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A level History: Stuart Britain > Charles I: Personal Rule -> Financial policies during his personal rule > Flashcards

Charles I: Personal Rule -> Financial policies during his personal rule Flashcards

1
Q

Who were Charles’ chief advisers?

A

Sir Thomas Wentworth and William Laud

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2
Q

What did ‘Thorough’ refer to?

A

Involved making royal government much more efficient and effective through a centralised form of control

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3
Q

Who developed the concept of ‘Thorough’?

A

Spearheaded by Sir Thomas Wentworth who was despised by his former allies as ‘the great apostate’ and made Lord President of the Council of the North

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4
Q

What were the positives of ‘Thorough’?

A
  • prerogative courts worked speedily
  • better administration
  • Centralisation of decision making led to a ‘thorough’ implementation of these decisions
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5
Q

What were the negatives of ‘Thorough’?

A

-JPs and officials were given a tough workload
- little recognition of the political sensitivities of the political nation
- enhanced role of the bishops and the Court of High Commission
- Centralisation of decision making and ‘thorough’ implementation of these decisions did not always produce the ‘right’ decisions

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6
Q

What was the nature of Charles’ royal court?

A

Replaced James’ court with a more formal, dignified regime and became a model of restraint, establishing the idea of royal virtue at the heart of the kingdom

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7
Q

Why was access to Charles limited?

A

Charles’ sense of dignity led to further formality
- the King became more remote, his semi-divine status was safeguarded by a strict hierarchy and proper etiquette

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8
Q

What were the key reasons for personal rule?

A
  • foreign policy
  • religion
  • parliament
  • finance
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9
Q

What examples of foreign policy led to the Personal Rule?

A
  • Failure at La Rochelle in July 1627
  • Failure at Cadiz in November 1625
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10
Q

What examples of religion led to the personal rule?

A
  • the rise of William Laud
  • Charles marriage to Henrietta Maria in May 1625
  • the rise of more radical Puritan MPs e.g. Sir John Eliot and John Pym
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11
Q

What examples of parliament led to the personal rule?

A
  • 1625 Parliament: T+P
  • Charles’ personality/DRoK/royal prerogative
  • Charles’ attempts to purge Parliament of opposition 1625-26
  • 1626 Parliament calls for impeaching Buckingham
  • the Duke of Buckingham 1625-1628
  • The Three Resolutions - March 1629
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12
Q

What examples of finance led to the personal rule?

A
  • 1625 Parliament: T+P
  • The Forced Loan 1626-27
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13
Q

Who became greatly important during the Personal Rule and why?

A

The Privy Council gained even greater importance as there wasn’t a Parliament to govern

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14
Q

How did Charles enforce his will and that of the Privy Council?

A

Through key prerogative courts such as the Star Chamber and High Commission

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15
Q

What was the Court of High Commission made up of?

A

Privy councillors selected by the monarch

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16
Q

What was the Court of High Commission used for?

A

The Court of High Commission was the chief court of the Church used by Laud to enforce conformity

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17
Q

Why is it important to recognise that not every aspect of Personal Rule led to the total breakdown?

A

Society was deeply entrenched in kingship so it would be difficult to come into civil war
- in 1640, nobody would have put Charles on trial for treason

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18
Q

Why was finance a key issue for Charles during his personal rule?

A

Involvement in the Thirty Years’ War had been expensive and by 1629, Charles was in debt to financiers in the City of London to the sum of £2 million

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19
Q

What did Charles rely on to finance his personal rule without Parliament?

A

Charles relied on prerogative forms of income

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20
Q

What included prerogative forms of income?

A
  • monopolies
  • impositions
  • wardships
  • purveyance
  • sale of titles
  • tonnage and poundage
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21
Q

What were these methods of raising revenue regarded as?

A

Fiscal feudalism

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22
Q

What else did Charles do in 1629 and 1630 to save?

A

Secured peace with France in 1629 and Spain in 1630 through the Treaties of Susa and Madrid, withdrawing from the Thirty Years’ War

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23
Q

Why did the withdrawal from the Thirty Years’ War create issues?

A

Puritans were uncomfortable as they regarded the destruction of Catholicism a crusade

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24
Q

How much revenue did customs duties (T+P) bring for Charles and when?

A

Between 1631 and 1635, it brought Charles about £270,000 a year
- After a new Book of Rates was introduced in 1635, the revenue the Crown received from customs duties increased markedly to roughly £425,000 in 1639

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25
Q

How much had feudal dues including wardship increased the Crown’s revenue?

A

Income from wardship increased by about a third, to about £75,000 a year during the personal rule, as did opposition

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26
Q

How did Charles get income from monopolies?

A

Charles exploited a loophole in the 1624 Monopoly Act allowed grants to corporations although it was supposed to curtail the granting of monopolies to obtain income
- bypassed this Act using the Star Chamber to legitimise granting of monopolies

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27
Q

How had finance caused resentment and opposition previously from the political nation>

A
  • There was resentment over ordinary forms of income that was levied
  • there had been vocal opposition when Charles had tried to obtain income not subject to the control of Parliament before 1629
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28
Q

What did Article 12 of the Magna Carta (1215) say?

A

‘No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our kingdom unless by common counsel of our kingdom’

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29
Q

What did article 12 of the Magna Carta mean for Charles?

A

Charles had to exploit ordinary revenue as efficiently as possible

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30
Q

Who did Charles task with finding forgotten laws that could be exploited to raise income?

A

William Noy, the Attorney General, was tasked with searching English history to find forgotten laws, lapsed practices and medieval precedents that could be exploited to raise income

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31
Q

What were the ‘King’s mines’?

A

Many of the measures used in the 1630s to raise money resulted from efforts to search the ‘King’s mines’; money that had rightfully belonged to the Crown in the past

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32
Q

What was Charles accused of by raising income from these means?

A

Charles was accused of introducing new taxes without parliament’s consent, to make the Crown financially independent, creating resentment

33
Q

What did Fiscal Feudalism mean?

A

A combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries

34
Q

How did Charles go further than his father in feudal measures to raise revenue?

A

In the 1630s, Charles revived both financial measures from the Middle Ages and creating new ones that were animated by much the same spirit - in order to obtain revenue

35
Q

Who did Charles levy fines on known as the ‘distraint of knighthood’ fines?

A

Charles levied fines on anyone holding land that generated more than £40 of income a year who did not receive a knighthood at his coronation

36
Q

How much revenue had Charles raised by 1635 through the ‘distraint of knighthood’?

A

By 1635, Charles had raised nearly £175,000 by prosecuting people for refusing to take a knighthood and refusing to pay for not doing so

37
Q

What were forest fines?

A

Fines for any landowner said to have encroached on areas of royal forest, using dubious maps and documents to impose fines on major landowners

38
Q

How was Charles’ imposition of fines on major landowners received?

A

Aroused opposition from landlords, but raised little revenue (fines only raised £38,667)

39
Q

Why was there intense opposition to Charles’ assertion of royal forest rights amongst commoners?

A

Many people depended on forest lands for part of their income as access to timber and grazing lands were very important for their livelihoods

40
Q

What were enclosure fines?

A

Fines imposed on those who had illegally enclosed, or closed off, common land

41
Q

What happened to landholdings once enclosed?

A

Use of the and became restricted to the owner and it ceased to be common land for communal use

42
Q

Who were in favour of enclosure fines?

A

A majority of the gentry in the South, East and Midlands and had gained Parliamentary approval for their actions in the 1620s

43
Q

Who disliked the enclosure fines?

A

The common people disliked the measures intensely

44
Q

Did Charles decide to prevent enclosures or not?

A

Charles decided that he would prevent enclosures because he could impose fines on enclosing landlords, thereby enhancing Crown revenues

45
Q

How many enclosing landlords were fined and during when?

A

600 enclosing landlords were fined for enclosure between 1636 and 1638

46
Q

Where did opposition to the Personal Rule stem from?

A
  • Puritans
  • MPs as they were not allowed to convene
  • some members of the gentry
  • however these groups possessed no forum for their opposition
47
Q

What support was there during the personal rule?

A

The gentry on the whole continued to administer Charles’ laws, collect taxes and continue with their duties as magistrates and sherrifs

48
Q

Why did the gentry support Charles?

A
  • they thought Charles would call a Parliament
  • most of them were moderate gentry not susceptible to open opposition
  • there was little opposition until later on in the decade
49
Q

Who was Charles’ Lord Treasurer` in 1635?

A

William Juxon, Bishop of London

50
Q

What economy did Charles’ Lord Treasurer make?

A
  • pensions were cut at Court
  • commissions were set up to investigate excessive spending and regular audits picked up fraud
  • sale of crown lands stopped (Charles had already sold £600,000 worth of Crown land)
51
Q

what was the state of finances by the mid 1630s?

A

Accumulated crown debt had decreased to £1m and income exceeded expenditure

52
Q

What did Charles decide to focus on as he rethought foreign policies following the failure of his interventions in the TYW?

A
  • Decided to focus on building a strong navy
  • this was to respond to pressure from merchants who wanted to protect their shipping from pirates
53
Q

What was ordered in August 1634?

A

Sovereign of the Seas

54
Q

What was the Sovereign of the Seas?

A

a giant Great Ship that was built as a deliberate attempt to bolster the reputation of the English Crown

55
Q

How as the name Sovereign of the Seas significant?

A

It was a political statement as Charles tried to revive the perceived ancient right of the English kings to be recognised as the ‘lords of the seas’

56
Q

Why did Charles want a strong navy?

A

It would allow for the extension of English power into the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay and secure trade routes in the Americas and the Caribbean
- project to expand English power globally during the ‘Age of discovery’

57
Q

How did Charles ensure the security of the English channel/

A

By deterring Algerian privateers and pirates operating from the Spanish Netherlands, the security of the English channel could be ensured, helping to promote increased trade and encourage prosperity and stability

58
Q

Who would a strong navy be used to impress?

A

To impress and even help, the Spanish who were seriously bogged down in the Thirty Years’ War

59
Q

Why was it essential to help Spain after the TYW?

A

Charles’ Danish cousin, Christian IV had been defeated and signed a peace treaty with Spain in May 1629 - meaning that the only practical way the Palatinate could be recovered for Frederick V was by ensuring good relations with Spain

60
Q

What was ship money?

A

A tax of medieval origin and a prerogative form of income levied in times of emergency to fund the navy

61
Q

Who was ship money assessed on?

A

Only on the inhabitants of coastal areas of England

62
Q

When did Charles wrongfully claim ship money?

A

In the 1630s, Charles decided that he would levy the tax in order to fund an ambitious programme of ship-building although it could be claimed that England was not suffering an emergency

63
Q

What was Charles’ aim for England with ship money?

A

To make England a serious ‘blue water’ power

64
Q

When was it announced that ship money would be a tax levied in coastal areas?

A

october 1634

65
Q

What happened to ship money in June 1635?

A

In june 1635, the demand for ship money was extended to inland areas, obtaining a verdict from the judges that legalised this action

66
Q

How much ship money was paid between 1634 and 1638?

A

90% of the ship money that was demanded was paid

67
Q

How much had ship money made between 1635-38?

A

it raised £200,000 p.a (equivalent to three subsidies)

68
Q

What could ship money be judged as on the surface?

A

a financial success

69
Q

What example of opposition to ship money is there?

A

The 1637 Hampden Case

70
Q

Who was John Hampden?

A

A leading parliamentarian involved in challenging the authority of Charles I in the run up to the English Civil War

71
Q

When did Hampden become a national figure?

A

When he stood trial in 1637-38 for his refusal to be taxed for ship money

72
Q

Was Hampden moderate or radical?

A

Hampden was moderate in his politics and his religion and was well-connected

73
Q

What was at stake for Charles following ship money?

A

Without the loyalty of men like Hampden, Charles I might govern but he could not rule - nor could he withstand a crisis

74
Q

What did the ship money case indicate?

A

Deep-rooted problems
- the legal issues might have been thorny but more was at stake than just revenue
- this was a case that had constitutional importance as it tested the limits of royal prerogative - again

75
Q

What were the consequences of the Hampden trial of 1637?

A
  • a key turning point during the personal rule
  • The Crown won the case but the verdict was not unanimous: five of the twelve judges gave their verdict against the Crown
76
Q

What did the case provide a focus and forum for?

A

It provided a focus and forum for opposition, making it possible for opposition to Charles to become more determined and more organised, making Hampden a rising star of the opposition

77
Q

What had Charles failed to do in this case?

A

Charles had failed to ‘read the political map’ and to build on the stability of the 1630s

78
Q

Was the Hampden case the beginning of the rebellion that would lead to the civil war?

A

The Hampden case was not the beginning of the rebellion that would lead to the civil war as events in Scotland would generate real opposition to Charles.

A level History: Stuart Britain (14 decks)

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