An experiment in Absolutism Part 2

Question 1

The link between the policy of Thorough and not being absolutist

Answer 1

The Personal Rule was a temporary measure aimed at strengthening central government to enable England to compete with the powerful states on the continent

Question 2

The King’s right to dissolve Parliament

Answer 2

When Charles dissolved Parliament, he was not being innovative or radical. This is because he was exerting his right as king to rule as he saw fit.

Question 3

What was the aim of the use of prerogative courts

Answer 3

They were seen as tools that gave the monarch too much power without accountability. It aimed to govern the country more efficiently in an age when government was becoming increasingly centralised.

Question 4

What was the purpose of local government?

Answer 4

To maintain the king’s peace so that communities could enjoy stability and order

Question 5

What was the bases of local governance?

Answer 5

The entire infrastructure of local government rested on cooperation between local families and the king, and thus communication and goodwill were vital.

Question 6

Achievement of the Book of Orders of 1631

Answer 6

The Directions from within offered instructions for preventing vagrancy, allocating poor children to apprenticeships.

Question 7

What was the aim of the Book of Orders of 1631

Answer 7

An attempt by Charles to remind local entry of their God-given duty to protect the weak and vulnerable in their communities.

Question 8

What was the significance of the Personal Rule lacked legitimate authority to rule

Answer 8

It meant that when Charles ran into his first major crisis during the Personal Rule, which was the Scottish Rebellion and failure of the First Bishops’ War, he could expect no assistance from Parliament in raising desperately needed funds for an army and military campaign.

Question 9

Why did Charles dissolve Parliament in 1629?

Answer 9

Parliament was exploiting his need for financial help to impose what he felt to be unacceptable limitation on kingly power.

Question 10

What did Charles have to do in order to sustain his Personal Rule financially?

Answer 10

Charles needed to replace his reliance on extraordinary taxation granted by Parliament by exploiting the ordinary, private income of the Crown, while making savings.

Question 11

What was the Book of Rates and how did it raise money for Charles to ease his debt?
• Custom duty

Answer 11

It indicated the value of each product and the amount of tax levied on it. Charles order the Book of Rates to be revalued in 1635, which enabled him to immediately and dramatically increase the revenue he would receive from Customs.

Question 12

The decision to rule without Parliament

• Money

Answer 12

It forced the government to find prerogative means to raise money that were surprising successful, providing royal revenues of £1million per annual by 1637, with 90% compliance with Ship Money, even when it was extended to inland counties in 1634.

Question 13

The decision to rule without Parliament

• Foreign policy

Answer 13

Charles now had no choice but to make peace with Spain and France, and this in turn provided the foundation for sound financial management under Lord Treasurer Weston and Chancellor of the Exchequer Francis Cottington.

Question 14

Result of the Hampden case 1637

Answer 14

Five judges out of twelve agreed with him that Ship Money was unlawful.

Question 15

What was the king’s argument in collecting Ship Money of 1637

Answer 15

It was his rights and duty to provide for the country’s security, with or without Parliament’s consent.

Question 16

Success of the Ship Money 1634

Answer 16

He raised around £300,000 pa, which was equivalent of three Parliamentary subsidies. It had 90% of compliance as well.

Question 17

What was the Ship Money in detail?

Answer 17

Charles levied Ship Money in October 1634 on coastal towns and cities, and extended it to the whole of England in 1635.

Question 18

Charles’s debt by 1629

Answer 18

Charles had a debt of £2m by 1629, exceeding his income

Question 19

What was fiscal feudalism?

Answer 19

Non Parliamentary methods for raising finances, and custom duty and monopoly grant

Question 20

What was so alarming about the fact that Laud was an Arminian?

Answer 20

It appeared to many that he was Catholic sympathisers which made Parliamentarians worry that the king was attracted by Catholicism and that this attraction might intensify

Question 21

What was the Beauty of Holiness?

Answer 21

It emphasised the physical setting of the church as the holy house of God. This was executed through the decoration of churches.

Question 22

What was the problem with the Beauty of Holiness?

Answer 22

It laid the Church open to charges of churches being Catholic in appearance.

Question 23

What was the aim of the Book of Common Prayer of 1631

Answer 23

Laud set about enforcing greater discipline and conformity within the Church.

It was intended to tighten up local government

Question 24

Example of the Book of Common Prayer of 1631

Answer 24

Laud tightened up on the use of liturgy as a way of creating uniformity in church services.

Question 25

What was the consequences of the repositioning of altars?

Answer 25

Opened to charges of being Catholic because Catholicism also put a very high value on sacraments. It implied a dangerous innovation and a lack of respect or tradition and the social status quo.

Question 26

What was significant about Charles’s approach to religion during the Personal Rule?

Answer 26

The Laudian reforms led many Puritans to question whether they could support the regime or stay within the realm. This had subsequently led to a strengthening of the Puritan network, which would provide organised opposition to Charles during the mouting crisis from 1637.

Question 27

Why did Laudianism antagonise Puritanism?

Answer 27

Laudianism specifically challenged beliefs and practices central to Puritanism.

Many Laudian practices were distasteful to Puritans and directly attack Puritan beliefs

Question 28

What was the Book of Sports of 1633?

Answer 28

It outlined the range of sports and activities that people could do after attending the compulsory Sunday morning service.

Question 29

How did the Book of Sports of 1633 antagonise Puritan ideas?

Answer 29

It had directly challenged the Puritan idea of the purpose of Sundays, which they believed to be prayerfulness and Bible reading.

Question 30

How was the Book of Sports in 1633 enforced?

Answer 30

In 1633, enforcement was administered more effectively through visitations and Presentment Bills.

Question 31

The abolition of the Feoffees for Impropriation by Laud in 1633
•Puritan oppositon

Answer 31

Laud had in effect tipped the governance of the Church away from Puritanism.

Question 32

What was the convention of the role of Feoffees?

Answer 32

Old Church law stated that a member of the laity could buy the right to collect the tithe of a parish, provided that they arranged and paid for a suitable minister for that parish.

Question 33

What were Feoffees?

Answer 33

A group of Puritan merchants and landowners began to buy up the right to collect tithes so that they could put well-trained Puritan ministers into parishes.

Question 34

Example of resistance to Laudianism and how it failed?

Answer 34

Parishioners of St Gregory’s Church in London resisted the required move of their communion table. Nonetheless, Charles brought them to account in front of the Privy Council in 1633, enforcing conformity.