. Before then there were the usual grumbles, but no one, puritan or high church, was really angry or upset enough about the government to take any action. In particular, Sharpe suggests, that the notorious cases which were portrayed as anti-Puritan, against the likes of Prynne, did not really establish any overall public sympathy for the Puritans, per se. Similarly, while the ship money case had raised legal questions about its validity, and hence the royal prerogative as the instrument of taxation, the tax was still paid and the fleet was taking shape, and, indeed, becoming a significant factor in diplomacy.

Sharpe paints a picture of England in the early 1630s as being at peace with itself. While a few radicals on both sides were trying to up the stakes, really, no-one wanted to get deeply involved in the wars on the continent. Charles followed a roughly pro-Spanish policy, on the basis that as the Spanish occupied the Palatinate, and English policy was directed to reinstating the Elector, it was the most pragmatic approach.

Pragmatic, perhaps, but not popular, at least among the more Protestant parts of the nation, who looked back to the good old days of war with Spain. On the other hand, English strategy had to be to keep the southern coast of the Channel in friendly hands, and that could mean either the French and Dutch (as they moved into alliance) or Spain. My interest in this part of the period arose due to the negotiations of 1636, where Charles sent envoys to Madrid, Paris, and Vienna, with different results.

Still, Sharpe argues that nothing much precipitated a crisis in England as much as the Scottish rebellion and Charles’ reactions to it. The First Bishop’s War exhausted the treasury and resulted in failure. Whether, as Sharpe suggests, the Scots were in a position to really fight, and a reverse at Kelso could have changed the whole complexion of the crisis is interesting and could deserve a wargame. However, the failure caused an acute fiscal crisis which needed a Parliament to address.

The problem with the Short Parliament was the argument as to whether taxes or grievances should come first. As taxes were not forthcoming the King dissolved Parliament and struggled on. Sharpe suggests that the dislocation in the provinces of this, the constant demands for money in various ways to pay the troops and the ultimate defeat in the Second Bishop’s War really caused the political crisis of the Long Parliament and led, ultimately, to the outbreak of civil war.

There were other factors, of course. Scottish and Puritan propaganda and fears of a Popish plot did not help. The activities of Pym and his allies, in probably treasonous correspondence with the Scots almost certainly led to Pym precipitating some of the crises just to stay out of prison. Whether, however, the crisis would have led to civil war without the Irish rebellion and the arguments about who was to control the army is a bit moot. Charles was proving to be untrustworthy and that cost him, initially at least, the support of quite a few moderate MPs who, in due course, became royalists (such as Edward Hyde, for example).

So far was wargaming goes, there are the obvious opportunities of the Bishop’s Wars, as noted above. There are also some items in the wars of the 1620s which could deserve attention, as Charles managed to arrange being at war with both the Spanish and the French at the same time. The problems that caused led to the personal rule in the first place as the Parliaments called to supply those wars proved to be unruly.

There are other, perhaps more far-fetched possibilities for the imaginative wargamer, however. For example, the Spanish were so desperate, particularly after the Battle of the Downs in 1639, to keep a supply route open to the Low Countries, that they were prepared to offer Charles 8000 troops to put the Scots down. That would be a political disaster for Charles, of course, but a fascinating wargame possibility. There are also possibilities of the fleet being used to either close or open the Channel to Spanish shipping, either in alliance with or opposition to the Franco-Dutch alliance. The possibilities are manifold.

This is a massive, and massively detailed work on the period. I am not sure that it made me much more sympathetic to Charles, however, although it did make me more sympathetic to Strafford and Laud, who were really made scapegoats for the crisis of the monarchy. Sharpe observes that Charles I was not a good politician, unlike his father and his son, and that made things more likely to unravel rather than less. But, perhaps, ruling three different kingdoms from London in the early modern period was always going to be problematic, especially without much money or military force.