Chapter Background of Paradise Lost - Study Guide by John Milton

With the Hampton Court Conference (1604), James I had managed to achieve a state of equilibrium in which the confessional strands were accommodated or at least temporarily appeased. This was perhaps James’ principal achievement as king of England; Charles I and William Laud destroyed this within a matter of years.

Supreme Head of the Church of England, Charles, with his archbishop William Laud, pursued an ecclesiastical policy that has been labelled ‘Arminian’ or ‘Laudian’. Essentially the Caroline church was marked by a greater emphasis on ritual in administering the sacraments, and hence the Laudian clergy, steeped in ritual, took on greater pomp. Furthermore, the judicial abuses of the ecclesiastical courts were most unpopular, particularly the case of Prynne, Burton and Bastwick.

The theology of Jacobus Arminius had been derided at the Synod of Dort (1618), and thus in England the more Calvinistic and Puritan sections of society were hostile to the doctrine of free will. However, the Laudian church was not strictly Arminian, and it was the drive for uniformity in worship, with what was perceived as crypto-Catholic ritual and the doctrinal superiority of the sacraments over the power of individual contact with God (i.e. the Lutheran doctrine of Sola fide), that caused most outrage.

The Stuarts have been infamous throughout subsequent history for their extravagance. Though it would be misleading to attempt to dispel this image of luxury at the Jacobean and Caroline courts entirely, it must be quantified. Relatively, James I’s expenditure was equal to that of Henry VII and less than Henry VIII’s had been. What did cause great frustration and wariness was the fear of crypto-Catholicism at the court and ‘popish plots’ engineered through the court, and the continued isolation of the king and a small group of aristocrats and favourites.

There existed something of an ideological division between king and Parliament under the early Stuarts. James I is notorious for standing before Parliament and asserting the ‘doctrine’ of the ‘Divine Right of Kingship’, antagonising members of the Commons who interpreted the relationship of the Crown and Parliament as one of cooperation for the good of the ‘common weal’. However, the extent of this should not be overestimated, as James’s abilities as a king should not be undervalued. Before ascending to the English crown in 1603 on the death of Elizabeth, James (VI) had learned his statecraft as king of Scotland for over thirty years.

Nevertheless, after a period of eleven years in which Charles I ruled without recourse to Parliament and continued arbitrary methods of government, taxation and ecclesiastical policy, when Parliament was eventually summoned (the Short Parliament of 1640, and the Long Parliament from 1641) relations between king and Parliament had collapsed. War was never inevitable, but relations grew increasingly bad, a combination of the King’s obstinacy to negotiate religious and political-constitutional compromise, Parliament scoring propaganda points by exposing the dubious, duplicitous, and underhanded methods of the King, and attacking his chief ministers Laud and Strafford. War became increasingly possible during 1642, especially during the summer, because the King had left London to raise money and support in the counties, leaving Parliament in control of the capital. Attempts at peace negotiation failed and war broke out.

Parliament managed to win the first of the civil wars even though the Crown had superior resources at the beginning and wasted valuable tactical opportunities early on. After a period of stalemate, Parliament developed the more sophisticated governmental machinery and reorganised its military structure, with the formation of the New Model Army. After the first civil war the situation become more complicated, with the emergence of religious and political radicalism, the politicisation of the Army, the intervention of the Scottish Covenanters, discord within the Parliamentary cause, and the continued duplicity of Charles I. Attempts at compromise failed, and it is possible that Cromwell engineered the fall of Charles with his attempted escape from Carisbroke Castle.

To ensure the trial of the King, Pride’s Purge of Parliament was executed in December 1648. After a trial of dubious legality, in January 1649 Charles I was beheaded outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall.