Chapter 3 - The Sins of the Father
The period between 1624 and 1688 was marked with regime change, war, British dominance of the New World, and the calcification of the American skeleton around which the revolutionary philosophy would take body and sinew.
In 1625, James I died and the crown passed to his son, Charles I. Charles was not so beloved as James I. In truth, most people hated him. The second he took power, he got right down to the business of blowing off every agreement his father ever made. He is the classic abusive monarch, highlighted by his repeated violations and retractions of the authority granted to Parliament by King John I in 1215 when he signed the Magna Carta.
By signing the Magna Carta, John I had ceded for all time and posterity—admittedly at the point of the swords of the nobility and clergy—a portion of his legislative authority to the people, thereby creating what came to be known as the House of Lords. This was the foundational document of England’s modern power structure as well as the birth of Parliament. Once the king was stripped of his spurs, the charger of democracy would forever buck against his will.
The primary social problem Charles I faced was the one that had plagued his father, and indeed, all post-Magna Carta kings: the necessity of Parliament’s approval for approve of all taxes. Both James I, and particularly Charles I, were constantly short of cash because of various wars and colonialism, and Charles I resorted to shenanigan after shenanigan. In 1625 he dissolved a Parliament that now included a House of Commons, so he could suck the countryside dry by enforcing antiquated laws like fining people who refused to show up to get a knighthood. Ironically, it highlighted a fear of the masses that would inform the Second Continental Congress when they framed the Constitution. The public memory is long, but it tends to become very hazy when it isn't to their advantage.
Regardless, these measures weren't able to raise enough revenue for Charles, and in 1628 he reconvened a Parliament that now contained a bitter faction that wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines whimpering when he sent them back home with their tails between their legs. Among this group was a man by the name of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell, like the English citizenry, had not only a long memory but a big ego. Although Charles I got a weak Parliament to grant him some cash and then immediately dispersed them for another 10 years, there was no chance this would go unchecked by the public elephant.
Incidentally, this is the kind of abuse that the colonists identified exactly when they created checks and balances, but at this particular time they were both relatively content and disorganized enough that they couldn’t have engaged in any significant social restructuring regardless. Unfortunately for Charles, this was not true of the homeland. He would end up fighting three wars against Parliamentary forces organized in part by Cromwell, finally lost the third one, and was tried on pain of death in the House of Commons in 1649.
During that trial, he had the audacity to declare that, because he saw “no House of Lords here, that may constitute a Parliament”, and “I that am your King...should be an example to all the people of England...to uphold justice, to maintain the old laws...[and] if power without law...may alter the fundamental laws of the Kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life, or any thing that he calls his own”.
Judge Bradshaw, finding this at best ironic and at the very least a patronizing insult to the collective intelligence of the entire nation, rejoined with “There is a contract and a bargain made between the King and his people, and your oath is taken: and certainly, Sir, the bond is reciprocal;...if this bond be once broken, farewell sovereignty!” He followed this up by declaring that by overriding the courts Charles I had no right to appeal to them now, sentenced him to death, and four days later Charles had his head in a basket.
Bradshaw’s rejoinder reflects the temporal world order that had replaced divine rule. The law is one of the great prides of the English people, and as a result they are particular about legal documents concerning their rights and liberties. Since agreeing to sign the Magna Carta in 1215—and by “agreeing to sign” I mean “sign it or lose your head”—King John I subjected himself to the idea that the king was not the supreme ruler of the land. The law was. Frankly, it didn’t have to come to this. The English love having their royalty even to this day. However, he was being an incredible asshole, and the primary complaints of the nobles who forced the issue were the following:
1. Keep religion out of government
2. Don't drain our wallets
3. Don’t screw with the legal system