2E - Conflicts between Crown and Parliament: failure of negotiations between the King and the Long Parliament
Understand why extensive reforms in 1641 did not produce a secure settlement, why Strafford was executed, and how his removal changed the relationship between Charles and Parliament. The distinction between removing an immediate danger and securing future cooperation explains why apparent victories could deepen the crisis.
Reversing Personal Rule and seeking security
The Long Parliament's first reforms dismantled instruments of Personal Rule, but removing an abuse was different from preventing its return.
The Triennial Act of February 1641 required Parliament to meet at least once every three years, with mechanisms to summon it if the Crown failed to act. Another act in May prevented the existing Parliament from being dissolved without its own consent. This was a separate and particularly important protection: Charles could no longer end negotiations as he had ended the Short Parliament. In summer, the abolition of the Star Chamber and High Commission removed courts associated with coercive royal and religious government. Parliamentary legislation also repudiated ship money and other contested revenue practices.
These changes were substantial. They restricted methods through which Charles had governed without parliamentary cooperation, and he gave them royal assent. MPs could argue that king and Parliament had jointly restored lawful government. A settlement remained conceivable because few wanted a republic and Charles remained necessary to normal legislation.
The difficulty was future enforcement. Charles's critics feared that, once financial and military pressures eased, he might regain freedom of action and restore hostile advisers. The king feared that demands for further guarantees would convert temporary concessions into permanent subordination. Negotiation therefore involved more than agreeing a list of past wrongs. It required deciding who could be trusted with appointments, military power and religious reform after the crisis had passed.
Why Strafford became the central target
Strafford's career made him appear to opponents as both an architect of arbitrary government and a possible means of restoring it.
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, had served Charles in northern England and governed Ireland with a forceful policy often described as Thorough. His attempt to strengthen royal authority and revenue alarmed people whose cooperation the Crown needed. Critics feared that an army raised in Ireland could be used against resistance elsewhere in Charles's kingdoms. Attacking Strafford could therefore remove an immediate danger and discourage future ministers from implementing similar policies.
Parliament impeached him for treason. Impeachment meant that the Commons brought charges and the Lords conducted the trial. This offered a constitutional way to punish a minister while maintaining that the king had been badly advised. The case, however, faced a legal difficulty. Oppressive or unpopular actions were not automatically treason under existing definitions. Strafford defended his conduct, while opponents tried to establish that his combined actions amounted to an attempt to subvert fundamental law.
Evidence about his advice to Charles and the possible use of an Irish army was contested. MPs saw a political threat larger than an easily proved single offence; the Lords had to judge a treason case. That gap between perceived danger and the legal route to conviction explains the change of method. It is inaccurate to say that Strafford simply confessed to an agreed plan to conquer England or that the impeachment secured his execution.
Attainder, royal assent and execution
The bill of attainder allowed Strafford's opponents to seek his death through legislation when the impeachment route remained uncertain.
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