In his ecclesiastical policy Charles was equally out of touch with the
feelings of his people. He shared to the full his father's dislike and
distrust of the Puritans, and he supported with the whole weight of the
crown the attempt of William Laud (q.v.), since 1633 archbishop of
Canterbury, to enforce conformity to the ritual prescribed by the Prayer
Book. At the same time offence was given to the Puritans by an order
that every clergyman should read the Declaration of Sports, in which the
king directed that no one should be prevented from dancing or shooting
at the butts on Sunday afternoon. Many of the clergy were suspended or
deprived, many emigrated to Holland or New England, and of those who
remained a large part bore the yoke with feelings of ill-concealed
dissatisfaction. Suspicion was easily aroused that a deep plot existed,
of which Laud was believed to be the centre, for carrying the nation
over to the Church of Rome, a suspicion which seemed to be converted
into a certainty when it was known that Panzani and Conn, two agents of
the pope, had access to Charles, and that in 1637 there was a sudden
accession to the number of converts to the Roman Catholic Church amongst
the lords and ladies of the court.
Charles and Scotland.
In the summer of 1638 Charles had long ceased to reign in the affections
of his subjects. But their traditionary loyalty had not yet failed, and
if he had not called on them for fresh exertions, it is possible that
the coming revolution would have been long delayed. Men were ready to
shout applause in honour of Puritan martyrs like Prynne, Burton and
Bastwick, whose ears were cut off in 1637, or in honour of the lawyers
who argued such a case as that of Hampden. But no signs of active
resistance had yet appeared. Unluckily for Charles, he was likely to
stand in need of the active co-operation of Englishmen. He had attempted
to force a new Prayer Book upon the Scottish nation. A riot at Edinburgh
in 1637 quickly led to national resistance, and when in November 1638
the general assembly at Glasgow set Charles's orders at defiance, he was
compelled to choose between tame submission and immediate war. In 1639
he gathered an English force, and marched towards the border. But
English laymen, though asked to supply the money which he needed for the
support of his army, deliberately kept it in their pockets, and the
contributions of the clergy and of official persons were not sufficient
to enable him to keep his troops long in the field. The king, therefore,
thought it best to agree to terms of pacification. Misunderstandings
broke out as to the interpretation of the treaty, and Charles having
discovered that the Scots were intriguing with France, fancied that
England, in hatred of its ancient foe, would now be ready to rally to
his standard. After an interval of eleven years, in April 1640 he once
more called a parliament.
The Short Parliament.
The Scottish invasion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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