Audiobook Sample: The History of England Volume 5

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Despite considerable concerns throughout England, the transition of the House of Tudor to the House of Stewart, from Elizabeth to James I (reigned 1603-1625) proved untroubled, not least because the queen left the country in ‘flourishing circumstances'. The new monarch moved to London and, despite being James VI of Scotland, made it his home for the next two decades.
Unsurprisingly, his early distribution of honours benefitted more Scots figures than English, and coloured the nature of his English court, though he prudently left most of the main offices in the hands of Elizabeth's ministers. Various plots - involving among others Sir Walter Raleigh, and, in 1605 the ‘Gunpower Conspiracy' - were swiftly dealt with; and though James regarded himself ‘an absolute king', this was leavened by pragmatism.
Hume considers the continuing activity of learning and the arts in the reign of James, through the work of Shakespeare, Ben, Johnson, John Donne and Francis Bacon; and that James himself was a ‘middling' writer. He died aged 58 in 1625.
Unlike his father, Charles I (reigned 1625-1649) came to the throne aged 25 ‘unexperienced and impolitic,' and was further challenged by personal debts and public commitments due to overseas military ventures. This forced him to request Parliament for extra funds, which he expected would be little more than a formality, and, bearing in mind this was a new relationship, Parliament acceded.
But the strengthening of the ‘puritanical' party in the house of commons set the seeds of future disruption, flames which were fuelled by the king's increasingly ‘lofty ideas' of his monarchical authority over constitutional practices in the government of the country.
Hume's extensive research presents the growing animosity between king and Parliament in detail, culminating Charles ordering the dissolution of Parliament on 10 March 1629. For the next 11 years the king ruled alone.
Hume takes a balanced view of Charles the man and Charles the king. ‘A kind husband, an indulgent father, a ge