Monarchy with David Starkey (2004–2007): Season 2, Episode 4 - The Stuart Succession - full transcript
James I takes the throne as the first "king of Great Britain," ruling not only England, but also Scotland and Ireland. But the Stuart reign soon turns from heady triumph to failure and civil war.
DAVID STARKEY: August 1588.
Europe is convulsed by religious war
and Protestant England faces the
world!s foremost Catholic power.
With the Spanish Armada
in the Channel
and the large and fearsomely
professional Spanish Army
in the Low Countries,
England is under dire threat.
On 18 August 1588, Queen Elizabeth l
came to review her troops
here at Tilbury.
She wore a breastplate
and carried a sword
and addressed them in words that
have echoed down the centuries.
Ffl know l have the body
of a weak and feeble woman,
ffbut l have the heart
and stomach of a king,
ffand of a king of England too,
ffand think foul scorn that Parma
or Spain or any prince of Europe
ffshould dare invade
the border of my realm.!!
But even as the Queen spoke,
the moment of danger had passed.
The English fire ships had broken up
the Armada!s invincible formation
off Calais,
and coastal storms
would do the rest.
Nevertheless, despite the defeat
ofthe Spanish Armada,
England would not escape
the horrors of religious war,
and some ofthose who!d heard
Elizabeth at Tilbury
might live long enough
to see another English monarch
raise his banner in defiance
on English soil.
But this time, the King!s enemies
would not be foreign princes,
but his own people.
Within a generation,
the monarchywas to pass
from the triumphs of Elizabeth
to the humiliation and defeat
of her Stuart successors.
With the defeat
ofthe Spanish Armada,
Elizabeth!s reputation stood
at a zenith at home and abroad.
Even the Pope, who!d helped
finance the Armada expedition,
expressed his admiration of her,
and only regretted that theywere
unable to have children together.
Inheriting their combined talents,
their offspring would rule the world,
he said.
Defending the realm
was the most fundamental duty
of an English monarch,
and Elizabeth had acquitted herself
admirably.
But Elizabeth inherited a crown,
the lmperial Crown,
whose power had been greatly expanded
by her father Henry Vlll!s decision
to make himself
Supreme Head ofthe Church
and control the religion
of his subjects,
as well as their everyday lives.
Could Elizabeth,
mere woman that she was,
maintain this lofty claim?
Known as the froyal supremacy!,
the monarch!s powers over religion
proved to be a double-edged sword,
for the Crown had taken control
ofthe Church
at a time of uniquely bitter
religious conflict.
Protestant fought with Catholic,
and different kinds of Protestant
fought with each other.
How could the monarch,
as Supreme Head ofthe Church,
avoid being drawn into this conflict
which threatened to turn
quarrels about religion
into disputes with the Crown?
Elizabeth did her best in
establishing a Church of England
that was Protestant in its doctrines
but Catholic in the appearance
of its ceremonies and clerical dress.
Elizabeth!s policywas successful in
heading off much Catholic opposition
but it had the opposite effect
of opening up divisions
on the Protestant side
between those who wanted the
rigorous, stripped-down Protestantism
ofthe Continent and Scotland,
and those who followed Elizabeth
in her attachment
to bishops and ceremonies.
This was not a struggle between
government and opposition.
Rather, it was a schism
within the highest ranks
ofthe Elizabethan establishment,
with Elizabeth!s chief minister and
eldest confidant, William Cecil,
on one side,
and her Archbishop of Canterbury,
William Whitgift, on the other.
The bad feeling between the two men
burst into the open
in the Queen!s own presence,
and Elizabeth came down publicly
and heavily on Whitgift!s side.
Matters of religion, she insisted,
were for her and her bishops alone.
Neither the Council nor Parliament
had any say in the matter.
Instead, since her supremacy over the
Church came to her from God alone,
she was answerable only to God for
how she chose to exercise it.
This was Henry Vlll!s own high view
ofthe royal supremacy
and in sticking to it,
Elizabeth showed herself
every inch her father!s daughter.
But who would continue the difficult
but necessary balancing act
ofthe middle way in religion
after the ageing Elizabeth?
Her nearest blood relation
was King James Vl of Scotland,
son of a Catholic mother but brought
up in the rigorously Protestant Kirk.
The possibility of James!s accession
aroused wildly contrasting hopes.
Whilst he was still only a claimant,
he could flatter them all.
But when - if- he became
king of England,
he would have to choose.
Crowned at the parish kirk
in Stirling on 29 July 1567,
James had been king of Scotland
since he was a small boy.
He was also heir to his mother!s
claims to England.
James was the only child of Mary
Queen of Scots!s disastrous marriage
to Lord Darnley.
When he was barely a year old,
his mother, widely suspected
of murdering his father,
had been forced to flee to England
by a Protestant revolt.
But cradle king though he was, James
still needed rearing and educating,
like any other child.
This boy of great rank
and greater prospects still
was largely brought up
at Stirling Castle.
It was a strange, insecure
kind of childhood.
A series of regents who ruled
Scotland on his behalf
were murdered in quick succession
and the boy!s own life
was more than once in danger.
In and among it all, James received
an impressive education
at the hands of his principal tutor,
George Buchanan.
Dour and self-opinionated,
Buchanan was a leading figure
in the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk
in which the supreme authoritywas
not the king, as in England,
but the General Assembly
ofthe clergy.
Kings also, Buchanan believed, were
mere servants oftheir people,
who could and should be punished
ifthey misbehaved.
Buchanan!s style as a teacher
was important too.
Like many 16th-century teachers,
Buchanan thought that sparing
the rod spoiled the child
and he set about beating and birching
his beliefs and learning into James,
with gusto.
This treatment, indeed, succeeded in
making James a considerable scholar,
but in terms of religion
and politics,
it produced only an equal
and opposite reaction
to which James
was able to give expression
with unusual force and clarity.
And this is the result - it!s
!The True Law of Free Monarchies!,
which James wrote and published
in 1598.
In it, he says succinctly,
ffKings are called gods.
FfThey are appointed by God
and answerable only to God.!!
James grounded these assertions,
just as Henry Vlll had his claim
to the royal supremacy,
in the Biblical story
ofthe Old Testament kings.
But James went beyond even Henry Vlll
by claiming to be absolute
in affairs of state
as well as those ofthe Church.
In 1601 , Elizabeth!s leading
ministers began to make moves
to secure James!s path
to the English throne.
The matter became pressing during
the Christmas holidays of 1603,
when both Elizabeth!s health
and her temper suddenlyworsened.
In mid-January, she moved
to Richmond for a change of air,
but, within a fewweeks,
she was clearly dying.
She lay on a pile of cushions on
the floor of her pri chamber,
refusing to eat and unable to sleep.
Finally, she was carried to her bed,
became speechless,
and died in the small hours
ofthe morning of 24 March,
after Archbishop Whitgift had lulled
her into her last sleep
with his impassioned prayers.
Elizabeth had restored Protestantism,
preserved the royal supremacy,
protected her country from invasion
and allowed nothing to challenge
either her crown or her popularity.
Above all, her studiously broad
church religious settlement
had brought peace,
though at the inevitable price of
alienating eremes of all sorts.
With the great Queen dead,
all eyes nowturned to Scotland
and to James.
James Vl of Scotland was proclaimed
King James l of England
within eight hours
of Elizabeth!s death
and his first Parliament proclaimed
that he was,
by inherent birthright
and lawful succession,
the inheritor ofthe lmperial Crown
of England and Scotland.
It sounded good, but it was
a dangerous doctrine
since it implied that James!s
title to the throne
was above and beyond the law,
as, of course, James himself,
as the author of fThe True Law
of Free Monarchies!, firmly believed.
In April 1603,
James arrived in London in triumph
as the undoubted heir of his
great-great-grandfather Henry Vll.
Henry Vll had commissioned
the lmperial Crown here
as the symbol ofthe recovery
ofthe monarchy
from the degradation
ofthe Wars ofthe Roses.
Now James, the first
ruler of all Britain,
would endow it with a larger
significance still.
James!s aim was to be
!Rex Pacificus!, the Peacemaker King.
He would reconcile
Catholic and Protestant,
thus re-establishing Christian unity
at home and abroad.
He would end England!s
debilitating warwith Spain
and, above all, he would terminate
the ancient feud between
England and Scotland
and fuse, instead,
the two warring kingdoms
into a new, greater
united realm of Britain.
It was an enormously ambitious
program,
and, to realise it, James,
in a strikingly modern gesture,
summoned three major conferences
on peace, religion
and union with Scotland.
The peace conference and
ensuing treaty at Somerset House
were commemorated in this painting.
Through them, James ended
the 20-yearwarwith Catholic Spain.
It was an auspicious start for James,
the international peacemaker,
but the result, paradoxically,
was trouble at home.
On the one hand,
the Somerset House treaty
meant that the hotter Protestants
were shocked to discover
that England, now at peace
with the leading Catholic power,
would no longer be the champion of
their fellow Protestants in Europe.
And, on the other hand,
the eremer Catholics
were equally dismayed to find out
that Spain had not eracted
toleration for Catholics
as a price ofthe peace.
Abandoned abroad, such Catholics
turned in desperation
to self-help and direct action
at home.
At the beginning of November 1605,
James was shown a tip-off letter
warning that the political
establishment of England
would receive a terrible blow
in the Parliament he was
due to open on 5 November.
James immediately guessed
that the wording ofthe letter
pointed to an explosion,
but in order to catch
the plotters red-handed
it was decided not to search the
vaults under the parliament chamber
until the night ofthe fourth.
At 11pm, the search party entered
and found a man standing guard
over a pile of firewood,
35 barrels of gunpowder,
and with a fuse in his pocket.
His name was Guy Fawkes.
Ifthe gunpowder
had exploded as planned,
it would have been
the terrorist bombing
to end all terrorist bombings,
wiping out most of
the British royal family
and the entire English
political establishment.
Nevertheless, the immediate political
consequences were small.
To James!s credit,
there was no widespread persecution
of Catholics in England,
and the peace with Spain held,
but in the longer term,
the plot played an important part
in the development
ofthe Catholic myth in England.
The realitywas that
English Catholicism
was a beleaguered minority faith.
But in the fevered imagination
ofthe hotter sort of Protestants
it became, instead,
the fifth column
of a vast international
politico-religious conspiracy,
masterminded by the Pope in Rome
and aiming not only
at the conversion of England
but at the subversion of English
Protestantism and English freedoms
and by the foulest possible means.
And so, at the second
of James!s great conferences
to determine the nature
ofthe religious settlement
under the new king,
those hot Protestants,
known pejoratively as fPuritans!
Demanded that
the English Church be purged
ofwhat they regarded
as its damnable popish elements.
But they reckoned without
the seductive powers
ofthe English monarchy
and the English royal supremacy.
In Scotland, James Vl had sat
in the body ofthe church
to be admonished by the preacher
high in his pulpit
as fGod!s silly vessel!.
But in England, as here in
the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court,
it was this same man, now known as
King James l, who sat high above,
enthroned in this magnificent
royal pew,
whilst the preacher,
under correction,
went about his humbler task
far below.
It was the most graphic
possible illustration
ofthe power ofthe royal supremacy
which James was determined
to keep in England,
and, if he could,
to eend to Scotland.
Instead, therefore,
as the Puritans had hoped,
of making the Church of England
more like the Kirk in Scotland,
James used the Hampton Court
conference
to proclaim that he was satisfied
with the Elizabethan
religious settlement as it stood
and was resolved
to keep it as it was.
He would not,
any more than Elizabeth,
soften Archbishop Whitgift!s
hard line
in enforcing ceremonies and vestments
which the Puritans thought popish.
And, above all, he would allow
not an inch of movement
away from the English government
ofthe Church by bishops
towards a role for presbyteries,
or assemblies of clergy,
as in Scotland.
He even managed to subvert
the Puritan demand
for a newtranslation ofthe Bible.
James eagerly agreed,
since he detested this,
the so-called fGeneva! version
ofthe Bible,
which was then used by Presbyterians
in Scotland and Puritans in England
because of its marginal notes
which showed a typically
hot Protestant disrespect
for kings and queens.
The King James version ofthe Bible,
on the other hand,
as the large and learned team
oftranslators explained
in this preface,
was to tread soberly the middle way
between popish persons
on the one hand
and the self-conceited brethren -
that is, the Puritans - on the other.
It was born out of a long-dead
politico-theological dispute
and it!s the only classic ever to
have been written by a committee.
Nevertheless, the King James version
ofthe Bible became the book
which, more than any other,
shaped the English language
and formed the English mind.
James!s other lasting legacy
was the union ofthe crowns
of England and Scotland,
and he set out his case for union
in a speech from the throne
at the opening of his first
English Parliament in March 1604.
His succession had united the
kingdoms of England and Scotland,
ending the ancient division
ofthe island of Britain.
Moreover, the King claimed, these
divisions were largely in the mind.
Were not England and Scotland already
united by a common language,
the Protestant religion
and similar customs and manners?
Was not the border practically
indistinguishable on the ground?
It was as though God had always
intended the union to happen.
To resist union, therefore,
James concluded,
was not simply impolitic,
but impious.
It was to put asunder kingdoms which
God himself had joined together.
But the English Parliament
impoliticly and impiously
decided to look the gift horse
of union in the mouth.
Partly it was a question
of straightforward
anti-Scottish xenophobia.
But more fundamental causes
were involved as well.
These centred on James!s
apparently innocuous wish
to rename the Anglo-Scottish kingdom
!Britain!.
But a new name meant a new kingdom.
It would be like, one MP said,
a freshly conquered territory
in the NewWorld.
There would be no laws
and no customs,
and James, by his own rules in
'The True Law of Free Monarchies',
would be free to set himself up
as an absolute, supranational emperor
of Great Britain.
The English Parliament, in contrast,
would be left
as a mere provincial assembly.
It wasn!t an enticing prospect
for MPs who sawthemselves as
the fgreat council ofthe realm!.
James!s reaction was to try to enact
the union symbolically,
using his own powers
under the royal prerogative.
By proclamation, he assumed the title
of fKing of Great Britain!.
He redesigned the royal coat of arms
with the lion of England balanced
by the unicorn of Scotland.
Then he insisted on a British flag,
known as the fJack!,
after the Latin form
ofthe name James,
again by proclamation.
But not content with symbols,
James also practised
a kind of union by stealth.
The English political elite
had prevented him
from establishing an evenly balanced
Anglo-Scots council.
But a king could do what he liked
with his own court,
so, in revenge,
James filled his bedchamber,
the inner ring of his court,
almost exclusivelywith Scots.
It was a pleasure,
since James took a more-than-fatherly
interest
in braw Scots lads with
well-turned legs and firm buttocks.
But it also suited him politically,
since it compelled proud Englishmen
to sue for patronage
to his Scots favourites.
And they had to bribe them as well.
But James!s policy of union
by stealth had a fatal flaw.
He had inherited a substantial
debt from Elizabeth,
he!d a large family to maintain,
and he wanted to continue
pouring money
on his favourites and his pleasures.
For all this, the Crown!s so-called
!ordinary income!
From land and custom duties,
was hopelessly inadequate.
There was no choice but to ask
Parliament to vote money.
But the English Parliament
saw no reason
why taxpayers! money, their money,
should end up in the pockets
of Scots favourites,
and they said so rather crudely.
FfHo!, asked one MP, ffcould
the cistern ofthe Treasury
ffever be filled up if money continued
to flowthence by private cocks?!!
!Cocks! meant taps, and, well...
what it means now.
So James!s project for British union
remained an unfulfilled dream
whilst his relations with Parliament
turned into a disaster.
By the time of his death in 1625,
he had gone into
a sort of internal exile,
abandoning the task of government
and secluding himselfwith
his favourites and his horses.
Nevertheless, James managed
by a miure oftact, duplicity
and masterful inaction
to stick to the middle ground and to
hold together the warring eremes
ofthe Church of England
on the one hand,
and the differing religious polities
of England and Scotland on the other.
The result was a smooth succession
on both sides ofthe border
of James!s son Charles
to the glittering inheritance of
the lmperial Crown of Great Britain.
But within a decade and a half,
Charles, by his intransigence
and his ineptitude,
had thrown it all away.
Charles was crowned King of England
at Westminster Abbey
on 2 February 1626.
For James, divine right had been
an intellectual position.
For Charles, it was
an emotional and religious one.
This was immediately made clear
by his coronation service,
which, meticulously choreographed
by the up and coming cleric
William Laud,
lovingly reproduced all the splendour,
solemnity and sacred mysteries
ofthe medieval Catholic rite.
The ceremony
is one ofthe best documented
as well as the best organised
of coronations
thanks to the survival
ofthese two service books here.
This is Charles!s own copy
ofthe coronation service
which he used to followthe ceremony.
And this is Laud!s version
ofthe same te
which he used like a kind of score
to conduct the service.
He also made notes in the margins
in a different coloured ink
to record unusual features ofthe
ceremony as it actually took place.
These notes take us
into Charles!s own mind.
During the 5-hour-long ceremony,
the King was invested
with the carefully preserved
robes and regalia
of Edward the Confessor,
the last sainted Anglo-Saxon king.
And Charles!s attitude to these
ancient relics was unique.
Here Laud notes that he insisted
on placing his feet
inside the sacred buskins or sandals
that were normally only touched
against the royal leg.
And here, that he actually used,
apparently for the only time in the
1 ,500-year history ofthe coronation,
the Anglo-Saxon ivory comb
to tidy his hair after
he!d been anointed on the head.
This wasn!t mere idle curiosity.
Instead, Charles was treating each
and every item ofthe regalia
as a sacrament of monarchy.
With each touch ofthe precious oils
and the ancient fabrics and jewels,
God was washing away
the merely human in him
and leaving him purely, indefeasibly
and absolutely a king.
Or so Charles, at least, thought.
Charles, as his behaviour
at his coronation would suggest,
was an aesthete, a lover of beauty,
elegance and order.
His tutor had been chosen
not for his scholarship,
but for his taste in fashion,
and Charles himself grew up to be not
only fastidious in dress and manners,
but also the greatest connoisseur
ever to have sat
on the throne of England.
He built up a staggering collection
of old master paintings
and he commissioned portraits
of himself and his family
from the greatest contemporary
artists like Sir Anthony Vandyke.
And it is Vandyke above all who shows
us Charles as he wanted to be,
suggesting the grandeur
of his kingship on the one hand
and the Christ-like
wisdom and self-sacrifice
with which he hoped to rule
on the other.
Like most royal heirs,
Charles defined himself
by espousing policies which were
the opposite of his father!s.
He was pro-war, but Parliament,
despite its vocal enthusiasm
for a Protestant crusade in Europe,
was never prepared to vote enough tax
to make war a serious option.
Frustrated by Parliament!s
unwillingness
to put its moneywhere
its Protestant mouth was,
Charles, instead of fighting
the Catholic French,
married the French, and of course,
Catholic, princess, Henrietta Maria
in 1626.
On account of her religion,
the marriage was eremely unpopular
with Parliament.
It didn!t even succeed in cementing
an alliance with France.
The result was that Charles
soon found himself
in the worst of all possible worlds -
without tax, with a Catholic wife,
and fighting a hopeless war against
both major Catholic powers -
France and Spain.
Charles, looking for a scapegoat
for the debacle,
found it in what he saw as
Parliament!s sullen obstructiveness.
Charles decided that parliaments were
more trouble than theywere worth
and that, in future,
he would rule without them.
All over Europe, monarchs were
dispensing with parliaments,
so in attempting personal rule,
Charles was simply following
the European trend,
but unlike his European counterparts,
Charles lacked the legal ability
to tax his subjects at will.
Only a parliament could
legislate newtaxes,
so, like his father before him,
Charles!s only recourse
was to squeeze more revenue
out of his customary
rights and prerogatives.
Fortunately, he got
a crack team of lawyers to help him.
The most ingenious was the
Attorney-General, William Noy.
Ffl moyl in the la! was the
contemporary anagram of his name,
and he fmoyled!, that is,
toiled or laboured,
in the legal archives
to great effect,
but his masterpiece was ship money.
Ship moneywas a traditional le
imposed on the port towns
to raise vessels for the na
in time ofwar,
as, for example,
against the Spanish Armada
in the heyday
of Elizabethan England.
This was uncontroversial,
even popular.
But Attorney-General Noy said
that the law allowed the King
to eend ship money from the ports
to the inland counties
and to impose it in peacetime
as well as during war.
All this at the King!s mere say-so.
The eended ship money
was first imposed in 1634
and, within a year, it was yielding
over £200,000 annually
and producing 90olo
ofwhat the King demanded.
This was the Holy Grail
which had eluded English kings
ever since the Middle Ages -
a large-scale, permanent income
which came in regularly,
year by year,
without the bother
of consulting parliaments.
The idea oftaxing without
parliamentary consent
was bound to cause grievance,
and Charles exacerbated matters
by attempting religious innovation
as well.
Whatever the formal rules
ofthe Church of England,
much ofthe country had seen
the development
of a stripped-down, fundamentalist
Protestantism,
very little different in practice
from the Scottish Kirk.
But a richer, more ceremonious vision
had been preserved
in a handful of places,
in particular, in the chapels royal
and the greater cathedrals.
Here there were choirs,
organs and music,
candles and gold and silver plate
on the communion tables,
and rich vestments for the clergy.
William Laud, now Charles!s
Archbishop of Canterbury,
determined to use the royal supremacy
to impose this opulent religious
tradition on the whole country.
He did so because he thought religion
should be about sacraments
as well as sermons,
and appeal to the senses
as well as to the mind.
In England, the policy, despite
some foot-dragging and protest,
aroused little overt resistance.
Indeed, manywelcomed it.
Emboldened, Charles and Laud decided
that it should be eended
to Scotland as well.
Here, the Reformation had been
far more thoroughgoing and radical
and the risks of change
were correspondingly greater.
But Charles, confident as ever
in his God-given rightness,
was undeterred.
He decided that a barely modified
version ofthe English prayer book
should be used throughout Scotland,
and he did so
on his own personal authority,
without consulting either
the Scottish Parliament
or the General Assembly ofthe Kirk.
Charles was behaving as though
he were the supreme governor
ofthe Scottish Kirk indeed.
But would the Scottish Presbyterians
accept his authority?
The answer came
on Sunday 28 July 1637,
when the new prayer book
was used for the first time
here in St Giles Cathedral
in Edinburgh,
in the presence ofthe assembled
Pri Council of Scotland.
But as soon as the dean
had begun the service,
a great shout erupted from the crowds
at the back ofthe church.
Hea clasped Bibles
and folding stools
were hurled at the councillors
and the clergy
and the rioters were only ejected
from the church with difficulty
by the guards.
And, even outside,
they continued pounding on the doors
and pelting the windows
until the service was finished.
Then the protest turned political,
and here in Greyfriars Kirk
in Edinburgh,
an influential group
of citizens and noblemen
drew up and signed an undertaking
to resist Charles
and the innovations and evils
he!d introduced into the Kirk.
Borrowing the name
from God!s solemn compact
with the Jews in the Old Testament,
the undertaking was known
as the fCovenant!,
and its adherents were
called fCovenanters!.
The scene at Greyfriars was repeated
in churches all over the Lowlands.
It was nowthe Covenanters,
not Charles, who controlled Scotland.
Britain, which so far had escaped
the wars of religion
that had devastated
much ofthe rest of Europe,
now faced the horrors of
sectarian conflict on its own soil.
By 1640, Charles!s religious policies
had brought about a crisis
throughout Britain.
Scotland was in the hands
ofthe Covenanters,
whilst in England, Charles!s
opponents drew strength
from events north ofthe border.
But it was the recall of Parliament
after 11 years
which brought things to a head.
Charles had no choice,
since only Parliament
could vote the money needed
to suppress the Covenanters,
but equally, Parliament
proved an unrivalled forum
for the King!s opponents.
The most dangerous ofthese
was the hitherto obscure lawyer
and MP for Tavistock, John Pym.
Pym believed that Charles!s policies
in Church and state
were the result
of a Catholic conspiracy
to subvert the religion
and liberties of England.
But instead ofwasting his time
in fruitless opposition,
he!d used the 11 years
without a Parliament
to build up a compelling dossier
for his case.
In the 1630s, Pym read voraciously,
followed every detail of politics
at home and abroad
and noted down
useful headings and eracts
in this little book here.
The result was that when Charles
was forced to recall Parliament,
Pym was the best-informed and
the best-prepared man in the House,
readywith both a rhetoric of
opposition to Charles!s government
and a plan of action
for curbing royal power.
Charles hoped to prey
on English xenophobia
to persuade Parliament to impose
an immediate vast tax
to crush the traitorous Scots.
Pym countered
by dragging up his list
of political and religious grievances
against Charles!s government
ofthe 1630s.
Charles then tried
to break the deadlock
by hinting at the surrender
of ship money,
but the hint only emboldened Pym.
Finally, Charles lost patience
with a Parliament
which had, once again,
failed to deliver,
and dissolved it
after less than a month.
He would fight the Scots
without a parliamentary grant.
It was a catastrophic decision.
These are the mighty ramparts
of Berwick-on-Tweed...
...the border fortress
built by King Henry Vlll
to protect England from the Scots.
Expensively refortified by Charles,
it stood as a seemingly impregnable
barrier between the two countries.
But in August 1640, the Scots Army -
large, well-disciplined,
well-armed and well-provisioned -
took the daring decision
to outflank Berwick,
cross the River Tweed
further upstream
and head straight for Newcastle,
which, in contrast to Berwick,
was only lightly defended.
Only the River Tyne now stood between
the Scots and Newcastle.
They forced a crossing at Newburn
and entered Newcastle, which had been
abandoned by its garrison,
in triumph on 30 August.
Never had so many run from so few,
and never had Scotland won a greater
victory on English soil
or one with such
momentous consequences.
With the Scottish Army
encamped on English soil,
Charles was forced
to call Parliament again.
Once again, Charles faced Pym.
Pym cleverly focused
on the financial and constitutional
grievances against Charles.
Here, Parliament was united
in its opposition,
and Charles was forced
into a wholesale surrender
of ship money and the rest.
Boxed in by his opponents
in the English Parliament,
Charles tried to break out by coming
to terms with the Scots.
In the summer of 1641 ,
hejourneyed to Edinburgh,
and, in an astonishing
change of front,
accepted the religious and political
revolution ofthe last three years.
He worshipped in the Kirk,
agreed to the abolition of bishops
and filled the government of Scotland
with the leading Covenanters
and his own sworn enemies.
The King also played
several rounds of golf,
and, reasonably confident that he!d
solved one of his problems,
returned in an excellent mood
to England.
Events in England also seemed to be
moving in Charles!s direction,
for, with Charles!s surrender
of ship money and the like,
the religious divisions in the
Commons between Puritans, like Pym,
and those, known as Episcopalians,
who were sympathetic to Charles!s
ceremonious religion,
were opening up.
Pym tried to whip
his troops into line
by forcing the Grand Remonstrance
to the vote.
This was a searing condemnation
of Charles!s policies in state,
and, especially, in Church.
These amounted,
the Remonstrance claimed,
to an all-embracing
Catholic conspiracy
to subvert the religion
and the liberties of England.
The King himself,
it was careful to point out,
had only been the unwitting agent
ofthe conspiracy.
Nevertheless,
Charles!s gullibility meant
that he could never be trusted
to choose his own advisers
or to command his own troops again.
The Remonstrance was
nominally addressed to the King
but, in fact, it was a manifesto for
a constitutional revolution at least,
perhaps even for an armed revolt.
The Remonstrance was
also bitterly divisive,
and, after days
of acrimonious debate,
it was only passed
by 159 votes to 148 -
a bare majority of 11 .
The vote showed that the broad-based
opposition to Charles had broken up,
and the more Pym pushed the Puritan
attack on Charles!s Church,
the more his majority risked
disappearing entirely.
But then,
Charles overreached himself.
Convinced, probably correctly,
that amongst MPs were traitors
who colluded with the invading Scots,
Charles determined to bring
five members of Parliament,
including Pym, to trial
on charges of high treason.
On 4 January 1642,
King Charles strode into the chamber
ofthe House of Commons
to arrest his principal opponents.
His guards stood outside
fingering theirweapons,
as, in an uneasy silence, the King
sat himself in the Speaker!s chair.
FfWhere are the five members?!! the King
demanded, calling them by name.
In response, the Speaker
fell on his knees,
protesting that he could answer only
as the House directed him.
In fact, the five members, forewarned
ofthe King!s movements,
had made good their escape by boat
from the back of
the Palace ofWestminster
as Charles and his guards had entered
on the landward side at the front.
Instead, it was Charles himself
who had walked into a trap.
By trying to seize
the five members by force,
he!d shown himself
to be a violent tyrant.
By failing, he!d revealed himself
to be impotent.
As Charles left the chamber
empty-handed,
he murmured disconsolately,
ffAll my birds have flown.!!
So too had most of his power.
Battle lines were now drawn up.
Charles!s violent,
ill-thought-out gesture
not only preserved Pym!s
parliamentary majority,
but also turned London decisively
against the King.
In the country, however,
Pym!s increasingly ereme
Puritan attack on the Church
won Charles a devoted following.
But, in fact, Charles was no longer
really king of Great Britain,
or even of England.
Instead, he was only
the leader of a faction.
For history had come
almost full circle.
The attempt to expand the powers
ofthe lmperial Crown
so as it ruled both Church and state
and Scotland as well as England
had backfired.
Instead, England was about to return
to the factional strife
ofthe Wars ofthe Roses,
and Britain to the national struggles
ofthe Anglo-Scottish wars.
And it began at Nottingham,
when Charles raised his standard
in a war against his Parliament
and half his people.
Europe is convulsed by religious war
and Protestant England faces the
world!s foremost Catholic power.
With the Spanish Armada
in the Channel
and the large and fearsomely
professional Spanish Army
in the Low Countries,
England is under dire threat.
On 18 August 1588, Queen Elizabeth l
came to review her troops
here at Tilbury.
She wore a breastplate
and carried a sword
and addressed them in words that
have echoed down the centuries.
Ffl know l have the body
of a weak and feeble woman,
ffbut l have the heart
and stomach of a king,
ffand of a king of England too,
ffand think foul scorn that Parma
or Spain or any prince of Europe
ffshould dare invade
the border of my realm.!!
But even as the Queen spoke,
the moment of danger had passed.
The English fire ships had broken up
the Armada!s invincible formation
off Calais,
and coastal storms
would do the rest.
Nevertheless, despite the defeat
ofthe Spanish Armada,
England would not escape
the horrors of religious war,
and some ofthose who!d heard
Elizabeth at Tilbury
might live long enough
to see another English monarch
raise his banner in defiance
on English soil.
But this time, the King!s enemies
would not be foreign princes,
but his own people.
Within a generation,
the monarchywas to pass
from the triumphs of Elizabeth
to the humiliation and defeat
of her Stuart successors.
With the defeat
ofthe Spanish Armada,
Elizabeth!s reputation stood
at a zenith at home and abroad.
Even the Pope, who!d helped
finance the Armada expedition,
expressed his admiration of her,
and only regretted that theywere
unable to have children together.
Inheriting their combined talents,
their offspring would rule the world,
he said.
Defending the realm
was the most fundamental duty
of an English monarch,
and Elizabeth had acquitted herself
admirably.
But Elizabeth inherited a crown,
the lmperial Crown,
whose power had been greatly expanded
by her father Henry Vlll!s decision
to make himself
Supreme Head ofthe Church
and control the religion
of his subjects,
as well as their everyday lives.
Could Elizabeth,
mere woman that she was,
maintain this lofty claim?
Known as the froyal supremacy!,
the monarch!s powers over religion
proved to be a double-edged sword,
for the Crown had taken control
ofthe Church
at a time of uniquely bitter
religious conflict.
Protestant fought with Catholic,
and different kinds of Protestant
fought with each other.
How could the monarch,
as Supreme Head ofthe Church,
avoid being drawn into this conflict
which threatened to turn
quarrels about religion
into disputes with the Crown?
Elizabeth did her best in
establishing a Church of England
that was Protestant in its doctrines
but Catholic in the appearance
of its ceremonies and clerical dress.
Elizabeth!s policywas successful in
heading off much Catholic opposition
but it had the opposite effect
of opening up divisions
on the Protestant side
between those who wanted the
rigorous, stripped-down Protestantism
ofthe Continent and Scotland,
and those who followed Elizabeth
in her attachment
to bishops and ceremonies.
This was not a struggle between
government and opposition.
Rather, it was a schism
within the highest ranks
ofthe Elizabethan establishment,
with Elizabeth!s chief minister and
eldest confidant, William Cecil,
on one side,
and her Archbishop of Canterbury,
William Whitgift, on the other.
The bad feeling between the two men
burst into the open
in the Queen!s own presence,
and Elizabeth came down publicly
and heavily on Whitgift!s side.
Matters of religion, she insisted,
were for her and her bishops alone.
Neither the Council nor Parliament
had any say in the matter.
Instead, since her supremacy over the
Church came to her from God alone,
she was answerable only to God for
how she chose to exercise it.
This was Henry Vlll!s own high view
ofthe royal supremacy
and in sticking to it,
Elizabeth showed herself
every inch her father!s daughter.
But who would continue the difficult
but necessary balancing act
ofthe middle way in religion
after the ageing Elizabeth?
Her nearest blood relation
was King James Vl of Scotland,
son of a Catholic mother but brought
up in the rigorously Protestant Kirk.
The possibility of James!s accession
aroused wildly contrasting hopes.
Whilst he was still only a claimant,
he could flatter them all.
But when - if- he became
king of England,
he would have to choose.
Crowned at the parish kirk
in Stirling on 29 July 1567,
James had been king of Scotland
since he was a small boy.
He was also heir to his mother!s
claims to England.
James was the only child of Mary
Queen of Scots!s disastrous marriage
to Lord Darnley.
When he was barely a year old,
his mother, widely suspected
of murdering his father,
had been forced to flee to England
by a Protestant revolt.
But cradle king though he was, James
still needed rearing and educating,
like any other child.
This boy of great rank
and greater prospects still
was largely brought up
at Stirling Castle.
It was a strange, insecure
kind of childhood.
A series of regents who ruled
Scotland on his behalf
were murdered in quick succession
and the boy!s own life
was more than once in danger.
In and among it all, James received
an impressive education
at the hands of his principal tutor,
George Buchanan.
Dour and self-opinionated,
Buchanan was a leading figure
in the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk
in which the supreme authoritywas
not the king, as in England,
but the General Assembly
ofthe clergy.
Kings also, Buchanan believed, were
mere servants oftheir people,
who could and should be punished
ifthey misbehaved.
Buchanan!s style as a teacher
was important too.
Like many 16th-century teachers,
Buchanan thought that sparing
the rod spoiled the child
and he set about beating and birching
his beliefs and learning into James,
with gusto.
This treatment, indeed, succeeded in
making James a considerable scholar,
but in terms of religion
and politics,
it produced only an equal
and opposite reaction
to which James
was able to give expression
with unusual force and clarity.
And this is the result - it!s
!The True Law of Free Monarchies!,
which James wrote and published
in 1598.
In it, he says succinctly,
ffKings are called gods.
FfThey are appointed by God
and answerable only to God.!!
James grounded these assertions,
just as Henry Vlll had his claim
to the royal supremacy,
in the Biblical story
ofthe Old Testament kings.
But James went beyond even Henry Vlll
by claiming to be absolute
in affairs of state
as well as those ofthe Church.
In 1601 , Elizabeth!s leading
ministers began to make moves
to secure James!s path
to the English throne.
The matter became pressing during
the Christmas holidays of 1603,
when both Elizabeth!s health
and her temper suddenlyworsened.
In mid-January, she moved
to Richmond for a change of air,
but, within a fewweeks,
she was clearly dying.
She lay on a pile of cushions on
the floor of her pri chamber,
refusing to eat and unable to sleep.
Finally, she was carried to her bed,
became speechless,
and died in the small hours
ofthe morning of 24 March,
after Archbishop Whitgift had lulled
her into her last sleep
with his impassioned prayers.
Elizabeth had restored Protestantism,
preserved the royal supremacy,
protected her country from invasion
and allowed nothing to challenge
either her crown or her popularity.
Above all, her studiously broad
church religious settlement
had brought peace,
though at the inevitable price of
alienating eremes of all sorts.
With the great Queen dead,
all eyes nowturned to Scotland
and to James.
James Vl of Scotland was proclaimed
King James l of England
within eight hours
of Elizabeth!s death
and his first Parliament proclaimed
that he was,
by inherent birthright
and lawful succession,
the inheritor ofthe lmperial Crown
of England and Scotland.
It sounded good, but it was
a dangerous doctrine
since it implied that James!s
title to the throne
was above and beyond the law,
as, of course, James himself,
as the author of fThe True Law
of Free Monarchies!, firmly believed.
In April 1603,
James arrived in London in triumph
as the undoubted heir of his
great-great-grandfather Henry Vll.
Henry Vll had commissioned
the lmperial Crown here
as the symbol ofthe recovery
ofthe monarchy
from the degradation
ofthe Wars ofthe Roses.
Now James, the first
ruler of all Britain,
would endow it with a larger
significance still.
James!s aim was to be
!Rex Pacificus!, the Peacemaker King.
He would reconcile
Catholic and Protestant,
thus re-establishing Christian unity
at home and abroad.
He would end England!s
debilitating warwith Spain
and, above all, he would terminate
the ancient feud between
England and Scotland
and fuse, instead,
the two warring kingdoms
into a new, greater
united realm of Britain.
It was an enormously ambitious
program,
and, to realise it, James,
in a strikingly modern gesture,
summoned three major conferences
on peace, religion
and union with Scotland.
The peace conference and
ensuing treaty at Somerset House
were commemorated in this painting.
Through them, James ended
the 20-yearwarwith Catholic Spain.
It was an auspicious start for James,
the international peacemaker,
but the result, paradoxically,
was trouble at home.
On the one hand,
the Somerset House treaty
meant that the hotter Protestants
were shocked to discover
that England, now at peace
with the leading Catholic power,
would no longer be the champion of
their fellow Protestants in Europe.
And, on the other hand,
the eremer Catholics
were equally dismayed to find out
that Spain had not eracted
toleration for Catholics
as a price ofthe peace.
Abandoned abroad, such Catholics
turned in desperation
to self-help and direct action
at home.
At the beginning of November 1605,
James was shown a tip-off letter
warning that the political
establishment of England
would receive a terrible blow
in the Parliament he was
due to open on 5 November.
James immediately guessed
that the wording ofthe letter
pointed to an explosion,
but in order to catch
the plotters red-handed
it was decided not to search the
vaults under the parliament chamber
until the night ofthe fourth.
At 11pm, the search party entered
and found a man standing guard
over a pile of firewood,
35 barrels of gunpowder,
and with a fuse in his pocket.
His name was Guy Fawkes.
Ifthe gunpowder
had exploded as planned,
it would have been
the terrorist bombing
to end all terrorist bombings,
wiping out most of
the British royal family
and the entire English
political establishment.
Nevertheless, the immediate political
consequences were small.
To James!s credit,
there was no widespread persecution
of Catholics in England,
and the peace with Spain held,
but in the longer term,
the plot played an important part
in the development
ofthe Catholic myth in England.
The realitywas that
English Catholicism
was a beleaguered minority faith.
But in the fevered imagination
ofthe hotter sort of Protestants
it became, instead,
the fifth column
of a vast international
politico-religious conspiracy,
masterminded by the Pope in Rome
and aiming not only
at the conversion of England
but at the subversion of English
Protestantism and English freedoms
and by the foulest possible means.
And so, at the second
of James!s great conferences
to determine the nature
ofthe religious settlement
under the new king,
those hot Protestants,
known pejoratively as fPuritans!
Demanded that
the English Church be purged
ofwhat they regarded
as its damnable popish elements.
But they reckoned without
the seductive powers
ofthe English monarchy
and the English royal supremacy.
In Scotland, James Vl had sat
in the body ofthe church
to be admonished by the preacher
high in his pulpit
as fGod!s silly vessel!.
But in England, as here in
the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court,
it was this same man, now known as
King James l, who sat high above,
enthroned in this magnificent
royal pew,
whilst the preacher,
under correction,
went about his humbler task
far below.
It was the most graphic
possible illustration
ofthe power ofthe royal supremacy
which James was determined
to keep in England,
and, if he could,
to eend to Scotland.
Instead, therefore,
as the Puritans had hoped,
of making the Church of England
more like the Kirk in Scotland,
James used the Hampton Court
conference
to proclaim that he was satisfied
with the Elizabethan
religious settlement as it stood
and was resolved
to keep it as it was.
He would not,
any more than Elizabeth,
soften Archbishop Whitgift!s
hard line
in enforcing ceremonies and vestments
which the Puritans thought popish.
And, above all, he would allow
not an inch of movement
away from the English government
ofthe Church by bishops
towards a role for presbyteries,
or assemblies of clergy,
as in Scotland.
He even managed to subvert
the Puritan demand
for a newtranslation ofthe Bible.
James eagerly agreed,
since he detested this,
the so-called fGeneva! version
ofthe Bible,
which was then used by Presbyterians
in Scotland and Puritans in England
because of its marginal notes
which showed a typically
hot Protestant disrespect
for kings and queens.
The King James version ofthe Bible,
on the other hand,
as the large and learned team
oftranslators explained
in this preface,
was to tread soberly the middle way
between popish persons
on the one hand
and the self-conceited brethren -
that is, the Puritans - on the other.
It was born out of a long-dead
politico-theological dispute
and it!s the only classic ever to
have been written by a committee.
Nevertheless, the King James version
ofthe Bible became the book
which, more than any other,
shaped the English language
and formed the English mind.
James!s other lasting legacy
was the union ofthe crowns
of England and Scotland,
and he set out his case for union
in a speech from the throne
at the opening of his first
English Parliament in March 1604.
His succession had united the
kingdoms of England and Scotland,
ending the ancient division
ofthe island of Britain.
Moreover, the King claimed, these
divisions were largely in the mind.
Were not England and Scotland already
united by a common language,
the Protestant religion
and similar customs and manners?
Was not the border practically
indistinguishable on the ground?
It was as though God had always
intended the union to happen.
To resist union, therefore,
James concluded,
was not simply impolitic,
but impious.
It was to put asunder kingdoms which
God himself had joined together.
But the English Parliament
impoliticly and impiously
decided to look the gift horse
of union in the mouth.
Partly it was a question
of straightforward
anti-Scottish xenophobia.
But more fundamental causes
were involved as well.
These centred on James!s
apparently innocuous wish
to rename the Anglo-Scottish kingdom
!Britain!.
But a new name meant a new kingdom.
It would be like, one MP said,
a freshly conquered territory
in the NewWorld.
There would be no laws
and no customs,
and James, by his own rules in
'The True Law of Free Monarchies',
would be free to set himself up
as an absolute, supranational emperor
of Great Britain.
The English Parliament, in contrast,
would be left
as a mere provincial assembly.
It wasn!t an enticing prospect
for MPs who sawthemselves as
the fgreat council ofthe realm!.
James!s reaction was to try to enact
the union symbolically,
using his own powers
under the royal prerogative.
By proclamation, he assumed the title
of fKing of Great Britain!.
He redesigned the royal coat of arms
with the lion of England balanced
by the unicorn of Scotland.
Then he insisted on a British flag,
known as the fJack!,
after the Latin form
ofthe name James,
again by proclamation.
But not content with symbols,
James also practised
a kind of union by stealth.
The English political elite
had prevented him
from establishing an evenly balanced
Anglo-Scots council.
But a king could do what he liked
with his own court,
so, in revenge,
James filled his bedchamber,
the inner ring of his court,
almost exclusivelywith Scots.
It was a pleasure,
since James took a more-than-fatherly
interest
in braw Scots lads with
well-turned legs and firm buttocks.
But it also suited him politically,
since it compelled proud Englishmen
to sue for patronage
to his Scots favourites.
And they had to bribe them as well.
But James!s policy of union
by stealth had a fatal flaw.
He had inherited a substantial
debt from Elizabeth,
he!d a large family to maintain,
and he wanted to continue
pouring money
on his favourites and his pleasures.
For all this, the Crown!s so-called
!ordinary income!
From land and custom duties,
was hopelessly inadequate.
There was no choice but to ask
Parliament to vote money.
But the English Parliament
saw no reason
why taxpayers! money, their money,
should end up in the pockets
of Scots favourites,
and they said so rather crudely.
FfHo!, asked one MP, ffcould
the cistern ofthe Treasury
ffever be filled up if money continued
to flowthence by private cocks?!!
!Cocks! meant taps, and, well...
what it means now.
So James!s project for British union
remained an unfulfilled dream
whilst his relations with Parliament
turned into a disaster.
By the time of his death in 1625,
he had gone into
a sort of internal exile,
abandoning the task of government
and secluding himselfwith
his favourites and his horses.
Nevertheless, James managed
by a miure oftact, duplicity
and masterful inaction
to stick to the middle ground and to
hold together the warring eremes
ofthe Church of England
on the one hand,
and the differing religious polities
of England and Scotland on the other.
The result was a smooth succession
on both sides ofthe border
of James!s son Charles
to the glittering inheritance of
the lmperial Crown of Great Britain.
But within a decade and a half,
Charles, by his intransigence
and his ineptitude,
had thrown it all away.
Charles was crowned King of England
at Westminster Abbey
on 2 February 1626.
For James, divine right had been
an intellectual position.
For Charles, it was
an emotional and religious one.
This was immediately made clear
by his coronation service,
which, meticulously choreographed
by the up and coming cleric
William Laud,
lovingly reproduced all the splendour,
solemnity and sacred mysteries
ofthe medieval Catholic rite.
The ceremony
is one ofthe best documented
as well as the best organised
of coronations
thanks to the survival
ofthese two service books here.
This is Charles!s own copy
ofthe coronation service
which he used to followthe ceremony.
And this is Laud!s version
ofthe same te
which he used like a kind of score
to conduct the service.
He also made notes in the margins
in a different coloured ink
to record unusual features ofthe
ceremony as it actually took place.
These notes take us
into Charles!s own mind.
During the 5-hour-long ceremony,
the King was invested
with the carefully preserved
robes and regalia
of Edward the Confessor,
the last sainted Anglo-Saxon king.
And Charles!s attitude to these
ancient relics was unique.
Here Laud notes that he insisted
on placing his feet
inside the sacred buskins or sandals
that were normally only touched
against the royal leg.
And here, that he actually used,
apparently for the only time in the
1 ,500-year history ofthe coronation,
the Anglo-Saxon ivory comb
to tidy his hair after
he!d been anointed on the head.
This wasn!t mere idle curiosity.
Instead, Charles was treating each
and every item ofthe regalia
as a sacrament of monarchy.
With each touch ofthe precious oils
and the ancient fabrics and jewels,
God was washing away
the merely human in him
and leaving him purely, indefeasibly
and absolutely a king.
Or so Charles, at least, thought.
Charles, as his behaviour
at his coronation would suggest,
was an aesthete, a lover of beauty,
elegance and order.
His tutor had been chosen
not for his scholarship,
but for his taste in fashion,
and Charles himself grew up to be not
only fastidious in dress and manners,
but also the greatest connoisseur
ever to have sat
on the throne of England.
He built up a staggering collection
of old master paintings
and he commissioned portraits
of himself and his family
from the greatest contemporary
artists like Sir Anthony Vandyke.
And it is Vandyke above all who shows
us Charles as he wanted to be,
suggesting the grandeur
of his kingship on the one hand
and the Christ-like
wisdom and self-sacrifice
with which he hoped to rule
on the other.
Like most royal heirs,
Charles defined himself
by espousing policies which were
the opposite of his father!s.
He was pro-war, but Parliament,
despite its vocal enthusiasm
for a Protestant crusade in Europe,
was never prepared to vote enough tax
to make war a serious option.
Frustrated by Parliament!s
unwillingness
to put its moneywhere
its Protestant mouth was,
Charles, instead of fighting
the Catholic French,
married the French, and of course,
Catholic, princess, Henrietta Maria
in 1626.
On account of her religion,
the marriage was eremely unpopular
with Parliament.
It didn!t even succeed in cementing
an alliance with France.
The result was that Charles
soon found himself
in the worst of all possible worlds -
without tax, with a Catholic wife,
and fighting a hopeless war against
both major Catholic powers -
France and Spain.
Charles, looking for a scapegoat
for the debacle,
found it in what he saw as
Parliament!s sullen obstructiveness.
Charles decided that parliaments were
more trouble than theywere worth
and that, in future,
he would rule without them.
All over Europe, monarchs were
dispensing with parliaments,
so in attempting personal rule,
Charles was simply following
the European trend,
but unlike his European counterparts,
Charles lacked the legal ability
to tax his subjects at will.
Only a parliament could
legislate newtaxes,
so, like his father before him,
Charles!s only recourse
was to squeeze more revenue
out of his customary
rights and prerogatives.
Fortunately, he got
a crack team of lawyers to help him.
The most ingenious was the
Attorney-General, William Noy.
Ffl moyl in the la! was the
contemporary anagram of his name,
and he fmoyled!, that is,
toiled or laboured,
in the legal archives
to great effect,
but his masterpiece was ship money.
Ship moneywas a traditional le
imposed on the port towns
to raise vessels for the na
in time ofwar,
as, for example,
against the Spanish Armada
in the heyday
of Elizabethan England.
This was uncontroversial,
even popular.
But Attorney-General Noy said
that the law allowed the King
to eend ship money from the ports
to the inland counties
and to impose it in peacetime
as well as during war.
All this at the King!s mere say-so.
The eended ship money
was first imposed in 1634
and, within a year, it was yielding
over £200,000 annually
and producing 90olo
ofwhat the King demanded.
This was the Holy Grail
which had eluded English kings
ever since the Middle Ages -
a large-scale, permanent income
which came in regularly,
year by year,
without the bother
of consulting parliaments.
The idea oftaxing without
parliamentary consent
was bound to cause grievance,
and Charles exacerbated matters
by attempting religious innovation
as well.
Whatever the formal rules
ofthe Church of England,
much ofthe country had seen
the development
of a stripped-down, fundamentalist
Protestantism,
very little different in practice
from the Scottish Kirk.
But a richer, more ceremonious vision
had been preserved
in a handful of places,
in particular, in the chapels royal
and the greater cathedrals.
Here there were choirs,
organs and music,
candles and gold and silver plate
on the communion tables,
and rich vestments for the clergy.
William Laud, now Charles!s
Archbishop of Canterbury,
determined to use the royal supremacy
to impose this opulent religious
tradition on the whole country.
He did so because he thought religion
should be about sacraments
as well as sermons,
and appeal to the senses
as well as to the mind.
In England, the policy, despite
some foot-dragging and protest,
aroused little overt resistance.
Indeed, manywelcomed it.
Emboldened, Charles and Laud decided
that it should be eended
to Scotland as well.
Here, the Reformation had been
far more thoroughgoing and radical
and the risks of change
were correspondingly greater.
But Charles, confident as ever
in his God-given rightness,
was undeterred.
He decided that a barely modified
version ofthe English prayer book
should be used throughout Scotland,
and he did so
on his own personal authority,
without consulting either
the Scottish Parliament
or the General Assembly ofthe Kirk.
Charles was behaving as though
he were the supreme governor
ofthe Scottish Kirk indeed.
But would the Scottish Presbyterians
accept his authority?
The answer came
on Sunday 28 July 1637,
when the new prayer book
was used for the first time
here in St Giles Cathedral
in Edinburgh,
in the presence ofthe assembled
Pri Council of Scotland.
But as soon as the dean
had begun the service,
a great shout erupted from the crowds
at the back ofthe church.
Hea clasped Bibles
and folding stools
were hurled at the councillors
and the clergy
and the rioters were only ejected
from the church with difficulty
by the guards.
And, even outside,
they continued pounding on the doors
and pelting the windows
until the service was finished.
Then the protest turned political,
and here in Greyfriars Kirk
in Edinburgh,
an influential group
of citizens and noblemen
drew up and signed an undertaking
to resist Charles
and the innovations and evils
he!d introduced into the Kirk.
Borrowing the name
from God!s solemn compact
with the Jews in the Old Testament,
the undertaking was known
as the fCovenant!,
and its adherents were
called fCovenanters!.
The scene at Greyfriars was repeated
in churches all over the Lowlands.
It was nowthe Covenanters,
not Charles, who controlled Scotland.
Britain, which so far had escaped
the wars of religion
that had devastated
much ofthe rest of Europe,
now faced the horrors of
sectarian conflict on its own soil.
By 1640, Charles!s religious policies
had brought about a crisis
throughout Britain.
Scotland was in the hands
ofthe Covenanters,
whilst in England, Charles!s
opponents drew strength
from events north ofthe border.
But it was the recall of Parliament
after 11 years
which brought things to a head.
Charles had no choice,
since only Parliament
could vote the money needed
to suppress the Covenanters,
but equally, Parliament
proved an unrivalled forum
for the King!s opponents.
The most dangerous ofthese
was the hitherto obscure lawyer
and MP for Tavistock, John Pym.
Pym believed that Charles!s policies
in Church and state
were the result
of a Catholic conspiracy
to subvert the religion
and liberties of England.
But instead ofwasting his time
in fruitless opposition,
he!d used the 11 years
without a Parliament
to build up a compelling dossier
for his case.
In the 1630s, Pym read voraciously,
followed every detail of politics
at home and abroad
and noted down
useful headings and eracts
in this little book here.
The result was that when Charles
was forced to recall Parliament,
Pym was the best-informed and
the best-prepared man in the House,
readywith both a rhetoric of
opposition to Charles!s government
and a plan of action
for curbing royal power.
Charles hoped to prey
on English xenophobia
to persuade Parliament to impose
an immediate vast tax
to crush the traitorous Scots.
Pym countered
by dragging up his list
of political and religious grievances
against Charles!s government
ofthe 1630s.
Charles then tried
to break the deadlock
by hinting at the surrender
of ship money,
but the hint only emboldened Pym.
Finally, Charles lost patience
with a Parliament
which had, once again,
failed to deliver,
and dissolved it
after less than a month.
He would fight the Scots
without a parliamentary grant.
It was a catastrophic decision.
These are the mighty ramparts
of Berwick-on-Tweed...
...the border fortress
built by King Henry Vlll
to protect England from the Scots.
Expensively refortified by Charles,
it stood as a seemingly impregnable
barrier between the two countries.
But in August 1640, the Scots Army -
large, well-disciplined,
well-armed and well-provisioned -
took the daring decision
to outflank Berwick,
cross the River Tweed
further upstream
and head straight for Newcastle,
which, in contrast to Berwick,
was only lightly defended.
Only the River Tyne now stood between
the Scots and Newcastle.
They forced a crossing at Newburn
and entered Newcastle, which had been
abandoned by its garrison,
in triumph on 30 August.
Never had so many run from so few,
and never had Scotland won a greater
victory on English soil
or one with such
momentous consequences.
With the Scottish Army
encamped on English soil,
Charles was forced
to call Parliament again.
Once again, Charles faced Pym.
Pym cleverly focused
on the financial and constitutional
grievances against Charles.
Here, Parliament was united
in its opposition,
and Charles was forced
into a wholesale surrender
of ship money and the rest.
Boxed in by his opponents
in the English Parliament,
Charles tried to break out by coming
to terms with the Scots.
In the summer of 1641 ,
hejourneyed to Edinburgh,
and, in an astonishing
change of front,
accepted the religious and political
revolution ofthe last three years.
He worshipped in the Kirk,
agreed to the abolition of bishops
and filled the government of Scotland
with the leading Covenanters
and his own sworn enemies.
The King also played
several rounds of golf,
and, reasonably confident that he!d
solved one of his problems,
returned in an excellent mood
to England.
Events in England also seemed to be
moving in Charles!s direction,
for, with Charles!s surrender
of ship money and the like,
the religious divisions in the
Commons between Puritans, like Pym,
and those, known as Episcopalians,
who were sympathetic to Charles!s
ceremonious religion,
were opening up.
Pym tried to whip
his troops into line
by forcing the Grand Remonstrance
to the vote.
This was a searing condemnation
of Charles!s policies in state,
and, especially, in Church.
These amounted,
the Remonstrance claimed,
to an all-embracing
Catholic conspiracy
to subvert the religion
and the liberties of England.
The King himself,
it was careful to point out,
had only been the unwitting agent
ofthe conspiracy.
Nevertheless,
Charles!s gullibility meant
that he could never be trusted
to choose his own advisers
or to command his own troops again.
The Remonstrance was
nominally addressed to the King
but, in fact, it was a manifesto for
a constitutional revolution at least,
perhaps even for an armed revolt.
The Remonstrance was
also bitterly divisive,
and, after days
of acrimonious debate,
it was only passed
by 159 votes to 148 -
a bare majority of 11 .
The vote showed that the broad-based
opposition to Charles had broken up,
and the more Pym pushed the Puritan
attack on Charles!s Church,
the more his majority risked
disappearing entirely.
But then,
Charles overreached himself.
Convinced, probably correctly,
that amongst MPs were traitors
who colluded with the invading Scots,
Charles determined to bring
five members of Parliament,
including Pym, to trial
on charges of high treason.
On 4 January 1642,
King Charles strode into the chamber
ofthe House of Commons
to arrest his principal opponents.
His guards stood outside
fingering theirweapons,
as, in an uneasy silence, the King
sat himself in the Speaker!s chair.
FfWhere are the five members?!! the King
demanded, calling them by name.
In response, the Speaker
fell on his knees,
protesting that he could answer only
as the House directed him.
In fact, the five members, forewarned
ofthe King!s movements,
had made good their escape by boat
from the back of
the Palace ofWestminster
as Charles and his guards had entered
on the landward side at the front.
Instead, it was Charles himself
who had walked into a trap.
By trying to seize
the five members by force,
he!d shown himself
to be a violent tyrant.
By failing, he!d revealed himself
to be impotent.
As Charles left the chamber
empty-handed,
he murmured disconsolately,
ffAll my birds have flown.!!
So too had most of his power.
Battle lines were now drawn up.
Charles!s violent,
ill-thought-out gesture
not only preserved Pym!s
parliamentary majority,
but also turned London decisively
against the King.
In the country, however,
Pym!s increasingly ereme
Puritan attack on the Church
won Charles a devoted following.
But, in fact, Charles was no longer
really king of Great Britain,
or even of England.
Instead, he was only
the leader of a faction.
For history had come
almost full circle.
The attempt to expand the powers
ofthe lmperial Crown
so as it ruled both Church and state
and Scotland as well as England
had backfired.
Instead, England was about to return
to the factional strife
ofthe Wars ofthe Roses,
and Britain to the national struggles
ofthe Anglo-Scottish wars.
And it began at Nottingham,
when Charles raised his standard
in a war against his Parliament
and half his people.