Words: 1155
There is more evidence to suggest that the Civil War in 1642 was caused by the factors concerning religion. All the factors involved, such as finance and the parliament also built up tensions for king Charles l, but many of the key events that took place relate back to the issues of whether England followed the Protestant beliefs or the Catholic ones; for example, Charles I returned to parliament to ask for money and an army, as he lacked both these things.
What Charles mainly spent the money he gained however, was mainly to improve the religious rights in England decorating Churches, which were very expensive) and to fund for wars against the main Catholic powers, such as France and Spain. The main actions or events that Charles was strongly associated with or at least responsible for included the Divine Right of Kings. This suggested that the monarch present at the time was placed on the throne under the will of God.
The theory slowly faded away during the Tudor Dynasty, however Charles had strongly believed in this, so many were angered by the fact that even after the religious problems caused almost a century before(under the lull of Henry VIII)Charles was willing to accept policies and beliefs relating Catholics. Parliament was further angered after Charles began to take advice from Archbishop Laud, who was a Catholic.
Laud attempted and even succeeded in swaying Charles’ opinions on how the country was run, and it was he who tried to decorate churches, adding stain glass windows and idols, which all cost a lot of money, which Charles did not seem to have. Therefore Charles turned to parliament to lend him money, but parliament felt that they could no longer trust Charles, as he favored Archbishop Laud over them. Laud was executed for treason which increased the tensions between king and parliament. Following on from this point, Charles also disrupted the other neighboring countries such as Scotland and Ireland which were also Catholic.
Introducing the English Prayer Book and forcing the commoners of these countries to read it caused rebellions and riots. In October 1641 the Irish Rebellion triggered Parliament to take action against the King. Some short term causes of the civil war concerning religion included Charles unsuccessful marriage to Henrietta was not only French but also a catholic. Charles and England was protestant so the dead of being ruled once again by a “foreigner” displeased many. Although the marriage stopped France rebelling against England for a short period of time, the kings marriage was generally unfavorable with the public.
His wife also had a large influence on Charles; for example Maria set up her own private chapel, she had her own Catholic priest and often surrounded herself and Charles with Catholic Advisors and the majority of his court was made up of Catholics. Parliament now desperately wanted more of a say on how the country was to be run, as they were almost threatened by the people from another religion. In a final attempt to reason with the king, Parliament sent a list of complaints and demands known as the nineteen propositions.
One of the propositions was that Charles’ Catholic advisors should be To What Extent Was Religion The Root Cause Of The Civil War In 1642? By maharani dismissed and so should d the Duke to Bucking (a hated man who Charles trusted greatly). Parliament wanted to have the power to elect the kings advisors, Judges and ministers, and they also wanted complete control of the army. Charles refused; he was threatened that the parliament may try to overthrow him and may use an army against the King. These factors made a big impact on the kings image, his popularity, and he lost followers and money due to this.
Although there are many points to suggest that religious factors were the root cause of the Civil War in 1642, there were other events and triggers that angered either the parliament, the common people of England or the King himself. A long term cause of the Civil War was the “The Eleven Years’ Tyranny’. This was a period of eleven years when Charles ruled England entirely on his own without a Parliament, only ever taking advice from a few of his Catholic advisors. Charles disliked parliament, and thought that the Parliament had previously plotted to kill him, Just like how Catholics had tried to kill James I (Charles’ father).
Charles had dismissed parliament in order to save the Duke of Bucking, a hated man who as responsible for the failed attacks on Cadis, in Spain. Bucking was later assassinated, possibly under the orders of the Parliament, and Charles was angry. Therefore it is likely that the assassination of the Duke of Bucking was one of the first triggers leading to the civil war. Financial factors that increased the emissions between Charles and the Parliament was the fact that Charles was nearly always in need of money, to “strengthen his country’.
Furthermore, most of the money that was either borrowed off Parliament or taken from the commoner’s taxes and fines was used as funding for wars and attacks on neighboring countries, which only resulted in a loss. Parliament was soon annoyed by this as it was their money that seemed to be going to waste and soon they stopped funding the king altogether. Desperately Charles set up fines, for example, Charles set up boundaries around woodland and once fined an earl EYE,OHO for crossing over. This meant people could no longer find food in the woods but had to pay for expensive foods, placed on a monopoly by Charles.
This meant only one company could sell certain foods/goods but Charles demanded 20% of all the earning. These were expensive and so many were annoyed still further. While Charles assumed that he was making the country richer, the feeling was not mutual between himself and the people of England, now represented by the Parliament. Along with the expensive fines that Charles placed, he also unnecessarily taxed people, for example; Ship Tax was paid by counties on he coasts, and was only collected when England was at war or money was needed to improve the Navy.
However, as Charles became more desperate, He began to collect ship tax from inland as well as the counties on the coastlines, when there was no need to improve the English Navy. Overall, the commoners in England were losing much more of the money that they had earned to taxes than they had previously done in James I reign. Finally, a trigger that highlighted the many differences between the kings views and the Parliaments was the separation of the House of Commons, due to the Grand Remonstrance.