Global Crisis

by Parker, Geoffrey

  Just as he had insisted on leading his army in person, despite his lack of military experience, Charles now insisted on conducting the negotiations in person, despite his lack of diplomatic experience. The Scots immediately demanded that their sovereign ratify the acts of the last General Assembly of the Church (which meant abolishing all bishops), summon a new Parliament and return for trial and punishment the ‘incendiaries’ (as they termed the king's supporters who had fled to England). Charles withdrew to consult his leading advisers and, since the talks took place under canvas, the Scots overheard Hamilton warn his king that ‘if he consented to yearly General Assemblies he might quit his three crowns for they would trample over them all’. They breathed a sigh of relief when Charles rejected Hamilton's prescient advice and instead consented to the Pacification of Berwick, which not only granted all the Covenanters’ demands but also required him to demobilize his army and lift the naval blockade. He had just made, in John Adamson's words, ‘the greatest single mistake of his life’.35

  The Pacification of Berwick weakened Charles I in four important ways. First, by failing to exploit his military superiority, he forfeited his best (if not his only) chance of victory over his Scottish rebels. Second, the king's retreat from his earlier stated position (‘I would rather die than yield to these impertinent and damnable demands’) discredited not only him but also his leading advisers. As Hamilton pointed out: because ‘those particulars which I have so often sworn and said Your Majesty would never condescend to, will now be granted’, the Covenanters ‘will give no credit to what I shall say there after, but will still hope and believe, that all their desires will be given way to’.36 He was soon proved correct. The Scottish Parliament that met in autumn 1639 acted from the first on the assumption that the king would sooner or later concede everything they demanded. Third, and equally damaging, the pamphlets generated in England by the Scottish crisis initiated debate on issues that had been taboo: liturgy and church government, the limits of authority and obedience, even the possible justifications for resistance. Fourth and finally, Charles was now bankrupt: the campaign itself, which had cost about £1 million, drained the English treasury of its reserves; while the king's craven concessions emboldened many to withhold payment of Ship Money and other regalian rights (and encouraged royal officials to leave offenders alone, fearing another change of the royal mind). Tax revenues therefore declined sharply. To solve the problems that his policies had created, Charles turned to the only minister who could apparently ‘achieve through royal authority what former kings did by the authority of the realm’: Thomas Wentworth, Lord Deputy of Ireland.

  ‘Thorough’ in Ireland

  In Ireland, Charles had sought to fund his ‘Union of Arms’ scheme (page 332 above) by offering the Catholics there concessions, known as the ‘Graces’, in exchange for new taxes to pay for the island's defence. Among other things, he promised to relax the requirement that all holders of public office must recognize the king as Supreme Governor of the Church of Ireland (something no Catholic could do), and also to guarantee the titles of all families that had held their lands for 60 years (which would virtually end the further creation of ‘plantations’). As soon as he had made peace with France and Spain in 1630, however, Charles reneged on these promises and instead ordered a strict application of the anti-Catholic laws, commanded the dissolution of all Catholic convents and required all magistrates either to take the Oath of Supremacy (recognizing Charles as Supreme Governor of this Church) or be dismissed. The king entrusted enforcement of these measures to a group of militant Protestant landholders, who carried out their work with efficiency and enthusiasm – until Charles reversed course yet again in 1632, when he named Thomas Wentworth, an Englishman with extensive administrative experience but no Irish connections, to serve as Lord Deputy.

  From the first, Wentworth exploited the fragmentation and divisions of Irish society. Thus he hinted to Catholics that the ‘Graces’ might be confirmed in return for approving some tax increases, and duly relaxed some anti-Catholic measures – but he also tampered with charters and franchises so that Catholic membership of the Irish House of Commons fell dramatically: although 112 Catholics sat in the 1634 assembly, only 74 did so in 1640. Wentworth also systematically reviewed all property titles, increasing royal rents and services wherever possible and dispossessing those with titles deemed to be defective, targeting newcomers (both Scots and English Protestants) as well as natives (including families who had come over to Ireland generations before, known as the ‘Old English’). As Aidan Clarke has observed, although ‘the confiscation of property was not a new experience for the Irish, it was for the Old English’. Even the new settlers from Britain ‘were threatened as much as anyone by the systematic violation of common law rights upon which landholders relied to protect their property’.37 Thanks to these measures, and to increased customs revenues, the Irish budget went into surplus for the first time in decades.

  Wentworth realized that his innovations, which he boastfully termed ‘Thorough’, would alienate most segments of Irish society, but he relied on their deep-seated mutual hatred to prevent cooperation. He therefore left Dublin for London full of confidence. In December 1639 he – supported by Laud and Hamilton – met Charles and persuaded him to summon the Westminster Parliament and demand funds for a new invasion of Scotland – although all four recognized that it might be necessary to resort to ‘extraordinary ways, if the Parliament should prove peevish, and refuse’ to vote taxes.38 The quartet also decided to launch another attack on Scotland in 1640, repeating the strategy of the previous year: Charles would invade with a major army from England while the Royal Navy once again blockaded Scotland's east coast and another army from Ireland attacked in the southwest. Wentworth, now raised to the peerage as earl of Strafford, returned to Dublin and persuaded the Irish Parliament to authorize taxes sufficient to raise an army of 8,000 foot and 1,000 horse for the invasion of Scotland. Mobilization began at once and as the new troops converged on Ulster, the area nearest to Scotland, the new earl returned to London just in time to take his seat as a peer in the first English Parliament to meet in 11 years.

  England on Edge

  The 500,000 Englishmen entitled to vote in parliamentary elections seized the unexpected chance to protest against the controversial policies of the previous decade, rejecting candidates who had allocated Ship Money, collected regalian rights, or enforced Laud's liturgical innovations. Instead, their representatives took with them to Westminster long lists of grievances which they debated at length, ignoring the government's pleas for new taxes. Charles tolerated this irritating behaviour until he learned that on the morning of 5 May 1640 the Commons planned to debate a motion urging ‘reconciliation with … his subjects in Scotland’. Since such a motion would destroy the entire moral foundation of his Scottish policy, the king dissolved the assembly, soon to be known as the ‘Short Parliament’.39 Angry crowds soon roamed the streets, and a group of about 500 surrounded Lambeth Palace, Laud's official residence as archbishop of Canterbury, because they blamed him for the king's decision to dissolve the assembly. It was the first major episode of mob violence in the Stuart capital; it would not be the last.

  Laud was not in Lambeth Palace because, as soon as Charles returned from dissolving Parliament, he summoned his archbishop to attend a ‘committee of war’ to discuss whether, despite the lack of parliamentary funds, ‘the Scotts are to bee reduced or noe?’ The rough minutes taken at the meeting by Secretary of State Henry Vane reveal that some councillors favoured a compromise – ‘If noe more mony than what proposed, howe then to make an offensive war?’ one asked – but Strafford dismissed this concern because a ‘defensive warr’ would involve ‘losse of honor and reputacon’. He then argued that since ‘the quiett of England will hold out longe’, the king should ‘goe on with a vigorous warr, as you first designed’. He also stressed that ‘You have an army in Ireland, which you may imploy here to reduce this kingdome’ (the ambiguity of
‘here’ and ‘this kingdome’ would come back to haunt him). ‘Scotland shall not hold out five monthes. One sumer well imployed will doe it,’ Strafford predicted. The earl also repeated the arguments he had advanced the previous December: now that the king was ‘loose and absolved from all rules of government, beinge reduced to extreame necessitie,’ Strafford declared, ‘everythinge is to be done as power might admitt’ – that is: since Parliament had refused its support, the king should fund his army via regalian rights and forced loans from the leading London merchants.40

  As soon as he left the meeting, the army's designated general, the earl of Northumberland, assured his lieutenant in Newcastle, the largest city in the northeast, that ‘We are going upon a conquest with such a power that nothing in that kingdom [Scotland] will be able to resist us’ – although, he added, because Parliament had not voted funds, the rendezvous of England's troops scheduled for 20 May had unfortunately been pushed back to 10 June. This delay did not worry Strafford, because he expected Spain to fund the war. The previous December he had met Philip IV's envoys in London to request a loan of £100,000; now he asked them for £300,000. Philip expressed support, but the uprising in Barcelona, which began one month later (see chapter 9 above), deprived him of funds to help Charles regain Scotland. As John Adamson observed, ‘The revolt of the Catalans is no less important than the revolt of the Covenanters in explaining why civil war in England became a serious probability after the summer of 1640.‘41

  The collapse of the Spanish deal left Charles dangerously exposed. He had ordered 35,000 English troops to mobilize for service against Scotland and could not abandon his war plans now without ‘losse of honor and reputacon’. Postponing the date of the rendezvous twice more (first until 1 July and then ‘till the midle of August’) multiplied the risks because, as Northumberland noted, mid-August was ‘a season not so proper for the drawing an army into the field in these northerne countries’. ‘The season’ soon became even less ‘proper’ than the earl had anticipated. An outbreak of plague prevented the levies from Devon and Cornwall from reaching York while, thanks to the El Niño episode of that year, much of England experienced ‘an abundance of rains and cold winds: the spring is wonderfully late’. In August ‘the land seemed to be threatened with the extraordinary violence of the winds and unaccustomed abundance of wet’. Even Strafford, appointed to lead the king's army after Northumberland resigned, arrived late: by 24 August 1640 he had only reached Huntingdon, where he found ‘the waters mightily risen and the ways as foul as Christmas’.42

  Meanwhile, in Dublin, news of the failure of the Short Parliament combined with Strafford's absence encouraged the Irish Parliament to suspend collection of the taxes already voted. This delayed the raising of the troops designed to invade Scotland, so that although the infantry regiments had assembled in Ulster by June, the cavalry (which required more money to equip) had not. In addition, neither the weapons for the recruits nor the transport ships to carry them across to Scotland arrived. Most of the ‘New Army’ therefore remained in Ulster, consuming local supplies already much reduced by a run of bad harvests.

  The Scottish Parliament took advantage of these setbacks to reassemble in Edinburgh and, in the words of Sir James Balfour, passed a legislative programme ‘memorable to be recommended to posterity as exhibiting the real greatest change at one blow that ever happened to this church and state these 600 years by past’ – for in effect it ‘overturned not only the ancient state government, but fettered monarchy with chains’. Parliament passed a Triennial Act, requiring an assembly to convene at least once every three years, with or without a royal summons, and an Act excluding all bishops from the assembly. It also created an elaborate structure of standing committees to govern Scotland while Parliament was not in session.43 The Covenanting leaders also received a letter signed by seven English peers, promising that ‘upon the first assurance of your entry into the kingdom’, to ‘unite themselves into a considerable body, and to draw up a Remonstrance to be presented to the king’. It would contain the grievances of both Scotland and England, to which they would ‘require’ (not ‘request’) redress.44 The seven dissident (and traitorous) peers included the earls of Bedford and Warwick (both of whom Charles had previously imprisoned for criticizing his policies), and the earl of Essex (whom Charles had blamed for the failure of the 1639 campaign). All three had used their influence to secure the election of malleable MPs to the Short Parliament – including John Pym, a protégé and former employee of both Bedford and Warwick, who became the dominant voice in the House of Commons – and they bitterly resented its dissolution.

  The treasonable promise of collusion by the seven peers persuaded the new Scottish government to make a pre-emptive strike. They sent one army into the north under Argyll, with orders to destroy the property of all potential royalists who might open a second front, and they authorized General Leslie – who had spent the previous year training and arming his soldiers – to invade England. On 20 August 1640 he led 18,000 men across the Tweed. Scotland and England were at war again.

  Charles left London that same day for York, where he ‘spake with the lords, colonels and gentlemen’, urging them to march against the Scots. Instead of mobilizing, however, on 28 August they sent Charles a ‘humble petition’ protesting that the last campaign had cost the county over £100,000, so that ‘for the future, the burden is so heavy that we neither can, nor are able, to bear it’. They were equally blunt about the king's demand that they billet soldiers until the campaign began: ‘billeting of unruly soldiers, whose speeches and actions tend to the burning of our villages and houses’ was forbidden by the ‘ancient laws of this kingdom, confirmed by Your Majesty in the Petition of Right’. That same day, Leslie led the Scottish army across the Tyne, routed the small English force facing him at the battle of Newburn and captured Newcastle, before sweeping south to capture Durham as well.45

  Although many historians have overlooked the scale and significance of these military defeats, contemporaries did not. The king, who was leading his army from York towards Durham in person, panicked and beat a hasty retreat when he heard about Newburn; while Secretary Vane feared that England now faced the ‘greatest [danger] that had threatened this state since the [Norman] Conquest’. Indeed, the occupation of northeast England not only guaranteed Scotland against the imposition of the ‘perfect union’ envisaged by Charles and Laud; it also opened the way for the Scots to impose on England a ‘perfect union’ of their own by cutting off the supply of Tyneside coal on which London depended.46

  Many in England openly rejoiced at their king's defeat. When news of Newburn arrived in London, the church bells rang out in celebration and the Privy Council, which had already placed artillery around Whitehall Palace to guard against a popular insurrection, fled the capital and prepared Portsmouth, on the south coast, as ‘a retreat’ for the royal family ‘in case of extremity’. Archbishop Laud expressed the defeatist temper of the Council best: the king, he said, must understand that ‘We are at the wall, and that we are in the dark’, and that the only way to organize effective resistance to the Scots was by summoning a council of peers ‘or the calling of a Parliament’.47

  Laud's fears were well founded. Although London saw no insurrection at this stage, the dissident English peers honoured their promise to their Scottish colleagues and sent to the king a ‘Petition’ that bore 12 noble signatures and made two categories of demands. First, they asserted that ‘By occasion of this war, your revenue is much wasted, your subjects burdened with … military charges … and your whole kingdom become full of fear and discontents’. To solve these problems, the peers proposed a simple and immediate solution: peace with the Scots. Second, and at greater length, they complained of ‘the sundry innovations in matters of religion'; ‘the great increase of Popery, and employing of Popish recusants'; the rumours ‘of bringing in Irish and foreign [i.e. Catholic] forces'; ‘the urging of Ship Money’ and imposition of sundry taxes on ‘the commodities and
manufactures of the kingdom'; and ‘the long intermission of Parliaments’. To address these issues, the 12 Petitioner Peers demanded that Charles

  Summon a Parliament within some short and convenient time, whereby the causes of these and other great grievances which your people lie under may be taken away, and the authors and counsellors of them may be there brought to such legal trial and condign punishment as the nature of the several offences shall require.48

  No one could overlook the significance of the increase in noble signatories to 12, for it recalled ‘the example of Henry III’ cited by the Venetian ambassador three years before (page 332 above): in 1258 the king had reluctantly agreed under duress that 12 peers could summon a parliament in their own name if he refused to do so. Would the petitioning peers now invoke that same right?

  Charles decided not to put the matter to the test. On 5 September 1640, after discussing the Petition with his advisers, and upon learning that the Scots ‘plant garrisons and take up their winter-quarters throughout Northumberland and the bishopric’ of Durham, while his own ‘army cannot be in a posture fit to fight these six weeks’, Charles summoned a ‘Great Council’ consisting of all the English peers (a body that had not met since Tudor times) to meet him.49

  Foul weather continued to impede the transaction of public affairs – ‘we have had so great rains these two days, and the waters are so out,’ Vane complained, ‘that there is scarce means to pass anywhere upon the roads’ – but in late September just over 70 peers joined their king at York. Those who had signed the Petition arrived ostentatiously in a single cavalcade with their carriages, servants and retainers – a clear sign of unity that seems to have sapped the king's morale. ‘In the first place,’ he announced in his opening speech to the Great Council, ‘I must let you know that I desire nothing more than to bee rightly understood of my people, and to that end I have of myself resolved to call a Parliament.’ It would assemble in Westminster on 3 November 1640.50 The king next asked for advice on what to do about the Scots and expressed the hope that his nobles would fund a campaign to avenge Newburn. They refused, and instead insisted not only on the appointment of a committee of 16 peers with full powers to conclude an armistice with the Scots, but also on the inclusion within that number of 11 of the Petitioner Peers, including Bedford, Essex and Warwick – men who could hardly deny the invaders’ demands, given that the Scots possessed their treasonable letter of July.