Oliver Cromwell: Constitutional Crisis in England

Oliver Cromwell:

Constitutional Crisis in England

I. The Early Stuarts

The constitutional crisis did not begin in England until the seventeenth century, but the outcome of the struggle for power had far-reaching results. Henry VIII had been able to disengage England from Rome with a minimum of difficulty. One daughter, Mary, had made England Catholic again, and another daughter, Elizabeth, had returned her country to the Protestant fold. These sudden changes provoked only minor uprisings and posed no major constitutional problems except in the relationship between church and state.  
 
The ease with which the Tudor monarchs changed the official religion may be accounted for by the fact that the great religious revival which had sparked both the Catholic and the Protestant reformations on the continent made little headway in England until near the close of the sixteenth century. There were few devout enough to court martyrdom or to plot the overthrow of the dynasty. The memory of the Wars of the Roses and later the threat of a Spanish invasion bound most Englishmen too closely to their sovereigns to permit rebellion, whatever the justification. Then, too, the Tudors had known when and how to lead public opinion and when to acquiesce in the desires of their subjects. Above all else, they had known how to control parliament. This happy combination of experience and circumstance came to an end when Queen Elizabeth-the last of the Tudors-died in 1603. the English crown passed to her cousin, James Stuart, King of Scotland for thirty-six of his thirty-seven years. 
 
In some ways, James seemed well-qualified for his new responsibilities. He had managed to restore royal power in Scotland without provoking a major rebellion and without using undue force. He was better educated than most kings and was among the more acute political theorists of his day. He was a peace-loving man who bent his efforts towards preventing war in Europe.

 
These very virtues, however, contributed to his undoing. His success in Scotland made him overconfident and arrogant. His love of political theory and scholarly disputations led him to define the royal prerogative at time when they should have been left vague enough to be stretched in case of need. He never lost an opportunity to lecture Parliament about his powers in terms that seemed extreme even for his day. He was equally careless with the religious susceptibilities of his subjects and was always ready to lecture them on theology and church organization. This combination of learning and lack of tact led one continental statesman to refer to him as "the wisest fool in Christendom." To make matters worse, James was a foreigner who spoke English with an accent and who pampered more than one worthless Scottish favorite at English expense. 
 
The second Stuart monarch, Charles, was more attractive than his father. He was a devout Anglican and, after the first few years of his marriage, a devoted husband. No king was ever more anxious to protect his poorer subjects. He upheld the craftsman against the manufacturer, the wage-earner against the employer, and the peasant against the gentry who wanted to enclose the land. Unfortunately, these virtues were overshadowed by his autocratic, uncompromising character and by policies that antagonized the most powerful classes in the kingdom. He and his father would have experience difficulties even if certain events and not been taking place that were largely beyond their control. 
 
The first difficulty arose from increasing dissent within the Anglican Church. Many persons, led by the archbishops and bishops, wanted to keep the rituals and ceremonies of the Catholic Church. They believed that inward devotion could not exist without "the beauty of holiness." These prelates won the support of the crown, but their program brought them into conflict with the Puritans. The Puritans wanted to purify the Anglican Church by reducing the amount of ritual and emphasizing the Calvinist theology and code of behavior. some Puritans were content to work for mild reforms within the existing organization of the church, but others, who were generally classified as Presbyterians, wanted to abolish the offices of archbishop an bishop and turn the control of the churches over to committees of laymen and clergymen. The split between Anglican and Puritan was widened by James, who took a strong stand in support of the prelates because his experience with the presbyterian form of church government in Scotland led him to believe that "Presbytery agreeth as well with a monarch as god and the devil. Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick shall meet at their pleasure, censure me and my council and all our proceedings." He swore to make the Puritans conform or "harry them out of the land." Those clergymen who refused to accept the Anglican Prayer book were deprived of their livings. 
 
The division between Anglican and Puritan became wider during the reign of Charles I (1625-1649). Charles gave full backing to the efforts of his Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud (1573-1645), to secure complete conformity with the Anglican doctrine and ceremony. To many Puritans, it seemed as though Charles's insistence on ritual was but the first step towards the restoration of Catholicism. 
 
The Thirty Years War led to more difficulties. At times, it looked as though the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs would be able to restore Catholicism in northern Germany and the Netherlands. Among Protestant princes expelled from their lands was Frederick of the Palatinate, James's son-in-law. James had no stomach for a military crusade to rescue his relatives and save Protestantism. Rather, he sought to accomplish these ends through a dynastic alliance between Charles and a Spanish princess. This plan was unpopular in England because it was recognized that a Catholic marriage would mean priests at court to care for the princess' religious needs and a relaxation of laws against English Catholics. marriage negotiations continued for years, and only when the Spanish finally rejected Charles did James intervene on the continent. His efforts, and those of Charles after his death, were ineffectual, and the prestige of the dynasty declined still further. Charles worsened the situation by choosing a French princes as his bride. The much feared Catholic influence entered the court, and detested English Catholics were more leniently treated than the Puritans. These developments reinforced the fear that the king himself might become a Catholic. 
 
The third development largely outside the control of the Stuarts was the price revolution. The rise in prices in the lat half of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries increased the costs of government more rapidly than the ordinary revenue of the crown. Even frugal Queen Elizabeth had been unable to keep a balanced budget. The Stuarts showed less wisdom in their expenditures, though, in justice, it should be pointed out that it took more to support an entire royal family than an unmarried queen. The result was that the Stuarts had either to make increased demands on Parliament or to find additional income by some other means. 
 
At first, James turned to Parliament, but members of the Commons were unsympathetic and had little understanding of his difficulties. He was unable to win the cooperation that his predecessors had received, in part because he did not understand how to manipulate the debates. The Tudors had seen to it that a large number of their ablest councillors had seats in the Commons where they presented the royal program. The councillors took the initiative in the deliberations. With the help of the speaker of the House, who was also a royal appointee, they were usually able to guide the king's program through the chamber and at the same time to prevent undesirable proposals from being passed. In the face of such leadership, it was difficult for the opposition to operate effectively in a large unwieldy assembly of four or five hundred deputies. Unfortunately, the Stuarts did not understand the Tudor techniques of controlling Parliament, and few of their councillors sought seats in the commons.  
 
At the same time, the practice of using committees developed. A small committee could study, plan, debate, and prepare measures as effectively as the royal councillors. There were too many committees for the councillors to attend, and the speaker exercised little direct control over their activities. The leaders of the opposition to the Stuarts were quick to realize the advantages of committees, and they used them to put forward their polices. Gradually, they wont he initiative from the crown in the commons. Parliamentary opposition blocked the union between England and Scotland so desired by James. It pressed for stronger anti-Catholic laws. It demanded intervention in the continental struggle between Catholic and Protestant, but refused to vote sufficient funds to ensure military success. When the English armies met defeat, it sought to impeach the king's chief minister. 
 
The growing opposition in Parliament drove the Stuarts to actions that were unpopular at best and of questionable constitutionality at worst. The increased disabilities placed on Catholics were relaxed on royal order. Feudal rights of the crown were revived or increased, tariffs were raised without the consent of Parliament, forced loans were demanded, titles were sold, and monopolies were granted in order to raise money.Thus, the Stuarts answered the attack by the Commons on their authority by stretching their own powers beyond the limits allowed by the constitutional ideas of the time. 
 
In 1628, the two factions reached a temporary agreement. parliament voted a grant, and in return Charles accepted the Petition of Right. This petition prohibited taxation without consent, billeting soldiers in private houss, declaring martial law in time of peace, and arbitrary arrests. But the truce was short-lived, and in January, 1629, members of the Commons held their unwilling speaker in his chair while they passed resolutions declaring that whoever introduced religious innovations or voluntarily paid taxes without the consent of parliament was an enemy of the kingdom. This action left Charles no choice but to arrest the leaders of Parliament and to dissolve that assembly. 
 
During the next eleven years, Charles governed without Parliament. By withdrawing from the continental war and reducing his expenditures, he managed to raise enough money to support his government. This he did by stretching his prerogative still further. In addition to the various forms of unparliamentary taxation practiced before, he extended ship-money, a tax that had hitherto been levied only on the seaboard towns to support the navy, to the entire kingdom. Meanwhile, the headstrong king continued to anger the Puritans by his support of the high-church Anglican policy of Archbishop Laud and by his leniency towards Catholics, the landowners by his desire to protect the peasants from enclosures, and the middle class by his efforts to set minimum wages. Only an opportunity to organize was need for the opponents of the Stuarts to throw the island into turmoil.

II. The Puritan Revolution

In 1637, Charles ordered the Scots to accept a new prayer book based on Laud's high-church ideas. The Scottish people were far more strongly Presbyterian than the English, and when the bishop of Edinburgh tried to use the new service, an angry woman threw a stool at him. This action touched off a riot and led to a Solemn League and Covenant to resist religious innovations.The rebels abolished episcopacy and seized Edinburgh Castle. 
 
This uprising drove Charles to convoke Parliament in 1640 in the hope of getting money for an army, but once in session, the House of Commons showed little disposition to vote taxes until its grievances had been heard. The deputies abolished the courts of the Star Chamber and of the High Commission, which had exercised the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the crown, and passed acts requiring that Parliament be held every three years and that the king's chief minister be executed. Charles fearfully acquiesced but later was goaded by his wife into entering the Commons with a band of followers to arrest five members. "The birds," Charles discovered, "had flown," but with this action civil war began. 
 
The war that followed was not a class struggle. An analysis of the members of the Commons who sided with the king and those who stood by Parliament shows that the country gentleman, the lawyer, and the merchant could be found nearly as often in one camp as in the other. The division between Englishmen was along personal, constitutional, and religious, not social, lines. Those who ad received royal favors, their clients, and their relatives tended to side with the king. Those who felt wronged by the king or who were denied his bounty often joined the opposition. those who thought that the king had exceeded his prerogatives leaned towards the side of Parliament. Those who believed that Parliament had been guilty of encroaching on the powers of the crown tended to remain loyal to the king. Most of the Puritans and religious radicals were to be found in the Parliamentary camp while the majority of the high church Anglicans and Catholics stood by the crown. Perhaps a majority of Englishmen never took sides, preferring to avoid the hazards of a war in which both sides were partly in the wrong. 
 
At first, the opposing forces were about evenly divided, but the intervention of Scotland on the side of Parliament and the formation of a well-trained army under a Puritan gentleman named Oliver Cromwell(1599-1658) turned the tide against the king. The defeat of the royalist army in the battle of Naseby in 1645 left Charles no recourse but to surrender. 
 
The victors then quarreled. The Presbyterian wing of the Puritan movement, supported by the Scots, sought to set up a constitutional monarchy with Charles at its head and their creed as the established church of England. In this, they were opposed by the army, which was more radical than parliament. Many soldiers wanted a republic and still more were Independents, a left-wing branch of Puritanism. The Independents favored religious toleration for all except the Catholics and Anglicans and opposed Presbyterianism as the established church. Added to these political and religious grievances, Parliament refused to pay the troops. 
 
Charles saw his chance, He tried to play the army against Parliament and the Scots against the English, until all bu the staunchest royalists had lost faith in him. Finally, Cromwell, in disgust, put an end to the farce by defeating the Scottish army, purging Parliament of ninety-six Presbyterian members, and seizing, trying, and executing the faithless Charles. The monarchy was terminated and the House of Lords was abolished. The problem was to find an alternative form of government.

III. Oliver Cromwell

Cromwell was more responsible for the overthrow of the Stuarts than any other man, and as the commander of a large, well-trained army, he had the power to establish a dictatorship. However, he was no ordinary military conqueror who sought civil power, and the real tragedy of his career was that he was forced to assume a political role in order to protect the ideals for which he and his men had fought. Although he was one of the greatest military commanders in history, he had little political imagination. He stumbled form one expedient to another in search of some form of government which a majority of Englishmen would support, but the painful truth was that the opponents of the Stuarts could agree on no alternative to Stuart rule. 
 
At first, Cromwell left civil affairs in the hands of the Rump-the unpurged members of Parliament-and an appointed council. He turned to Ireland, where he suppressed a rebellion with great cruelty, and then to Scotland, where he put down a Stuart uprising. The mercantile element in Parliament brought England into a war with the Dutch and passed measures designed to help big-city merchants. At the same time, Parliament was lax in the payment of troops, and some of its members were accused of accepting bribes. To ensure their continuance in power, they even decided to fill vacant seats by nomination instead of election. Cromwell could stand it no longer In April, 1653, he ordered his troops to disperse the Rump. As the members of Parliament departed, the general shouted: "It's you that have forced me to do this, for I have sought the Lord night and ay that he would slay me rather than put me upon the doing of this work." With the arrogant certainty of one who is convinced that he is doing God's will, Cromwell had now destroyed both king and Parliament. 
 
God was less helpful in revealing to Cromwell what alternate form of government should be established. At length, he was persuaded that the best way to secure a new Parliament composed of righteous men was to appoint its members on the advice of the Independent preachers. The religious fanaticism of this Parliament is best illustrated by the name of one of its members, Praise-God Barebones. Within five months, this group of extremists had so angered Cromwell by their impractical policies that he turned them out as he had done their predecessors. 
 
A still more radical departure in government was needed. This the army provided by drawing up the Instrument of Government, the only written constitution England has ever had. By its terms, Cromwell was made Lord Protector for life and a new Parliament was ordered. Cromwell had nearly as much difficulty with this Parliament as with its predecessors, for he understood the techniques of controlling deliberative assemblies no better than the Stuarts. But he was now chief executive, and in this capacity he terminated the indecisive Dutch War and sought to form a grand alliance of Protestant states against the Catholics. England joined France in its war against Spain and won Dunkirk and Jamaica as a result. In dealing with internal affairs, Cromwell was less successful. His wars made high taxes necessary. Many people were restive under his rule, and the first Parliament under the Protectorate had to be dissolved for attacking this powers. This action was followed by another uprising. To keep order, Cromwell felt it necessary to divide England into twelve districts, each administered by a major-general with an army at his disposal. Blue laws were strictly enforced. Theaters were closed, Sunday became a day for prayer, and recreation was forbidden. Calvin's Geneva was imposed on Merry England, and unwillingly Cromwell became a virtual military dictator. 
 
When Cromwell summoned Parliament in 1656, he found that the deputies were restive. They wanted to return to the old constitutional rule of king, lords, and commons, but they were still not ready to accept another Stuart. They created a new House of Lords, and offered Cromwell the title of king. The grat general hesitated. To become king was to end his uncertain legal position; to tie himself and the things that he stood for with the past was to give greater assurance of a stable future. Yet, he finally refused. Perhaps he feared that his republican officers would turn the army against him. Perhaps he thought that a royal title without royal blood had no meaning-that he would be a dictator still. Whatever the reason for his refusal, his struggle to find an alternative to royal government was about to end. On September 3, 1658, he died, leaving as his successor a son too weak to control the quarreling generals and a jealous Parliament. Early in 1660, one of his commanders seized London and brought an end to the confusion by summoning a special parliament to invite Charles II (1660-1685), the son of the murdered king, to return to the throne.