Chapter 6: relations between Crown and Parliament by 1629

• Problems with the Petition of Right (1628)

  • no explicit mention of the customs duty, impositions, or tonnage and poundage —> Charles claimed he had not surrendered his rights to collect these.
  • no mention Charles’ open favour to anti-Calvinists. Summer 1628 Laud and Montagu were appointed bishops —> caused further tension.
• Other issue of the Petition of Right: Parliament’s ability to trust Charles was called into question as he didn’t accept the petition in the proper legal way initially. 
• What was the Three Resolutions?

  • expressed opposition to Arminianism and to the collection of tonnage and poundage without parliamentary approval
  • 2nd March 1629: radicals Holles and Valentine held down the Speaker of the House of Commons in his chair until three resolutions passed condemning king’s conduct.
  • Charles’ response: dissolved Parliament 2 days later; saw the passing of the resolutions as a revolutionary act —> Personal rule for 11 years
  • had his leading critics John Eliot, Holles, and Valentine arrested for treason.
• Historian Christopher Durston on relations between Crown and Parliament


  The real watershed came not in 1603 but in 1625. The early parliaments of Charles I’s reign witnessed the rapid breakdown of the working relationship with Parliament.
• Historian Barry Coward on the relationship between Crown and Parliament


  there was no fundamental breakdown in the relationship between Charles and the broader Political Nation in 1629. - “After 1629 many critics of the Crown were willing to work in central and local government.”
• Factors that were possible causes of the tension between Charles and the Political Nation

  • Ideology
  • Religion
  • Functional reasons
  • Buckingham
  • War
  • Finance
  • Charles.