Religious disagreement

In 1637, however, Charles began to make serious mistakes. These resulted from the religious situation in Britain. His father, James, had been pleased that the Anglican Church had bishops. They willingly supported him as head of the English Church. And he disliked the Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland because it had no bishops. It was a more democratic institution and this gave political as well as religious power to the literate classes in Scotland. They had given him a difficult time before he became king of England in 1603.

There were also people in England, known as Puritans, who, like the Scottish Presbyterians, wanted a democratic Church. Queen Elizabeth had en careful to prevent them from gaining power in the Anglican Church. She even executed a few of for printing books against the bishops. In 1604, Puritans met James to ask him to remove the Anglican bishops to make the English Church more like the Kirk, but he saw only danger for the Crown. "A Scottish Presbytery agrees as well with monarchy as God with the Devil," he remarked, and sent them away with the words, "No bishop, no king."

Charles shared his father's dislike of Puritans. He had married a French Catholic, and the marriage was unpopular in Protestant Britain. Many MPs were either Puritans or sympathised with them, and many of the wealth-creating classes were Puritan. But Charles took no notice of popular feeling, and he appointed an enemy of the Puritans, William Laud, as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Archbishop Laud brought back into the Anglican Church many Catholic practices. They were extremely unpopular. Anti-Catholic feeling had been increased by an event over thirty years earlier, in 1605. A small group of Catholics had been caught trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament with King James inside. One of these men, Guy Fawkes, was captured in the cellar under the House. The escape of king and Parliament caught people's imagination, and 5 November, the anniversary, became an occasion for celebration with fireworks and bonfires.

Archbishop Laud tried to make the Scottish Kirk accept the same organisation as the Church in England. James I would have realised how dangerous this was, but his son, Charles, did not because he had only lived in Scotland as an infant. When Laud tried to introduce the new prayer book in Scotland in 1637 the result was national resistance to the introduction of bishops and what Scots thought of as Catholicism.

In spring 1638 Charles faced a rebel Scottish army. Without the help of Parliament he was only able to put together an inexperienced army. It marched north and found that the Scots had crossed the border. Charles knew his army was unlikely to win against the Scots. So he agreed to respect all Scottish political and religious freedoms, and also to pay a large sum of money to persuade the Scots to return home.

It was impossible for Charles to find this money except through Parliament. This gave it the chance to end eleven years of absolute rule by Charles, and to force him to rule under parliamentary control. In return for its help, Parliament made Charles accept a new law which stated that Parliament had to meet at least once every three years. However, as the months went by, it became increasingly clear that Charles was not willing to keep his agreements with Parliament. Ruling by "divine right", Charles felt no need to accept its decisions.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1674