Chapter 7 - Political Issues Flashcards
Political Issues
Thomas Wentworth
- vocal critic of Crown policy and a fierce opponent of Buckingham
- so much so, that Charles manoeuvred him out of the 1626 Parliament
- 1627 the was imprisoned for refusing to pay the forced loan
- 1628 he was one of the MPs who helped drafed the Petition of Right
- 1628, he was given the role of President of the Council of the North
- became a fervent servant of the king
- rose to be one of Charles’ most trusted advisors
- alienated his previous allies among Parliamentarians
- given the nickname ‘Grand Apostate’
He was protestant, not puritan
Opposed Buckingham more than the King.
Understood and beliebed in the traditional role of the king - which he displayed in a speech after the 1628 Petition of Right
Thorough policy
- Laud and Wentworth
- no corruption
- order returned to the Church and State
- Non-conformity was a challenge to the King that should be quashed
Different expectations of how Thorough should be applied
Wentworth = idealistic
Laud = pragmatic
Policies in England
- conformity to the 1631 Book of Orders
- which did a lot to ensure that the lower classes lives were improved
- e.g. provisions for the poor were enforced properly and measures were taken to ensure that poor farmers were not illegally evicted from their farmland by wealthy landowners
- gentry families in the North of England resented their loss of power signalled by Thorough; they were greatly offended by Wentworth’s blunt and authoritarian style of communication
- Wentworth identified attacks on his person with attacks on the king himself and used the Council as a prerogative court to enforce respectful treatment and submission to his authority
Wentworth and Lord Deputy
- July 1633, Wentworth was promoted to the role of Lord Deputy of Ireland, the highest royal office in that kingdom
- Charles didn’t warm to Wentworth, but respected his loyal and efficient service
- previous Lord Deputies had been drawn from within Ireland’s elite families
- Wentworth saw his role as bringing royal authority to bear on the whole of Irish society
Wentworth’s goals for Ireland
1) to impose the authority of the English Crown
2) to impose religious uniformity and conformity, in a Laudia style, on the Irish Church
3) to make Ireland profitable for the king in keeping with Thorough, he quickly applied himself to the task in hand
The impact of Thorough in Ireland
imposing political authority on the Irish Council
- deployment of trusted advisers brought in from England
- critics say this alientated political elites who found their influence reduced
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- suppression of critics
- e.g. Lord Mountnorris, who was court-martialled for treason and sentenced to death in 1635
- critics say this destabilised the balance that factional politics brough to Ireland and united all parties against the Crown
The impact of Thorough in Ireland
Impose religious (Laudian) authority on the Irish Church
- 1634, 34 Anglican (Laudian) articles were introduced to the Irish Chuch
- John Bramhall, Wentworth’s former chaplain and a Laudian, was appointed to the key bishopric of Derry
- New Irish Court of High Commisson established to enforce Laudianism
- Juries in courts such as the Commission for Defective Titles and the Court of Castle Camber were pressurised into agreeing with what the Crown wanted in church land disputes e.g. the Earl of Cork, Ireland’s leading Protestant lanwoener, was forced to return land that he had taken from the Irish Church
Critics say:
- antagonised the Protestant Irish, who saw Laudiansim as quasi-Catholic
- Irish Catholics and Old England Catholics also increasingly isolated as conformity to Laudian Anglican Church enforced more strictly than previously
- Alienated land owners, particularly among the New English who had benefitted most from the change in landownership brought about by the Reformation
The impact of Thorough in Ireland
Restore Ireland to profitability and make it contribute to the English Crown finances
- The Book of Rates was re-issued so that Crown income from customs doubled bewteen 1633 and 1640
- 1634 Irish Parliament manoeuvred into voting 6 subsidies
- Revival of measures of fiscal feudalism that had fallen out of use. 1634 Statute of Uses enacted and enforced, which stopped heirs from being able to avoid paying a form of inheritance tax payable on land transfers
- Court of Wards and Liveries revitalised
- Sale of monopolies used as fiscal experiment
Critics say:
- impacted on merchants and traders who had to pay significantly more in customs
- particularly offended the Old English and Irish Catholics because of the Graces, but also led to a general feeling of disempowerment in the Irish Parliament
- Increased financial burden on wealthy elites and laid the Crown open to accusation of corruption and unfair practice
The ‘Graces’
1628:
- previous Lord Deputy and representatives of the Catholic Old English and Irish Catholics had reached an agreement to smooth Parliamentary business
- In return, Parliament would grant 3 subsidies of £120,000 over 3 years
- the Deputy would agree to the following concessions: 1) recusancy fines wouldn’t be collected 2) relaxation of requirement for Catholics in public office to take the Oath of Supremacy 3) guarantee of land titles over 60 years old
Expected that Wentworth would honour this agreement.
Suggested 2 parliamentary sessions. The first would deal with finances, and the second would address grievances, to include the Graces.
Once the subsidies were voted, the Graces were not addressed
Reactions in Ireland
By 1639, when Wentworth was summoned to England. Ireland was more profitable, more efficiently administered, with a reformed Church but at a cost for the future
- Wentworth was able to frighten all but the most determined opponents into submissions due to his ruthless suppression of critics and his iron grip over tools of law
- the Irish Privy Council was traditionally more subservient than its English equivalent and therefore posed less of a challenge to Wentworth’s rule
Why the tensions that had developed during his tenure would erupt into rebellion for two main reasons…
- Wentworth’s efficiency and grip on political matters meant that he had forced change onto the existing political factions and structures in Ireland
- His departure created a significant acuum that generated factional struggle for dominance
Reactions in England
By the late 1630s, opposition to the king’s Personal Rule was becoming more visible and sustained
- The Hampden Ship Money case had directly mobilised a significant network of Puritan gentleman and was the main reason why general Ship Money receipts dropped at the end of the 1630s
- the trial and punishment of Prynne, Bastwick and Burton was widely known and discussed, casting a light on both the severity of the king’s repressions of critics and also on the presence of dissenting voices
- the king’s circle of advisers continued to shrink into a ruling clique, creating increasing alienation and therefore discontentment among his natural supporters in the gentry
- the very efficient of Thorough provoked opposition because it meant that the king’s authority reached further into the localities than had previously been possible. While this was sometimes good, in instances such as the better deployment of measures against poverty, it also provoked anger when it disrupted local communities and individuals who had benfitted from a lack of efiiciency from government, particularly in realtion to financial matters
Demands for the recall of the English parliament
The well of oppositon voices demonstrated that tension was building across the kingdom. The problem would increase as Charles limited the ways in which pressue could be vented
- absence of Parliament prevented the Political Nation from debating and expressing its collected will to the king
- Thorough’s control of the regions meant that those who would normaly have had their voices heard at Westminster were also experiencing restrictions on their ability to disagree in the home localities as well
- They were also being brought into greater conformity and accountability with central directives through the reforms aimed at improving the JP’s system
- the narrow court circle around Charles, which reflected his distaste for factional politics at court and his preference for supportive, loyal voices, meant that the nobility lost their personal access to the monarch as well as their institutional access via Parliament
