The Civil War: The Rise And Fall Of King Charles I Of England

The civil war started from 1642 and ended in 1648, claiming the lives of 1 in 10 men from England. The war broke out forty years after the death of Elizabeth I, who had managed to rule England well. But the real problems came with the coming of Charles I of England, (second son of James VI of Scotland). During the reign of different monarchies the power of parliament had increased and in those times it was ordinary from the king to rule with parliament. However, Charles believed in the rite of kings, which is a political and religious doctrine stating the kings power comes from God and it is only the kings duty to rule the country. This definitely angered Parliament as it was taking away some of their power. He had also married Henrietta Maria, a French Catholic
This was then the cause of the dissolving of parliament. For the next 11 years Charles had his own personal rule and no parliament. However, without parliament there to provide him with taxes, he was forced to come up with ways to collect money himself. He eventually came to the conclusion of ship tax. This tax was collected when the countries fleet was at war, however it was not. To start with people accepted it, but when Charles asked this from inland, people grew angry and said that they would not pay the tax. Only 20% of the expected sum got collected. In 1639 a new problem came up. A new prayer book was introduced to Scotland causing outrage. They then marched upon England, taking control of several Northern areas. Charles had to pay £850 a day until they reached an agreement. Charles didn’t have this money and with the stressing issue of the Scots, he was forced to bring back parliament. But parliament agreed not to pay him anything until he got rid of the ship tax and his hated ministers. Charles had no other choice and so decided to do what he was