For eleven years
he ruled without parliament, raising supplies by various obsolete
expedients culminating in ship money, on behalf of which many patriotic
arguments about the necessities of naval defence were used.
He was brought up sharply when he began to kick against the
Presbyterian pricks of Scotland; and the expenses of the Bishops' War
put an end to the hand-to-mouth existence of his unparliamentary
government in England. The Long parliament went to the root of the
matter by demanding triennial sessions and the choice of ministers who
had the confidence of parliament. It emphasized its insistence upon
ministerial responsibility to parliament by executing Strafford and
afterwards Laud. Charles, who laboured under the impression common to
reactionaries that they are defending the rights of the people,
contended that, in claiming an unfettered right to choose his own
advisers, he was championing one of the most obvious liberties of the
subject. Parliament, however, had realized that in politics principles
consist of details as a pound consists of pence; and that if it wanted
sound legislative principles, it must take care of the details of
administration. Charles had ruled eleven years without parliament; but
so had Wolsey, and Elizabeth had apologized when she called it together
oftener than about once in five years. If the state had had more
financial ballast, and the church had been less high and top-heavy,
Charles might seemingly have weathered the storm and let parliament
subside into impotence, as the Bourbons let the States-General of
France, without any overt breach of the constitution.
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