Personal Rule or 11 years of tyranny

Question 1

11 years of tyranny

• Refuse to call parliament

Answer 1

Charles refused to call Parliament and imposed illegal taxes on his subjects, prompting Hampden’s legal challenge in 1637

Question 2

11 years of tyranny

• Exploiting fiscal feudalism

Answer 2

Charles continued to collect Tonnage and Poundage without parliamentary consent, and exploited ‘fiscal feudalism’ to raise money through long-forgotten taxes, such as warship and distraint of knighthood.

Question 3

11 years of tyranny

• Discussion of new Parliaments

Answer 3

Following Charles’s dissolution of Parliament in 1629, he forbade any discussion of new Parliaments and made it clear that he intended to rule also

Question 4

11 years of tyranny

• Prerogative forms of taxation

Answer 4

Charles was forced to resort to prerogative forms of taxation that had been declared illegal in the Petition of Right in 1628

Question 5

11 years of tyranny

• Ship Money

Answer 5

Ship Money was extended to the inland counties in 1635. This was without precedent and could be viewed as tyrannical

Question 6

The imposition of Wentworth’s policies

Answer 6

The imposition of Wentworth’s policies in Ireland and the contempt shown towards the Scots from 1637 reveals a regime that was essentially tyrannical and completely indifferent to the rights of the King’s subjects

Question 7

Impose religious policies

Answer 7

Charles and Laud imposed their religious policies with no regard for the conscience of the King’s subjects and demonstrated a willingness to use brutal methods of enforcement

Question 8

The policy of Thorough

Answer 8

The policy of Thorough as applied to local government through the Book of Orders was actually a attempt to impose more effective and efficient government through existing structures and did not see the creation of new absolutist-styles bureaucracy which could be viewed as tyrannical.