James I takes the throne as the first "king of Great Britain," ruling not only England, but also Scotland and Ireland. But the Stuart reign soon turns from heady triumph to failure and civil war.
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August 1588. Europe is convulsed by religious war, and Protestant England faces the world's foremost Catholic power
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With the Spanish Armada in the Channel, and a large and fearsomely professional Spanish army in the Low Countries, England is under dire threat
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On the 18th of August, 1588, Queen Elizabeth I came to review her troops here at Tilbury
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She wore a breastplate and carried a sword and addressed them in words that have echoed down the centuries
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I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman
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but I have the heart and stomach of a king and of a king of England, too
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and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe
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should dare invade the border of my realm. But even as the Queen spoke, the moment of danger had passed
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The English fire ships had broken up the armada's invincible formation off Calais
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and coastal storms would do the rest. Nevertheless, despite the defeat of the Spanish Armada
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England would not escape the horrors of religious war. And some of those who'd heard Elizabeth at Tilbury
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might live long enough to see another English monarch raise his banner in defiance on English soil
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But this time, the king's enemies would not be foreign princes, but his own people
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Within a generation, the monarchy was to pass from the triumphs of Elizabeth
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to the humiliation and defeat of her Stuart's successors. With the defeat of the Spanish Armada
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Elizabeth's reputation stood at a zenith at home and abroad. Even the Pope, who'd helped finance the Armada expedition
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expressed his admiration of her and only regretted that they were unable to have children together
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Inheriting their combined talents, their offspring would rule the world, he said
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Defending the realm was the most fundamental duty of an English monarch
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and Elizabeth had acquitted herself admirably. But Elizabeth inherited a crown, the imperial crown
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whose power had been greatly expanded by her father, Henry VIII's decision
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to make himself supreme head of the church and control the religion of his subjects as well as their everyday lives
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Could Elizabeth, mere woman that she was, maintain this lofty claim? The Monarchs' powers over religion proved to be a double-edged sword
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for the crown had taken control of the church at a time of uniquely bitter religious conflict
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Protestant fought with Catholic and different kinds of Protestant fought with each other
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How could the monarch, a supreme head of the church, avoid being drawn into this conflict
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which threatened to turn quarrels about religion into disputes with the crown
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Elizabeth did her best in establishing a Church of England that was Protestant in its doctrines
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but Catholic in the appearance of its ceremonies and clerical dress. Elizabeth's policy was successful in heading off much Catholic opposition
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but it had the opposite effect of opening up divisions on the Protestant side
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between those who wanted the rigorous, stripped-down Protestantism of the continent and Scotland
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and those who followed Elizabeth in her attachment to bishops and ceremonies
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This was not a struggle between government and opposition. Rather, it was a schism within the highest ranks of the Elizabethan establishment
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with Elizabeth's chief minister and eldest confidant, William Sissel, on one side
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and her archbishop of Canterbury, William Whitgift, on the other. The bad feeling between the two men burst into the open in the Queen's own presence
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and Elizabeth came down publicly and heavily on Whitgift's side. Matters of religion, she insisted, were for her and her bishops alone
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Neither the council nor parliament had any say in the matter. Instead, since her supremacy over the church came to her from God alone
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She was answerable only to God for how she chose to exercise it
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This was Henry VIII's own high view of the royal supremacy, and in sticking to it, Elizabeth showed herself every inch her father's daughter
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But who would continue the difficult but necessary balancing act of the middle way in religion after the ageing Elizabeth
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Her nearest blood relation was King James VI of Scotland, son of a Catholic mother
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but brought up in the rigorously Protestant Kirk. The possibility of James' accession aroused wildly contrasting hopes
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Whilst he was still only a claimant, he could flatter them all
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But when, if he became King of England, he would have to choose
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Crowned at the parish Kirk in Stirling on the 29th of July, 1567
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James had been king of Scotland since he was a small boy
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He was also heir to his mother's claims to England. James was the only child of Mary Queen of Scots' disastrous marriage to Lord Darnley
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When he was barely a year old, his mother, widely suspected of murdering his father, had
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been forced to flee to England by a Protestant revolt But cradle though he was James still needed rearing and educating like any other child
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This boy, of great rank and greater prospects still, was largely brought up at Stirling Castle
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It was a strange, insecure kind of childhood. A series of regents who ruled Scotland on his behalf
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were murdered in quick succession, and the boy's own life was more than once in danger
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In and among it all, James received an impressive education at the hands of his principal tutor, George Buchanan
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Dour and self-opinionated, Buchanan was a leading figure in the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk
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in which the supreme authority was not the king, as in England
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but the general assembly of the clergy. Kings also, Buchanan believed, were mere servants of their people
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who could and should be punished if they misbehaved. Buchanan's style as a teacher was important too
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Like many 16th century teachers, Buchanan thought that sparing the rod spoiled the child
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and he set about beating and birching his beliefs and learning into James with gusto
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This treatment indeed succeeded in making James a considerable scholar. But in terms of religion and politics, it produced only an equal and opposite reaction
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to which James was able to give expression with unusual force and clarity
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And this is the result. It's the true law of free monarchies which James wrote and published in 1598
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In it, he says succinctly, kings are called gods. They are appointed by God and answerable only to God
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James grounded these assertions, just as Henry VIII had his claim to the royal supremacy
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in the biblical story of the Old Testament kings. But James went beyond even Henry VIII
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by claiming to be absolute in affairs of state as well as those of the church
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In 1601, Elizabeth's leading ministers began to make moves to secure James's path to the English throne
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The matter became pressing during the Christmas holidays of 1603, when both Elizabeth's health and her temper suddenly worsened
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In mid-January, she moved to Richmond for a change of air, but within a few weeks, she was clearly dying
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She lay on a pile of cushions on the floor of her privy chamber, refusing to eat and unable to sleep
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Finally, she was carried to her bed, became speechless and died in the small hours of the morning of the 24th of March
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after Archbishop Whitgift had lulled her into her last sleep with his impassioned prayers
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Elizabeth had restored Protestantism, preserved the royal supremacy
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protected her country from invasion and allowed nothing to challenge either her crown or her popularity
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Above all, her studiously broad church religious settlement had brought peace, though at the inevitable price
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of alienating extremes of all sorts. The great Queen dead, all eyes now turned to Scotland and to James
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James VI of Scotland was proclaimed King James I of England within eight hours of Elizabeth's death
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And his first parliament proclaimed that he was, by inherent birthright and lawful succession
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the inheritor of the imperial crown of England and Scotland. It sounded good, but it was a dangerous doctrine
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since it implied that James' title to the throne was above and beyond the law
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as of course, James himself, as the author of the true law of free monarchies
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firmly believed. CHOIR SINGS
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In 1603, James arrived in London in triumph as the undoubted heir of his great-great-grandfather, Henry VII
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Henry VII had commissioned the imperial crown here as the symbol of the recovery of the monarchy from the degradation of the Wars of the Roses
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Now James, the first ruler of all Britain, would endow it with a larger significance still
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James' aim was to be Rex Pacificus, the peacemaker king
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He would reconcile Catholic and Protestant, thus re-establishing Christian unity at home and abroad
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He would end England's debilitating war with Spain. and, above all, he would terminate the ancient feud between England and Scotland
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and fuse instead the two warring kingdoms into a new, greater, united realm of Britain
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It was an enormously ambitious programme, and, to realise it, James, in a strikingly modern gesture, summoned three major conferences
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on peace, religion and union with Scotland. The Peace Conference and ensuing treaty at Somerset House
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were commemorated in this painting. Through them, James ended the 20-year war with Catholic Spain
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It was an auspicious start for James, the international peacemaker, but the result, paradoxically, was trouble at home
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On the one hand, the Somerset House Treaty meant that the hotter Protestants were shocked to discover
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that England, now at peace with the leading Catholic power, would no longer be the champion of their fellow Protestants in Europe And on the other hand the extrema Catholics were equalities made to find out that Spain had not extracted toleration for Catholics as a price of the peace
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Abandoned abroad, such Catholics turned, in desperation, to self-help and direct action
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at home. At the beginning of November 1605, James was shown a tip-off letter
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warning that the political establishment of England would receive a terrible blow in the parliament he was due to open on 5th November
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James immediately guessed that the wording of the letter pointed to an explosion
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But in order to catch the plotters red-handed, it was decided not to search the vaults under the Parliament Chamber
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until the night of the 4th. At 11pm, the search party entered
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and found a man standing guard over a pile of firewood, 35 barrels of gunpowder, and with a fuse in his pocket
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His name was Guy Fawkes. If the gunpowder had exploded as planned
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it would have been the terrorist bombing to end all terrorist bombings
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wiping out most of the British royal family and the entire English political establishment
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Nevertheless, the immediate political consequences were small. To James's credit, there was no widespread persecution of Catholics in England
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and the peace with Spain held. But in the longer term, the plot played an important part
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in the development of the Catholic myth in England. The reality was that English Catholicism was a beleaguered minority faith
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But in the fevered imagination of the hotter sort of Protestants, it became instead the fifth column of a vast international politico-religious conspiracy
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masterminded by the Pope in Rome and aiming not only at the conversion of England
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but at the subversion of English Protestantism and English freedoms, and by the foulest possible means
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And so, at the second of James' great conferences to determine the nature of the religious settlement
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under the new king, those hot Protestants, known pejoratively as Puritans, demanded that the English church be purged of what they regarded
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as its damnable popish elements. But they reckoned without the seductive powers of the English monarchy
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and the English royal supremacy. In Scotland, James VI had sat in the body of the church
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to be admonished by the preacher high in his pulpit as God's silly vessel
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But in England, as here in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court
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it was this same man, now known as King James I, who sat high above, enthroned in this magnificent royal pew
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whilst the preacher, under correction, went about his humbler task far below
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It was the most graphic possible illustration of the power of the royal supremacy
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which James was determined to keep in England and, if he could, to extend to Scotland
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Instead, therefore, as the Puritans had hoped of making the Church of England more like the Kirk in Scotland
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James used the Hampton Court Conference to proclaim that he was satisfied
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with the Elizabethan religious settlement as it stood, and was resolved to keep it as it was
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He would not, any more than Elizabeth, soften Archbishop Whitgift's hard line
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in enforcing ceremonies and vestments which the Puritans thought popish. And, above all, he would allow not an inch of movement
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away from the English government of the Church by bishops towards a role for presbyteries or assemblies of clergy, as in Scotland
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He even managed to subvert the Puritan demand for a new translation of the Bible
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James eagerly agreed, since he detested this, the so-called Geneva version of the Bible
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which was then used by Presbyterians in Scotland and Puritans in England because of its marginal notes
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which showed a typically hot Protestant disrespect for kings and queens. The King James Version of the Bible, on the other hand
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as the large and learned team of translators explained in this preface
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was to tread soberly in the middle way between popish persons on the one hand
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and the self-conceited brethren, that is, the Puritans, on the other. It was born out of a long-dead politico-theological dispute
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and it's the only classic ever to have been written by a committee
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Nevertheless, the King James Version of the Bible became the book which, more than any other, shaped the English language
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and formed the English mind. James's other lasting legacy
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was the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, and he set out his case for union in a speech from the throne
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at the opening of his first English parliament in March 1604. His succession had united the kingdoms of England and Scotland
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ending the ancient division of the island of Britain. Moreover, the king claimed, these divisions were largely in the mind
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Were not England and Scotland already united by a common language, the Protestant religion, and similar customs and manners
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was not the border practically indistinguishable on the ground. It was as though God had always intended the union to happen
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To resist union, therefore, James concluded, was not simply impolitic but impious
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It was to put asunder kingdoms which God himself had joined together
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But the English Parliament impolitically and impiously decided to look the gift horse of union in the mouth Partly it was a question of straightforward anti xenophobia
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but more fundamental causes were involved as well. These centred on James's apparently innocuous wish
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to rename the Anglo-Scottish kingdom Britain. But a new name meant a new kingdom
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It would be like, one MP said, a freshly conquered territory in the New World
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There would be no laws and no customs. And James, by his own rules in the true law of free monarchies
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would be free to set himself up as an absolute, supranational emperor of Great Britain
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The English Parliament, in contrast, would be left as a mere provincial assembly
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It wasn't an enticing prospect. for MPs who saw themselves as the great council of the realm
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James's reaction was to try to enact the Union symbolically, using his own powers under the royal prerogative
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By proclamation, he assumed the title of King of Great Britain. He redesigned the royal coat of arms
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with the Lion of England balanced by the Unicorn of Scotland, and he insisted on a British flag known as the Jack
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after the Latin form of the name James, again by proclamation. but not content with symbols
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James also practiced a kind of union by stealth the English political elite had prevented him
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from establishing an evenly balanced Anglo-Scots council but a king could do what he liked with his own court
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so in revenge James filled his bedchamber the inner ring of his court
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almost exclusively with Scots It was a pleasure, since James took a more than fatherly interest
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in braw Scots lads with well-turned legs and firm buttocks. But it also suited him politically
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since it compelled proud Englishmen to sue for patronage to his Scots favourites
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And they had to bribe them as well. But James's policy of union by stealth had a fatal flaw
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He had inherited a substantial debt from Elizabeth. He had a large family to maintain
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and he wanted to continue pouring money on his favourites and his pleasures
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For all this, the Crown's so-called ordinary income, from land and custom duties, was hopelessly inadequate
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There was no choice but to ask Parliament to vote money. But the English Parliament saw no reason why taxpayers' money, their money, should end up in the pockets of Scots' favourites
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And they said so rather crudely. How, asked one MP, could the cistern of the Treasury ever be filled up if money continued to flow thence by private cocks
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Cox meant taps and, well, what it means now. So James's project for British Union remained an unfulfilled dream
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whilst his relations with Parliament turned into a disaster. By the time of his death in 1625, he had gone into a sort of internal exile
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abandoning the task of government and secluding himself with his favourites and his horses
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Nevertheless, James managed to stick to the middle ground and to hold together the warring extremes of the Church of England on the one hand
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and the differing religious polities of England and Scotland on the other
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The result was a smooth succession on both sides of the border of James' son Charles
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to the glittering inheritance of the imperial crown of Great Britain. But within a decade and a half, Charles, by his intransigence and his ineptitude, had thrown it all away
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Charles was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on 2 February 1626
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For James, divine rite had been an intellectual position. For Charles, it was an emotional and religious one
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This was immediately made clear by his coronation service, which, meticulously choreographed by the up-and-coming cleric
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William Lord, lovingly reproduced all the splendour, solemnity and sacred mysteries of the medieval Catholic rite
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the ceremony is one of the best documented as well as the best organised of coronations
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thanks to the survival of these two service books here this is Charles' own copy of the coronation service
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which he used to follow the ceremony and this is Lord's version of the same text
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which he used like a kind of score to conduct the service
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He also made notes in the margins in a different coloured ink
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to record unusual features of the ceremony as it actually took place
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These notes take us into Charles' own mind. During the five-hour-long ceremony
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the king was invested with the carefully preserved robes and regalia of Edward the Confessor, the last sainted Anglo-Saxon king
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and Charles' attitude to these ancient relics was unique. Here Lord notes that he insisted on placing his feet inside the sacred buskins or sandals
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and here that he actually used, apparently for the only time in the 1500-year history of the coronation
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the Anglo-Saxon ivory comb, to tidy his hair after he'd been anointed on the head
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This wasn't mere idle curiosity. Instead, Charles was treating each and every item of the regalia
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as a sacrament of monarchy. With each touch of the precious oils and the ancient fabrics and jewels
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God was washing away the merely human in him and leaving him purely, indefeasibly and absolutely a king
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Or so Charles at least thought. Charles, as his behaviour at his coronation would suggest
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was an aesthete, a lover, a beauty. Elegance and order. His tutor had been chosen not for his scholarship but for his taste in fashion
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And Charles himself grew up to be not only fastidious in dress and manners
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but also the greatest connoisseur ever to have sat on the throne of England
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He built up a staggering collection of old master paintings and he commissioned portraits of himself and his family from the greatest contemporary artists
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like Sir Anthony van Dyck. And it is van Dyck, above all, who shows us Charles as he wanted to be
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suggesting the grandeur of his kingship on the one hand and the Christ-like wisdom and self-sacrifice
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with which he hoped to rule on the other. Like most royal heirs, Charles defined himself
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by espousing policies which were the opposite of his father's. He was pro-war, but Parliament, despite its vocal enthusiasm for a Protestant crusade in Europe
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was never prepared to vote enough tax to make war a serious option
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Frustrated by Parliament's unwillingness to put its money where its Protestant mouth was
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Charles, instead of fighting the Catholic French, married the French, and of course Catholic
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Princess Henrietta Maria, in 1626. On account of her religion, the marriage was extremely unpopular with Parliament
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It didn't even succeed in cementing an alliance with France. The result was that Charles soon found himself in the worst of all possible worlds
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without tax, with a Catholic wife, and fighting a hopeless war against both major Catholic powers, France and Spain
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Charles, looking for a scapegoat for the debacle, found it in what he saw as Parliament's sullen obstructiveness
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Charles decided that Parliaments were more trouble than they were worth and that, in future, he would rule without them
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All over Europe, monarchs were dispensing with Parliaments. So, in attempting personal rule, Charles was simply following the European trend
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But, unlike his European counterparts, Charles lacked the legal ability to tax his subjects at will
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Only a parliament could legislate new taxes. So, like his father before him, Charles' only recourse was to squeeze more revenue out of his customary rights and prerogatives
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Fortunately, he got a crack team of lawyers to help him. The most ingenious was the Attorney General William Noy
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I moil in the law was the contemporary anagram of his name
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and he moiled, that is, toiled or laboured, in the legal archives to great effect
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But his masterpiece was ship money. Ship money was a traditional levy imposed on the port towns
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to raise vessels for the navy in time of war, as, for example, against the Spanish Armada in the heyday of Elizabethan England
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This was uncontroversial, even popular. But Attorney General Noy said that the law allowed the king to extend ship money
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from the ports to the inland counties and to impose it in peacetime as well as during war
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And all this at the king's mere say-so. The extended ship money was first imposed in 1634, and within a year it was yielding over £200,000 annually, and producing 90% of what the king demanded
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This was the Holy Grail which had eluded English kings ever since the Middle Ages
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a large-scale permanent income which came in regularly, year by year, without the bother of consulting parliaments
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The idea of taxing without parliamentary consent was bound to cause grievance and Charles exacerbated matters by attempting religious innovation as well Whatever the formal rules of the Church of England
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much of the country had seen the development of a stripped-down, fundamentalist Protestantism
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very little different in practice from the Scottish Kirk. But richer, more ceremonious vision had been preserved in a handful of places
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in particular in the Chapels Royal and the Greater Cathedral. Here, there were choirs, organs and music
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candles and gold and silver plate on the communion tables and rich vestments for the clergy
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William Lord, now Charles' Archbishop of Canterbury, determined to use the royal supremacy
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to impose this opulent religious tradition on the whole country. He did so because he thought religion should be about sacraments
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as well as sermons, an appeal to the senses as well as to the mind
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In England, the policy, despite some foot-dragging and protest, aroused little overt resistance
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Indeed, many welcomed it. Emboldened, Charles and Lord decided that it should be extended to Scotland as well
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Here, the Reformation had been far more thoroughgoing and radical, and the risks of change were correspondingly greater
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But Charles, confident as ever in his God-given rightness, was undeterred. He decided that a barely modified version of the English prayer book
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should be used throughout Scotland, and he did so on his own personal authority
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without consulting either the Scottish Parliament or the General Assembly of the Kirk
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Charles was behaving as though he were the supreme governor of the Scottish Kirk indeed
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But would the Scottish Presbyterians accept his authority? The answer came on Sunday, the 28th of July, 1637
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when the new prayer book was used for the first time here in St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh
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in the presence of the assembled Privy Council of Scotland. But as soon as the Dean had begun the service
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a great shout erupted from the crowds at the back of the church
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back of the church heavy clasped bibles and folding stools were hurled at the counselors
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and the clergy and the rioters were only ejected from the church with difficulty by the guards and
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even outside they continued pounding on the doors and pelting the windows until the service was finished
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then the protest turned political and here in greyfriars kirk in edinburgh an influential group
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of citizens and noblemen drew up and signed an undertaking to resist charles and the innovations
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and evils he'd introduced into the kirk borrowing the name from god's solemn compact with the jews
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in the Old Testament. The undertaking was known as the Covenant and its adherents were called Covenanters
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The scene at Greyfriars was repeated in churches all over the lowlands
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It was now the Covenanters, not Charles, who controls Scotland. Britain, which so far had escaped the wars of religion
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that had devastated much of the rest of Europe, now faced the horrors of sectarian conflict on its own soil
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By 1640, Charles's religious policies had brought about a crisis throughout Britain
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Scotland was in the hands of the Covenanters, whilst in England, Charles's opponents drew strength
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from events north of the border. But it was the recall of Parliament after 11 years which brought things to a head
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Charles had no choice, since only Parliament could vote for money needed to suppress the Covenanters
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But equally, Parliament proved an unrivaled forum for the king's opponents. Most dangerous of these was the hitherto obscure lawyer and MP for Tavistock John Pym Pym believed that Charles policies in church and state were the result of a Catholic conspiracy
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to subvert the religion and liberties of England. But, instead of wasting his time in fruitless opposition
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he'd used the 11 years without a parliament to build up a compelling dossier for his case
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In the 1630s, Pym read voraciously, followed every detail of politics at home and abroad
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and noted down useful headings and extracts in this little book here
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The result was that when Charles was forced to recall Parliament, Pym was the best informed and the best prepared man in the House
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ready with both a rhetoric of opposition to Charles' government and a plan of action for curbing royal power
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Charles hoped to prey on English xenophobia to persuade Parliament to impose an immediate, vast tax
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to crush the traitorous Scots. Pym countered by dragging up his list of political and religious grievances
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against Charles' government of the 1630s. Charles then tried to break the deadlock
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by hinting at the surrender of ship money. But the hint only emboldened Pym
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Finally, Charles lost patience with a parliament which had, once again, failed to deliver
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and dissolved it after less than a month. He would fight the Scots without a parliamentary grant
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It was a catastrophic decision. These are the mighty ramparts of Berwick-on-Tweed
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The border fortress built by King Henry VIII to protect England from the Scots
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Expensively refortified by Charles, it stood as a seemingly impregnable barrier between the two countries
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but in August 1640 the Scots army large well-disciplined well-armed and well-provisioned
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took the daring decision to outflank Berwick cross the river Tweed further upstream and head
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straight for Newcastle which in contrast to Berwick was only lightly defended
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Only the River Tyne now stood between the Scots and Newcastle. They forced a crossing at Newburn and entered Newcastle
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which had been abandoned by its garrison, in triumph on the 30th of August
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Never had so many run from so few, and never had Scotland won a greater victory on English soil
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or won with such momentous consequences. With the Scottish army encamped on English soil
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Charles was forced to call Parliament again. Once again, Charles faced Pym
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Pym cleverly focused on the financial and constitutional grievances against Charles. Here, Parliament was united in its opposition
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and Charles was forced into a wholesale surrender of ship money and the rest
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Boxed in by his opponents in the English Parliament Charles tried to break out by coming to terms with the Scots
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In the summer of 1641 he journeyed to Edinburgh and in an astonishing change of front
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accepted the religious and political revolution of the last three years He worshipped in the Kirk, agreed to the abolition of bishops
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and filled the government of Scotland with the leading covenanters and his own sworn enemies
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The king also played several rounds of golf and, reasonably confident that he'd solved one of his problems
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returned in an excellent mood to England. Events in England also seem to be moving in Charles' direction
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For, with Charles' surrender of ship money and the like, the religious divisions in the commons between Puritans like Pym and those known as Episcopalians who were sympathetic to Charles ceremonious religion were opening up
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Pym tried to whip his troops into line by forcing the grand remonstrance to the vote
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This was a searing condemnation of Charles's policies in state and especially in church
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These amounted, the remonstrance claimed, to an all-embracing Catholic conspiracy to subvert the religion and the liberties of England
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The king himself, it was careful to point out, had only been the unwitting agent of the conspiracy
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Nevertheless, Charles's gullibility meant that he could never be trusted to choose his own advisers
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or to command his own troops again. The remonstrance was normally addressed to the king
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but in fact it was a manifesto for a constitutional revolution at least
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perhaps even for an armed revolt. The remonstrance was also bitterly divisive
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and after days of acrimonious debate it was only passed by 159 votes to 148
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a bare majority of 11. The vote showed that the broad-based opposition to Charles had broken up
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and the more Pym pushed the Puritan attack on Charles' church, the more his majority risked disappearing entirely
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But then Charles overreached himself, convinced, probably correctly, that amongst MPs were traitors
45:12
who colluded with the invading Scots. Charles determined to bring five members of Parliament, including Pym, to trial on charges of high treason
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On 4th January 1642, King Charles strode into the chamber of the House of Commons to arrest his principal opponents
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His guards stood outside, fingering their weapons, as in an uneasy silence, the king sat himself in the speaker's chair
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Where are the five members? the king demanded, calling them by name
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In response, the speaker fell on his knees, protesting that he could answer only as the house directed him
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In fact, the five members, forewarned of the king's movements, had made good their escape by boat from the back of the Palace of Westminster as Charles and his guards had entered on the landward side at the front
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Instead, it was Charles himself who had walked into a trap By trying to seize the five members by force
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He'd shown himself to be a violent tyrant By failing, he'd revealed himself to be impotent
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As Charles left the chamber empty-handed He murmured disconsolately All my birds have flown
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So, too, did most of his power. Battle lines were now drawn up
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Charles' violent, ill-thought-out gesture not only preserved Pym's parliamentary majority, but also turned London decisively against the king
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In the country, however, Pym's increasingly extreme Puritan attack on the church
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won Charles a devoted following. following but in fact Charles was no longer really King of Great Britain or
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even of England instead he was only the leader of a faction the history had come
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almost full circle the attempt to expand the powers of the Imperial crown so as
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that it ruled both church and state and Scotland as well as England had
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Instead, England was about to return to the factional strife of the Wars of the Roses
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and Britain to the national struggles of the Anglo-Scottish Wars. And it began at Nottingham, when Charles raised his standard
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in a war against his parliament and half his people. MUSIC PLAYS
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