The Times: 1625-1642
The entourage of Charles I came to be called "Cavaliers". They
were named by their opponents for the Spanish caballero who was a
Catholic who prosecuted Protestants. Their hair had long, curled, and
flowing locks. They wore a broad-rimmed decorated hat. Their fancy
jackets and breeches were loose. Boots were wide and folded over at the
top. Young men wore earrings and painted their faces. A lady wore her
hair in ringlets on each side of her face. Her dress was fitted at the
waist, with a peaked bodice. It was low at the shoulders with a scoop
neckline in front. She often wore much lace, especially at the neck
down to the bust line. Her outer dress and under-skirt that was
revealed in front, were full and made of satin and stiff silk or
velvet. Only hose of silk were worn at court.
A majority of prosperous industrial towns and fee farmers, led
sometimes by lords or old landed gentry, were Puritans. They dressed
plainly and in somber colors such as black, grey, and buff, with no
ornamentation except plain white collars and cuffs of linen rather than
of lace. Wool replaced silk and velvet. No jewelry was worn. The
Puritan women also wore long white aprons. The Puritan women smoothed
their hair back into little knobs and covered their hair and head with
a white covering. Both Puritan men and women wore broad-rimed hats and
plain shoes. The ordinary country man wore a felt hat, broadcloth coat,
woolen trousers, hand-knitted worsted stockings, and plain, strong
shoes. The Puritan men for a time had short-cut hair. The Puritan-
Parliamentarians were given the name "Roundheads" after the crop-
headed London apprentices whose rioting had marked every stage of the
conflict between king and Parliament.
Religion was a favorite and serious topic of discussion, even
among the illiterate. Nine-tenths of the people were Protestant. On the
whole, they were more inclined to salvation by grace than to salvation
by good works. Popular reading included guides for good manners such as
"The Rich Cabinet" by Thomas Gainsford, and "Youths Behavior"
translated from the French by Francis Hawkins. It advised not to sit
with one leg on the other, but with the feet even; not to spit on one's
fingers; and not to sniffle in the sight of others. Books for ladies
such as "Delights for Ladies" by Hugh Platt told them how to adorn
themselves, tables, closets, and rooms with beautiful objects,
perfumes, and waters. It taught preserving and the making of candy
preserved by sugar, cooking, and housewifery. Gervase Markham wrote
advice for men in "Hobsons Horse-load of Letters", which addressed
serious negotiations, private businesses, amorous accomplishment,
wanton merriment, and the defense of honor and reputation. "A Helpe to
Discourse" primed a man to meet company with suggested questions and
answers, epigrams, riddles, and jests. In Henry Peacham's "The Compleat
Gentleman" (1622), the model Cavalier is portrayed in terms of
horsemanship, tilting, sports, choice of companions, reserved and
dignified conduct, good scholarship, and responsibility. This popular
book was a guide to university, where there was a seven year course of
classroom lectures. It advised conversation with men of the soundest
reputation for religion, life, and learning, but recreation with those
of the same rank and quality. First place was to be given to religion,
so that the foundation of all studies would be the service of God.
Following in importance were: speaking and writing in English or Latin
(grammar, syntax, and rhetoric), astronomy, astrology, geography (whose
authorities were Pliny, Strabo, and the pagan writers of the first
century), chorography [map-making], mathematics (including arithmetic
and geometry), poetry, (reading, writing, and criticizing), music
(including part-music), drawing, limning [putting drawings in books],
painting, art history, exercise (riding, running, leaping, tilting,
throwing, wrestling, swimming, shooting, and falconry), logic and
disputation (if related to one's intended profession such as the law),
philosophy (Plato and Aristotle), and some medicine and botany.
Richard Brathwaite's "The English Gentleman" portrays the
somber Puritan who accepts the gospel of work. He is a staid and
serious businessman. "Matrimonial Honour" by Daniel Rogers opined that
for success, a marriage must be godly, with the parties equally
religious, worshipping together in private and in public. A hasty or
worldly marriage would bring repentance. The spouses should agree, but
keep to their spheres. Children should not be spoiled.
Large households were more or less self-supporting and were
managed by their ladies. Work included ordering wool, hemp, and flax;
making cloth and dying it; dairy work; brewing; malting; baking;
preserving wines; extracting oils; distilling perfume; and putting on
banquets. Couches were coming into use in parlors.
The king and his court entourage settled for most of the year
in Whitehall instead of traveling around the country. The king let the
public into Hyde Park, the king's private hunting park, for recreation.
The City of London and Westminster were still separate, but a mass of
hovels was springing up in between them. In certain areas there were
houses crowded with those wanted for minor offenses, small thefts, and
debt. Bailiffs did not dare venture into these areas because the
inhabitants hid and defended each other unless the offense was a major
one. The penalty for stealing even small sums was still death. The
water carrier was still active and the night transport of sewage
necessary.
Inigo Jones was the first architect of consequence. He had
studied in Italy and designed and built the Banqueting House at
Whitehall, near Westminster, in London in 1622. It had classical
proportions and nice shaping and dressing in stone. He was now an
arbiter of taste for the King Charles and his Queen and built many
structures for them, including the Queen's Chapel at St. James Palace
and her bedroom in the Queen's Hose in Greenwich. All over London and
the country he and his pupils built many classical buildings, including
houses, churches, stables, lodgings, out-buildings, staircases,
galleries, watergates, and archways. They stood in stark contrast to
the Tudor buildings around them. In the 1632, Jones started town
planning in London with Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market and
terraced houses around a central piazza surrounded by open arcades with
a Tuscan church at one end. In 1634, a man from the suburb of Hackney
introduced a line of coaches rented at 1s. per hour. They soon became
very popular.
The Flemish Johann Baptista van Helmont demonstrated that
metals dissolved in acid can be recovered through chemical means and
enunciated the doctrine that each thing in nature has its own specific
organization.
A large part of England was rebuilt as yeomen expanded their
houses and others lower in rank replaced mud and wood hovels with brick
and stone cottages. A separate kitchen appeared. The ground floors are
boarded over to create bedrooms. Permanent stairs replace ladders.
Glass appears in windows. Glass and crockery replace wood and pewter,
Chairs replace benches. Knives and forks become common.
About 1640 began travel between towns by covered wagons called
stage coaches. They carried passengers and goods and stopped at inns
for stabling and repairs.
Work was begun in 1630 to make canals that would make marsh
waters run to the sea. Barges on canals were the most efficient mode of
transportation. A barge could carry 50 tons on a canal and only 30 tons
on a river. A single horse could haul an 8-ton wagon on iron rails or
on a soft road, but only 1/8 of a ton on his back.
A new trend of spring-sown crops led to better crop balance and
reduced the risks of scarcity in a bad year. But the economy was still
volatile.
There were riots in London in 1640-1 from a complete breakdown
in political consensus, the factions being the Royalist City elite
versus the middling and lesser merchants and craftsmen.
In 1631, the clock makers broke away from the control of the
Blacksmiths. The gunmakers also broke away from the Blacksmiths. The
tinplate workers broke away from the Ironmongers.
"Searching" for bad cloth became more difficult as the industry
became more diversified. For instance, a new machine called a gig- mill
did the work of many hand finishers. In 1633, Charles issued a
commission for the reformation of the cloth industry with minute
directions for the manufacture of cloth. But there were many
disagreements over the details of manufacture and reform was difficult
to enforce.
By the 1630s, many parishes had a resident intellectual for the
first time. The parish priests came from gentry, upper yeomanry, urban
tradesmen and clerical families. They were educated and highly learned.
They had libraries and were in touch with contemporary religious
debates. They saw their role primarily as pastoral care. Many wanted to
improve the religious knowledge and moral conduct of their
parishioners. Puritan influence deepened as they forbade dancing,
games, minstrels, and festivals. They punished superstitious conduct.
They initiated prosecutions in church courts for sexual lapses and
drunkenness. The church court had little coercive power and its
punishments were restricted to penance or excommunication. Many Puritan
sects espoused equality for women. By the 1640s women were preachers,
e.g. in the Baptist and Anabaptist religions and, until 1660,
prophetesses. These sects were mostly composed of the lower echelons of
society.
Poor people did not respond to sermons as did the well-to-do.
Nor were they as involved in church activity, attending church only for
marriages, baptisms, and funerals.
Charles I not only believed in the divine right of kings and
was authoritarian; he was the ultimate autocrat. He had an unalterable
conviction that he was superior to other men, who were insignificant
and privileged to revolve around him. He issued directives to reverse
jury verdicts. Parliamentarians Oliver Cromwell and other educated men
opposed this view. The Commons voted not to grant Charles the usual
custom-dues for life, making it instead renewable each year,
conditioned on the king's behavior. Charles dissolved Parliament before
this passed. He continued to take tonnage and poundage.
Charles wanted money for war so he imposed many taxes, but
without the consent of Parliament. They included many of which had
fallen into disuse. He imposed a compulsory "loan" on private
individuals, which the courts held was illegal, and imprisoned those
who refused. Bail was denied to these men. Simpler people who refused
were threatened with impressment into the Navy, which included being
landed on shore to fight as marines and soldiers. They sought to revive
the old writ of habeas corpus to get released, but to no avail. Charles
billeted unpaid and unruly soldiers in private homes, which they
plundered. It was customary to quarter them in inns and public houses
at royal expense. Martial law was declared and soldiers were executed.
But the citizens did not want martial law either.
The Magna Carta was now seen as a protector of basic liberties,
instead of a restoration of certain past rights.. Both attorneys and
laymen read "The Pastyme of People" written by John Rastell in 1529,
which described the history of the Magna Carta from 1215 to 1225. Also
read was the "Great Abridgment" of the English law written by Rastell
in 1527, and Coke's volume of his Institutes which dealt with the Magna
Carta, which the Crown took to prevent being published until 1642, when
Parliament allowed it. Broad-scale pamphleteering turned England into a
school of political discussion. Oxford University favored the
established church and Cambridge University was Puritan.
The House of Commons asserted a preeminence to the House of
Lords for the following reasons: The estates of the members of the
House of Commons were three times the extent of the members' of the
House of Lords. Bishops' estates had diminished considerably because of
secularization. The members of the House of Commons were elected
[chosen] by the people.
The House of Commons drew up a Petition of Right in 1627, which
expanded upon the principles of Magna Carta and sought to fix definite
bounds between royal power and the power of the law. It protested the
loans compelled under pain of imprisonment and stated that no tax or
the like should be exacted without the common consent of Parliament. It
quoted previous law that "...no freeman may be taken or imprisoned, or
be disseised of his freeholds or liberties, or his free customs, or be
outlawed or exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land" and that "...no man
of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his land
or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned nor disinherited, nor put to
death without being brought to answer by due process of law". It
continued that "... divers of your subjects have of late been
imprisoned without any cause showed; and when for their deliverance
they were brought before your Justices by your Majesty's writs of
Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and receive as the court should order,
and their keepers commanded to certify the causes of their detainer, no
cause was certified, but that they were detained by your Majesty's
special command, signified by the Lords of your Privy Council, and yet
were returned back to several prisons, without being charged with
anything to which they might make answer according to the law." It also
protested the billeting of soldiers in private houses and martial law
trying soldiers and sailors. If these terms were agreed to by the King,
he was to be given a good sum of money. Since he needed the money, he
yielded. He expected tonnage and poundage for the Navy for life, as was
the custom. But he got it only for one year, to be renewable yearly.
The King agreed to the petition, quietly putting his narrow
interpretation on it, and it was put into the statute book.
In 1629 Parliament distinguished between treason to the king
and treason to the Commonwealth.
The Chief Justice held in 1638 that acts of Parliament to take
away the King's royal power in the defense of his kingdom were void;
the king may command his subjects, their persons, their goods, and
their money and acts of Parliament make no difference. But the people
refused to pay these taxes.
Charles thought of more ways to obtain money and disregarded
his agreement to the Petition of Right.
Without the consent of Parliament, Charles extended ship money
to all the kingdom instead of just the ports. It was used to outfit
ships for the protection of the coasts. Hampden refused to pay it on
principle and the courts ruled against him in the case of King v. John
Hampden and he was sent to prison. When distraints were tried, the
common people used violence to prevent them. The bailiffs were pelted
with rocks when they came to distrain property. One man used his
pitchfork to take back his steer being taken by the bailiff. If a
distraint was successful, people would refuse to buy the distrained
property of their neighbors.
Charles revived the right of the Crown to force knighthood on
the landed gentry for a fee.
Charles sold monopolies in such goods as soap, leather, salt,
wine, coal, and linen rags although they had been abolished in the last
Parliament of James. This made employment uncertain for workers and
prices high for the public, and put masters in danger of loss of
capital.
Fines were levied on people for the redress of defects in their
title deeds. Crown forest boundaries were arbitrarily extended and
landowners near Crown forests were heavily fined for their
encroachments on them. Money was extorted from London by an illegal
proclamation by which every house had to pay three years' rental to the
Crown to save itself from demolition.
But what incensed the people more than the money issue were the
changes in the established church. High churchmen, called Ritualists,
enforced ceremonies offensive to Puritan feeling in every parish. The
centrally placed communion tables were to be placed at the east end
within railings and called "altars", or "mercy seats" as if for mass.
They were to be ornamented with crucifixes, images, pretty trifles,
books, candles and rich tapestries. Bowing was to be done when
approaching them. Clergymen were to be called "priests" and their
authority treated as divine. Worship was to be done in accordance with
the prescribed forms of Romish Breviars, Rituals, and Mass-books. Its
ritual was to have pomp and ceremony, including kneeling for communion.
Rings were to be used in marriages and crosses used in baptisms.
Churches, fonts, tables, pulpits, chalices and the like were to be
consecrated, thereby putting holiness in them. Churches that did not do
this but used unconsecrated or "polluted" articles were closed by
interdiction [a Catholic censure withdrawing most sacraments and
Christian burial]. Days, postures, meats, and vestments were to be
regarded. The clergy was to wear supplices [white linen vestments
flowing to the foot with lawn sleeves] and embroidered copes [vestment
over the head]. A Bishop wore a four-cornered cap, cope and surplice
with lawn-sleeves, tippet (long, black scarf), hood, and canonical
coat. Churchwardens were to take oaths to inform against any who
disobeyed. The law still required that all attend Sunday sermons. But
parishes had some control over who was their preacher, even though a
minister could be assigned to a parish by the bishops without the
consent of the patron of the church or parish people. By increasing the
meager pay of a parish clergyman, they could choose one with a
compatible theology or employ a lecturer from outside. The Ritualists
scolded clergymen for "gospel preaching" and suppressed Puritan
preaching in public meetings. Preaching or printing matter concerning
the controversy of free will versus predestination was forbidden.
Geneva Bibles, which were popular among laymen, were prohibited from
being imported. Many were excommunicated for sitting instead of
kneeling at communion. The clergy prohibited marriage if they liked by
withholding their license, and they licensed marriages without banns.
The Ritualists encouraged certain sports to be played after church on
Sunday. The Puritans protested vehemently to this because they wanted
to strictly observe the Sabbath. The Puritans saw the high churchmen as
wanting to return to the doctrine and customs they thought to be
Papist. The Ritualists were absolutists in their political views and
accepted the King's intervention in church matters. The ecclesiastical
Court of High Commission enforced the edicts of the church,
excommunicating those who did not conform and expelling clergymen who,
for instance, did not bow at the name of Jesus or wear the surplice. It
was used against the Puritans and imposed high fines and imprisonment
for religious eccentricity and Puritan preaching. Charles supported the
established church in this endeavor because it agreed that he had a
divine right to rule.
The universities and high churchmen were beginning to adopt the
doctrine of free will over predestination. Parliamentarian and Puritan
Oliver Cromwell and others feared this presaged a return to
justification by works and the popish faith. In Parliament, he spoke
out against the tyranny of the bishops, whose offices he wanted
abolished, and the elaborateness of church services.
To avoid persecution, many Puritans emigrated to Virginia and
New England. They were led by magistrates, country gentlemen, prominent
businessmen, attorneys, and other professionals. In 1629, the
Massachusetts Bay Colony was chartered at the instigation of John
Winthrop as a Puritan refuge. Its leaders led a migration of Puritans
organized to include five each of armorers, bakers, blacksmiths,
carpenters, shoemakers, merchants; three each of clothiers, chandlers,
coopers, military officers, physicians, and tailors; two each of
fishermen, herdsmen, and masons; on tanner, and one weaver. The fare
was five pounds and an applicant was interviewed to make sure he was a
Puritan. He got 50 acres, or more for a larger family. But if he paid
50 pounds into the common stock he received 200 acres of land, plus 50
more for each dependent. Maryland was founded in 1632 as a haven for
Catholics, but its charter precluded a government-established religion.
It was granted to Lord Baltimore to hold in free socage and was named
after Charles' wife, who was Catholic. Catholics in England could
practice their religion only in their homes and could not carry arms.
As hostility grew, censorship of books and plays accelerated
and the number of authorized printers was reduced in 1637 by decree of
the Star Chamber. In 1640s effective government control of the press
collapsed. Then there were many pamphlets and newspapers with all
variety of interpretation of the Bible and all sorts of political
opinion, such as on taxation; law and the liberties of the subject;
religion; land and trade; and authority and property. Twenty-two
pamphlets were published in 1640 and 1,996 in 1642.
In 1640 the canons of the church included a requirement for
parsons to exclaim divine right of kings every year. The Commons soon
resolved that this was contrary to the fundamental laws and liberties
of the realm.
The Short Parliament of 1640 was dissolved soon because the
Commons demanded redress of its grievances. The Long Parliament of
1640-1653 requested by the House of Lords was agreed to by Charles
because he still wanted money. In election of members to the Long
Parliament, voters wanted to know where contenders stood on certain
political issues. In this Parliament, the Commons ceased to agree on
all issues and started to rely on majority rule.
The House of Commons was led by John Pym, a middle class
landholder with extensive commercial interests. The Commons treated the
King's refusal to act with them as a relinquishment of his power to
Parliament. When it met at the Long Parliament, Pym expressed the
grievances of the King's actions against the privileges of Parliament,
against religion, and against the liberties of the subjects.
Specifically, he decried the disregard of free speech and of freedom
from prosecution afterward, and the arbitrary dissolution of
Parliament. Secondly, he alleged popery had been encouraged and the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction enlarged. Thirdly, he protested the patent
monopolies given to favorites to the detriment of the buying public,
the imposition of ship money levies beyond the need of national defense
and without the consent of Parliament, the revival of the feudal
practice of imposing a fine for refusal to accept a knighthood with its
attendant obligations, the enlargement of the King's forests and
driving out from hence tenants with lucrative holdings, extra judicial
declarations of justices without hearing of counsel or argument in many
criminal matters, and the abuses of the prerogative courts in defending
monopolies. Parliament's assertion into religious matters and foreign
affairs was unprecedented, those areas having been exclusively in the
power of the King.
The Long Parliament begun in 1640 removed many of the King's
ministers and forbade clergy from sitting in Parliament or exercising
any temporal authority. It passed measures which were not agreed to by
the King. It undid the lawless acts of the King and the court decision
in the case of King v. Hampden. Ship money was declared illegal. The
new concept that the present Parliament should not be dissolved but by
its own consent was adopted. The Star Chamber and Court of High
Commission were abolished. The oath ex officio, an oath to answer all
questions, was originally meant for facts at issue, but had been
extended by these courts to opinions, beliefs, and religion and had led
to abuses. The Star Chamber had been the only court which punished
infractions of the Kings' edicts, so now his proclamations were
unenforceable. Protection against self-incrimination was given by the
provision that no person be forced "to confess or accuse him or herself
of crime, offense, delinquency, or misdemeanor, or any neglect... or
thing whereby, or by reason whereof, he or she shall or may be liable
or exposed to any censure, pain, penalty, or punishment whatsoever, as
had been the practice in the Star Chamber and the Court of High
Commission.
These measures were also adopted: No one may be compelled to
take knighthood nor undergo any fine for not so doing. The forest
boundaries are returned to their former place. All subjects may now
import gunpowder; they may also make and sell gunpowder and import
saltpeter.
The Root and Branch Petition of 1640 to abolish episcopacy
roots and branches complained about pressure on ministers by bishops on
threat of dismissal not to preach about predestination, free grace,
perseverance, original sin remaining after baptism, the Sabbath,
doctrine against universal grace, election for faith foreseen,
free-will against anti-Christ, non- residents, nor human inventions in
God's worship. It also complained about the great increase of idle,
lewd, and dissolute, ignorant and erroneous men in the ministry who
wanted only to wear a canonical coat, a surplice, and a hood, bow at
the name of Jesus, and be zealous of superstitious ceremonies. It also
complained about the swarming of lascivious, idle, and unprofitable
books, pamphlets, play-books, and ballads, such as Ovid's "Fits of
Love", "The Parliament of Women", Barn's "Poems", and Parker's
"Ballads". Further it opposed the restraint of reprinting books
formerly licensed without relicensing. It protested the growth of
popery and increase of priests and Jesuits, the strict observance of
saints' days whereby large fines were imposed on people working on
them, the increase of whoredoms and adulteries because of the bishops'
corrupt administration of justice and taking of bribes, and the
practice of excommunicating for trivial matters such as working on a
holy day or not paying a fee. It further protested the fining and
imprisoning of many people; breaking up men's houses and studies;
taking away men's books, letters, and writings; seizing upon their
estates; removing them from their callings; and separating them from
their wives, to the utter infringement of the laws and of people's
liberties. It complained that these practices caused many clothiers,
merchants, and others to flee to Holland, thus undermining the wool
industry. It finally complained of the multitude of monopolies and
patents, large increase of customs, and ship-money. Many Londoners
signed this petition.
The House of Commons decided to forbid bowing at the name of
Jesus. When the House of Lords disagreed with this, the House of
Commons claimed that it represented all the people and didn't need the
concurrence of the House of Lords. The House of Commons ordered that
all communion tables be removed from the east end of churches, that the
railings be taken away, and all candles and basins be removed from it.
Further, all crucifixes, images of the Virgin Mary, and pictures of any
of the Trinity were to be demolished, including those in markets and
streets. Further, all bowing at the name of Jesus or toward the east
end of the church or toward the communion table was forbidden. All
dancing or other sports on Sunday was forbidden. Enforcement was to be
done by Justices of the Peace and Mayors. But these orders never became
statutes.
Enforcement of the law for not coming to church was not now
regularly enforced, so Catholics had a respite.
Rebellion of Irish Catholics against England and English
Protestants broke out in Ireland in 1641. Parliament didn't trust the
King with an army that he could use against themselves so it passed the
following two measures expanding the Navy and calling out the militia
and naming certain persons to be Lieutenants of each county.
The Admiral shall impress as many seamen as necessary for the
defense of the realm. This includes mariners, sailors, watermen, ship
carpenters, but no one over the age of 50 or masters or masters' mates.
If one hides, he shall be imprisoned for three months without bail.
Justices of the Peace shall impress as many soldiers as the
king may order for war in Ireland. This is despite the right of a
citizen to be free from being compelled to go out of his county to be a
soldier because the danger from Ireland is imminent. Excluded are
clergymen, scholars, students, those rated at a subsidy of land of
three pounds or goods of five pounds, esquires or above, the sons of
such or their widows, those under eighteen or over sixty years of age,
mariners, seamen, and fishermen. The penalty for disobeying is
imprisonment, without bail or misprise, and a fine of ten pounds. If an
offender can't pay the fine, he shall be imprisoned a year more,
without bail or misprise.
The right to call out the county militia had been a prerogative
of the Crown, so the King issued a Proclamation ordering the soldiers
to ignore this order and obey him. So Parliament declared this
Proclamation void.
The King accused five leaders of Parliament, including Pym, of
trying to subvert the government of the kingdom, to deprive the King of
his regal power, to alienate the affections of the people toward their
King, forcing the Parliament to their ends by foul aspersions, and
inviting the Scots to invade England. In 1642, the King entered
Parliament with 300 soldiers to arrest these five. They had flown, but
Parliament was shocked that the King had threatened the liberties of
Parliament with military force. The citizens of London, in their fear
of popery, rose in arms against the King, who left the city. Both sides
raised big armies. The goal of the Parliamentarians was to capture the
King alive and force him to concessions.
When the Parliamentarians took Oxford in 1648, they purged its
faculty of royalists.
The Law
Real wages, which had been falling, reached their low point and
the gap between the poor and others widened. There were depressions
from 1629-32 and from 1636 to about 1640, which called for Royal
proclamations for the relief and distress, especially among the poor.
The Book of Orders, for the relief of distress in earlier reigns, was
to be reissued. The assize of beer and bread maintaining quality,
prices, weights, and measures, was to be duly kept. Hoarding of
foodstuffs was to be punished. Fish days and lent were to be observed
to maintain the fishers. Abstaining from suppers on Fridays and on the
eves of feasts was ordered in all taverns and commended to private
families. City corporations were to give up their usual feasts and half
the charge given to the poor. Foreign ships were not to be supplied
with food for long voyages. The revised Book of Orders also covered the
regulation of beggary, the binding of apprentices, and the general
relief of the poor. All magistrates were to enforce the rules and raise
special rates from all parishes, the richer of these to help the poorer.
From 1625 to 1627 these statutes were passed:
No one shall engage in sports or any pastimes outside his own parish or
bearbaiting, bullbaiting, interludes, plays or other unlawful pastimes
inside his parish on Sundays because such has led to quarrels and
bloodshed and nonattendance at church. The fine is 3s.4d. or if the
offender does not have the money or goods to sell to pay, he shall be
set in the public stocks for three hours.
No carrier with any horse or wagon or cart or drover with cattle may
travel on Sunday or else forfeit 20s.
No butcher may kill or sell any victual on Sunday or else forfeit 6s.8d.
Every innkeeper, alehousekeeper, and other victualer permitting a
patron who is not an inhabitant of the area to become drunk shall
forfeit 5s. or be place in the stocks for six hours. Offenders
convicted a second time shall be bound by two sureties to the sum of
200s.
As of 1627, a parent sending a child out of the country to go
to a Catholic school was to forfeit 100 pounds, one half to the
informer and one half to the king.
The Petition of Right herebefore described was passed as a
statute in 1627.
Judicial Procedure
The Star Chamber decided cases as diverse as a case of
subordination of witnesses, cases of counterfeiters of farthing tokens,
and cases of apothecaries compounding ill medicines. It tried to keep
down the prices of foodstuffs for the benefit of the poor; it repressed
extortion and false accusations, and disbarred an attorney for sharp
practices; it punished defamation, fraud, riots, forgery of wills; it
forbade duels. A special virtue of its position was that it could
handle without fear matters in which men of social or local influence
might intimidate or overawe juries or even country justices. It
punished a lord who caused records to be forged, unlawfully entered
lands, and seized tithes. It disciplined a nobleman for drawing a sword
on a lord hunting hare.
In one of its cases, Sir Edward Bullock, a knight wanting to
enclose a common of a thousand acres threatened his neighbor Blackhall
when he would not sell his lands and rights. The knight hired a man to
break down the hedges and open a gate that had been staked up, so that
his neighbor's cattle would stray. He sued his neighbor three times for
trespass, lost his cases, and threatened revenge on all the witnesses
who testified against him. He had the house of one pulled down. The
pregnant wife and a naked child were turned out and had to lie in the
streets because no one dared to take them in, even when a justice so
directed. The witness, his wife, and family took refuge in an unheated
outbuilding in the winter. He and his wife and one child died there.
The knight had another witness cudgeled so that she was black and blue
from the waist up, and could not put on her clothes for a month. The
knight threatened to set fire to the house of another witness, and sent
his men to pull him out of doors and keep him prisoner for some hours.
The Star Chamber imprisoned the knight and his men. The knight was
fined 1,000 pounds and the men 50 pounds each. The knight also had to
pay one witness 100 pounds in reparation to the surviving children of
the family whose house had been pulled down.
But the power of the Star Chamber was abused by King Charles I.
For instance, one lord was accused by another of calling him a base
lord. The evidence was paltry. But he was fined 8,000 pounds, one-half
going to the King. A lord who was accused of converting agricultural
land to pasture was fined 4,000 pounds. A person who exported fuller's
earth, contrary to the King's proclamation, was pilloried and fined
2,000 pounds. A man who defaced a stained-glass window in a church was
fined 500 pounds and ordered to pay for a plain glass replacement. A
man who became sheriff of a county and had taken the oath which bound
him to remain in the county was elected to Parliament and stood in
opposition to the king on many matters. He was imprisoned for many
years until he made a humble submission and had to pay a heavy fine. A
London importer who was alleged to have said "That the Merchants are in
no part of the world so screwed and wrung as in England; That in Turkey
they have more encouragement" was fined 2,000 pounds for seditious and
slanderous words against his majesty's happy government. A Scottish
minister circulated a book appealing to Parliament to turn out the
bishops and to resist its own dissolution by the King. In it he called
the bishops men of blood, anti-Christian, satanical, ravens, and
magpies, preying on the state. He was against kneeling at the sacrament
and denounced the Queen for her Catholic religion. He blamed the state
for the death of citizens of a certain town by famine. For as he did
"scandalize his Majesties Sacred Person, his Religious, Wise, and just
Government, the Person of his Royal Consort the Queen, the Persons of
the Lords and Peers of this realm, especially the Reverend Bishops", he
was fined 10,000 pounds, was to be unfrocked (which was done by the
Court of High Commission), and was whipped, pilloried, one ear nailed
to the pillory and cut off, his cheek branded, and his nose slit. Then
he was imprisoned for life, but only served ten years, being released
by a statute of the Long Parliament. A Puritan writer Pyrnne wrote a
book that included a condemnation of masks and plays, and all who took
part, and all who looked on as sinful, pernicious, and unlawful. It
opined that Nero had attended plays and deserved to be murdered. Since
Charles had attended plays and the Queen had taken part in a mask, it
was inferred that Pyrnne meant them harm. His indictment alleged that
"he hath presumed to cast aspersions upon the King, the Queen, and the
Commonwealth, and endeavored to infuse an opinion onto the people that
it is lawful to lay violent hands upon Princes that are either actors,
favorers, or spectators of stage plays". The justices saw in the book
an attempt to undermine authority. The Chief Justice called the book a
most wicked, infamous, scandalous, and seditious libel. Pyrnne was
sentenced to be degraded by Oxford and disbarred by Lincoln's Inn, to
be fined 5,000 pounds, to be pilloried and to have his ears cut off,
and then to be imprisoned for life. Three men who wrote attacks on the
bishops and ecclesiastical courts, such as alleging that the bishops
suppression of fasts and preaching had brought the pestilence upon the
people and that the bishops had dishonored God and exercised papal
jurisdiction in their own names, were each sentenced to 5,000 fine, the
pillory, where their ears were cut off, and to life imprisonment. One,
who had been convicted for libel before, was branded on both cheeks:
"S.L." for Seditious Libeller. Others printed similar material. In vain
the Star Chamber limited the number of London printers to twenty, and
made licensing stricter. These prisoners were set free by the Long
Parliament.
Charles I intimidated justices to obey him in decision-making
even more than James I.
Charles I so abused the power of the Star Chamber court that it
was abolished by the Long Parliament and with it, the involvement of
the King's Council in civil and criminal cases.
The regular church courts punished people for heresy, non-
attendance at church, sexual immorality, working on the Sabbath or a
holy day, non-payment of tithes, and lending money at interest. The
special ecclesiastical court, the Court of High Commission, was
composed of clerics appointed by the king and decided cases of marriage
annulment, alimony, adultery, married couples living separately,
cruelty of husbands to wives, and habitual drunkenness. But it also
took on cases of schismatics and extended its power over them to
include staid and solid Puritans, who uniformly believed that salvation
was the only worthy earthly aim. Acting on information attained through
secret channels or from visitations, it would summon the accused, who
was required to give, under oath, "full, true, and perfect" answers to
broad and undetailed charges made by secret informants. Refusal to take
the oath resulted in commitment for contempt of court. If he denied the
charges and fled, the court could hold the hearing without him. Many
fled out of the country or went into hiding in it. If the accused went
to the hearing, he could not take an attorney with him. Most of the
issues involved clergy refusing to use the litany, to make the sign of
the cross in baptism, to wear the surplice, or to publish the Book of
Sports, and insistence on extempore prayer and preaching. Other issues
were clergy who, from the pulpit, inveighed against ship-money and
unjust taxes, and spoke rudely against the bishops and tyrannical
princes. One case is that of Samuel Ward, the town preacher of a large
town, heard in 1635. He neglected bowing or kneeling on coming to his
seat in church and preached against the Book of Sports. He did not read
the set prayers from the official book, but said prayers he had himself
conceived. To this he replied that a parrot could be taught to repeat
forms and an ape to imitate gestures. But his most serious offenses had
to do with his utterances from the pulpit derogatory to the tenets and
discipline of the church. He was accused of saying that he believed
that congregations still had the right of election of all officers,
including ministers. Also, he allegedly said that in preaching on the
Christmas holidays he told his people "that in the following days they
might do their ordinary business, intending to cross that vulgar
superstitious belief, that whoever works on any of those twelve days
shall be lousy". He allegedly warned his people to beware of a relapse
into popery. Ward was convicted of depraving the liturgy, tending
toward schism, frightening the people, and encouraging the overthrow of
all manner of government. He was removed from his position, deprived of
his ministerial function, suspended and silenced during the King's
pleasure. He was ordered to make submission and recantation both in
court and in his church and to give bond for 200 pounds. When he did
not do this, he was sent to prison and lay there nearly four years, and
died a few months later. In another case, a Mrs. Traske was imprisoned
for at least eleven years for keeping Saturday as her Sabbath. Many
people were excommunicated and books censored for essentially political
reasons.
In 1637, the king proclaimed that the common law courts could
not intervene in ecclesiastical courts.
The Court of High Commission was abolished by the Long
Parliament.
Justices of the Peace had general and quarter sessions, the
latter of which were held four times a year with all Justices of the
Peace attending. It was primarily a court of appeal from penal
sentences. But it was also an administrative body to determine taxes
and make appointments of officials and grant licenses for businesses.
In 1638, in distributing a deceased person's estate, the
Chancery court upheld a trust designed to hold the property for an
heiress so that it did not become her husband's property.
At the request of Parliament, the King had all justices serve
during their good behavior instead of serving at the King's will, which
had been the practice for ages. This increased the independence of the
judiciary.
The rack was used for the last time in 1640 before the Long
Parliament met. It was used to torture a rioter before hanging.
Men were still pressed to death for failure to plead,
pickpockets still executed for the first offense, and husband murderers
still burned.