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Charles I, the Privy Council, and the Forced Loan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Richard Cust
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Extract

The Forced Loan of 1626–27 has traditionally been regarded as one of the milestones of early seventeenth-century politics. The great nineteenth-century Whig historian S. R. Gardiner saw it as the product of “new counsels” by which Charles I came increasingly to rely on the royal prerogative, and he depicted the opposition to this as a principled defense of Englishmen's liberties. Others writing in the same tradition have generally echoed these views. Thus the loan has been presented as the climax to a first stage of struggle between “Court” and “Country” or as a staging post on the “high road to Civil War.” Latterly, however, this verdict has come into question.

With the work of “localist” and “revisionist” historians we have come to appreciate more clearly the extent of attachment to the local community and the continual striving toward consensus in relations between king and subject. This has led to a general revaluation of what have traditionally been regarded as clashes of principle. Local historians have stressed that opposition to taxes generally owed far more to backsliding and provincial inertia than to any concern for constitutional propriety. And a greater understanding of the problems of administration—particularly in wartime—has led to a recognition that government decision making was often a reflex action, prompted by the immediate need to make ends meet. These insights have been incorporated into the work of Conrad Russell, who has provided the most recent assessment of the loan.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2: Politics and Religion in the Early Seventeenth Century: New Voices , April 1985 , pp. 208 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1985

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References

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26 CSPV, 1626–28, p. 342. For discussion of the subject on other occasions, see British Library (BL), Harleian (Harl.) MS 390, fol. 132; Williams, ed., 1:224.

27 The council register records Charles as attending on ten occasions between September 1626 and July 1627: September 14; October 25; December 10, 16, 21, 22; January 4, 28; March 16; and May 4 (APC, 1626, pp. 268, 328, 399, 414, 430, 431, and 1627, pp. 2,36, 140). However, it seems that his actual attendance was more frequent than this since some appearances mentioned in other sources went unrecorded: September 12 and November 28, 1626 (CSPV, 1625–26, p. 548; Williams, ed., 1:175). For his attitude toward day-to-day administration, see PRO, SP 16/73/94. This is not intended to imply that Charles was idle when it came to the work of government. Where a particular matter engaged his attention he displayed considerable energy in pushing his councillors to greater efforts, as was the case with the loan (Cust, R. P., “The Forced Loan and English Politics, 1626–1628” [Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1983], pp. 143, 153, 189–90Google Scholar).

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91 PRO, SP 16/56/100, 89/4.

92 PRO, SP 16/57/1; APC, 1627, p. 102.

93 Williams, ed., 1:208. Mead is the only source I have found for this debate, although the council register confirms that the matter was discussed and that all those mentioned as speaking were present. It also records the final outcome of the discussions (APC, 1627, p. 140).

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