Charles I The Road To Personal Rule

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Personal Rule * Charles ruled for 11 years without Parliament. From 1629 to 1640. * This was considered legal, but unusual. It was normal for a few years to pass between Parliaments, as in Henry VII’s reign, he ran without Parliament for 7 years. * Parliament was not part of the routine machinery of government, and ruling without one made him a tyrant. Past historians refer his 11 years without Parliament as ‘The Eleven Years’ Tyranny’. * Historian John Morrill Identified several grounds on which Charles could be charged with legal tyranny, but the problem with most of the reasons are that they stemmed off of what we did during before and after the 1630s than what he did during the 1630s. * Historians have also…show more content…
* Sharpe acknowledged that the grounds for war were flimsy. * ‘Charles’ sense of wounded honour had initiated the conflict’ with Spain and England had merely ‘drifted’ into was with France, ‘not least as a consequence of the Duke of Buckingham’s personal quarrels with Cardinal Richelieu’. * With this being the case, why should Parliament be blamed for failing to maintain such wars arising from personal resentment? * Reeve’s “Charles I and the Road to Personal Rule” is, unlike Sharpe’s work, critical of Charles. * Having been forced into peace, Charles was inclined to stay at peace because of any resumption of wat would require a resemption of Parliament to pay for it. * Charles entered the Personal Rule surrounded by ministers who had their own reasons for avoiding war and Parliaments. * Archbishop Laud and Lord Treasurer Weston were the most powerful men in the first half of the personal rule. * Laud and Portland had been prominent in advising the dissolution of Parliament in 1629, and both rightly feared they would be attacked in any new
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