The Long Parliament

With his circumstances more desperate than ever, Charles 1 summoned Parliament to meet in November 1640. The king faced a body profoundly mistrustful of his intentions. The reform move­ment in the Commons was led by John Pym, who was prominent by his oratorical skills in debate and his political skills in com­mittee. Pym was a moderate, and for the next three years he ably steered compromises between those who wanted too much and those who would settle for too little.

The Long Parliament (1640-53) opened with the imprison­ment of Strafford and Archbishop Laud, who were responsible for the church reform and the following riots in Scotland. Strafford was put on trial and ultimately attainted for treason.

In fact, parliamentary reformtook two different tacks. The first was to limit the king’s constitutional authority in order to protect the existence of Parliament and the liberties of the subject. The second was to reconstitute the church. In February the Trien­nial Act(1641) was passed, mandating the summoning of Parlia­ment every three years. In May the king’s power to dissolve the Long Parliament was removed. Charles was forced to accept both bills. Meanwhile, the Commons abolished the prerogative courts of High Commission and Star Chamber.

In August 1641 Charles determined to conclude a peace treaty with the Scots. This successful negotiation removed the crisis that had brought the Long Parliament into being. When Charles re­turned to London at the end of November, he was met by cheer­ing crowds and a large body of members of the two Houses.

While the king resolved one crisis in Scotland, another emerged in Ireland.Catholics rose against their Protestant over­lords and slaughtered thousands in a bloody rebellion. Urgently an army had to be raised, but only the king had military author­ity, and in the present circumstance he could not be trusted with a force that might be used in London rather than in Ireland. In despair over the situation in Ireland and deeply suspicious of the king’s intentions, the leaders of the Long Parliament debated the Grand Remonstrance,a catalogue of their grievances against the king. The Grand Remonstrance (1641) divided the Commons as nothing else had. It passed by only 11 votes, and the move to have it printed failed. For the first time members of Commons began to coalesce into opposing factions of royalists and parliamentarians.

The passage of the Grand Remonstrance was followed by Pym’s attempt to create a militia. Bills were proposed to put the army under parliamentary control and to give Parliament the right to nominate officers. The political situation had reached a state of crisis. In Parliament rumours spread of a royal attack upon the Houses, and at court wild talk of an impeachment of the queen was reported. On January 4, 1642, Charles rode to Westminster intending to impeach five members of the Commons and one of the Lords on charges of treason. But, because the king’s plan was no secret, the members had already fled. Thus Charles’s dramatic breach of parliamentary privilege badly backfired. He not only failed to obtain his objective but also lost the confidence of many moderates left in Parliament. After ensuring the safe departure of his wife and children out of the country, Charles abandoned his capital and headed north.

In June 1642 a series of proposals for a treaty, the Nineteen Propositionswere presented to the king. They called for parlia­mentary control over the militia, the choice of royal counsellors, and religious reform. Charles rejected them, though in his answer he seemed to grant Parliament a coordinate power in govern­ment.

The king, however, had determined to settle the matter by main force. His principal advisers believed that the greatest lords and gentlemen would rally to their king and that Parliament would not have the stomach for rebellion. On August 22, 1642, the king raised his standard bearing the device “Give Caesar His Due.” He then set up his court at Oxford, when his government controlled roughly the north and west of England, Parliament remaining in control of London and the south and east. Charles raised an army. The Civil Warstarted on 25 October 1642 with the inconclusive Battle of Edgehill and continued indecisively through 1643 and 1644, until the Battle of Naseby tipped the military balance deci­sively in favour of Parliament. There followed a great number of defeats for the Royalists, and then the Siege of Oxford, from which Charles escaped in April 1646. He put himself into the hands of the Scottish Presbyterian army, and the Scots had to decide what to do with him. The Scots finally delivered Charles to Parliament in 1647. In July 1648 the Royalists rose igniting the Second Civil War,and the Scots invaded England. However, most of the upris­ings in England were put down by forces loyal to Parliament and with the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Preston, the Royalists lost any chance of winning the war.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1038