Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/99



1. Charles I.—Unlike his father, Charles was dignified and kingly in manner and appearance, with a grave, intelligent countenance, and a reserved but gracious manner. In his family, he was a faithful husband and an affectionate father. As a man, he was free from many of the vices of princes, and was sincerely attached to the English Church. But it did not take his Parliament and people long to find out that he was headstrong, obstinate, and insincere; and, like his father, filled with the notion that he ruled by Divine Right. His great vice was falsehood; he would make solemn promises to his parliaments when in a strait, and then break them as soon as he thought himself out of danger. So in spite of his kingly manners, and his good private life, he was a much worse king than James I.

2. Early Troubles.—Charles soon got into a quarrel with his Parliament, which disliked the influence Buckingham had over him. Charles asked his first Parliament for a large sum to carry on the war, but instead of giving him what he wanted, it granted him less than half, and besides refused to give him, for more than a year, a tax called ‘Tonnage and Poundage.” It had been the custom to grant this tax (which was so much on every tun of beer and wine, and on every pound of certain other articles) to the king for life, and Charles was so angry at Parliament that he soon afterwards dissolved it, when it began to enquire into Buckingham’s conduct.

Buckingham now thought he would make himself and the king popular by sending a fleet to Spain to attack Cadiz. The expedition was not well equipped, and when it reached Cadiz Bay, the men, who went on shore, got drunk and had to be taken back to their vessels in a helpless condition. The fleet then returned to England, after failing to take some Spanish treasure-ships expected from America. So this expedition, from which the king and Buckingham hoped so much, ended in leaving them heavily in debt, and forced Charles to call another Parliament in 1626.

When Charles’ second Parliament met, Sir John Eliot, a noble