Charles' Politicians

Question 1

What are the dates for John Pym?
What religion was he?
What was he against?
When did enter Parliament and what did he do?

Answer 1

• 1584-1643
• He was a prominent puritan and particularly concerned with religious issues.
• He was against Buckingham’s pro-Spanish and pro-Catholic policies
• He entered Parliament in 1621 and rose to prominence as an opponent of the court, helping to impeach Buckingham and support the Petition of Right in 1628. He worked feverently on religious committee to try to limit the king’s ability to change the Elizabethan settlement. As he rose to dominate the Commons in the Long Parliament, he acquired the nickname ‘King Pym’.

Question 2

What are the dates for Sir Edward Coke and who was he?

What did he do?

Answer 2

• Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) was a hugely experience lawyer and MP who had opposed James I’s articulation of Divine Right by reminding the king that the common law was superior to the king himself.
• He had helped draft the Protestation of 1621 which asserted that Parliament’s privileges were ‘the ancient… birth right and inheritance of the subjects of England.’ Horrified by Charles’s use of the royal prerogative in 1626-27, he drafted the 1628 Petition of Right as his last act before retiring.

Question 3

What are the dates for Benjamin Rudyard and who was he?

-When did he become an MP, why and what did he do?

Answer 3

• Benjamin Rudyard (1572-1658) trained as a lawyer and travelled widely before taking up an important legal role at the Court of Wards.
• He became an MP for Portsmouth, mainly because of the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke, and made a number of significant speeches in the Commons, most notably in 1628 when he so effectively captured the prevailing mood: “This is the crisis of parliaments, by this we shall know whether parliaments will live or die.”

Question 4

What are the dates for Denzil Holles? Who was he and what did he do?
What did he do with Holles, Valentine and Coke?

Answer 4

• Denzil Holles (159-1680) very nearly joined his childhood friend Prince Charles on the Madrid adventured of 1623 but instead became increasingly associated with the parliamentary opposition to the new King, especially with regard to financial matters.
• Holles, Valentine and Coke spent an evening together in the tavern called the Three Cranes, during which they planned to hold the speaker to the Chair.

Question 5

What are the dates for Sir John Selden?

• What was he the son of and what did he marry?
• How did he distinguish himself academically.
• What did he help create?
• When become and MP and what was his specialty?

Answer 5

• 1584-1654
• Was the son of a minstrel who made a very advantageous marriage to a wealthy heiress.
• He distinguished himself academically and became particularly focused on delving into the ‘ancient constitution’ of England at the expense of the Divine Right of Kings.
• He helped create the constitution of the colony of Virginia.
• He became MP for Lancaster in 1624 and rapidly became Parliament’s expert on constitutional law.

Question 6

• What are the dates for Sir John Eliot?
• What did he emerge as?
• What was he arrested for and what did other MPs ad Charles regard him as?
• When was he imprisoned and what did he die of?

Answer 6

• 1592-1632
• Emerged as leading critic of Buckingham, and thereby Charles, in the Parliaments of 1625-1629.
• Arrested for refusing to pay the Forced Loan, he was involved in the presentation of the Petition of Right and Three Resolutions, Eliot was regarded as too extreme by many MPs and identified as a leading ‘fiery spirit’ by Charles I.
• on the 4th March 1629, he was imprisoned and died of tuberculosis in the tower of London the 27th November 1632.