LECTURE 3: On The Road to civil War: James I (1603-25) and Charles I (1625-49)

I – The Stuart Monarchy in Tension Against Parliament

A - The philosophy of the divine right of kings

The main difficulty of James’s and Charles’ reigns was that both men believed in the Divine Right of Kings and expressed their beliefs in terms which alienated the people with whom they most needed to have a harmonious relationship: the Members of Parliament, and particularly the Commons. Many princes upheld this ideal of the Divine Right of Kings since the Middle Ages and argued that monarchs were appointed directly by God and had supernatural powers which were above those of normal human beings. Therefore, any subject who dared to question or challenge a monarch was implicitly questioning or challenging God himself; doubting the authority of the king amounted to blasphemy since, no matter how incapable or unscrupulous a king was, he derived his powers from God and could only be judged by God.

B - The new nature of Parliament

During James I's reign, the nature of Parliament changed; the Houses had worked in close co-operation with the Tudors but by the end of Elizabeth’s reign, they had begun to discover their own strength. They knew that they were not simple puppets meant to obey the monarch’s wishes and pass the laws the monarch wanted; they realised that their function was not simply to wait quietly to be summoned and consulted on certain matters when it suited the crown. They became aware that without them, the ruler could not rule, and this new sense of self-importance, power and importance led MPs to be more active, to propose new laws (rather than wait to be consulted) or to contradict the crown at times. Through his transformation of its self-perception, Parliament had come of age.

C - Issues of control

During James I’s and his son Charles I’s reigns, Parliament became so independent, influential and self-confident that it cared to