Charles I / Makers of History

by Jacob Abbott

King's forests.

There were in those days, as there are now, certain tracts of land in England called the king's forests, though a large portion of them are now without trees. The boundaries of these lands had not been very well defined, but the government now published decrees specifying the boundaries, and extending them so far as to include, in many cases, the buildings and improvements of other proprietors. They then prosecuted these proprietors for having encroached, as they called it, upon the crown lands, and the Star Chamber assessed very heavy fines upon them. The people said all this was done merely to get pretexts to extort money from the nation, to make up for the want of a Parliament to assess regular taxes; but the government said it was a just and legal mode of protecting the ancient and legitimate rights of the king.

Offenses against the king and his lords.

In these and similar modes, large sums of money were collected as fines and penalties for offenses more or less real. In other cases very severe punishments were inflicted for various sorts of offenses committed against the personal dignity of the king, or the great lords of his government. It was considered highly important to repress all appearance of disrespect or hostility to the king. One man got into some contention with one of the king's officers, and finally struck him. He was fined ten thousand pounds. Another man said that a certain archbishop had incurred the king's displeasure by desiring some toleration for the Catholics. This was considered a slander against the archbishop, and the offender was sentenced to be fined a thousand pounds, to be whipped, imprisoned, and to stand in the pillory at Westminster, and at three other places in various parts of the kingdom.

A gentleman fined for resenting an insult.

A gentleman was following a chase as a spectator, the hounds belonging to a nobleman. The huntsman, who had charge of the hounds, ordered him to keep back, and not come so near the hounds; and in giving him this order, spoke, as the gentleman alleged, so insolently, that he struck him with his riding-whip. The huntsman threatened to complain to his master, the nobleman. The gentleman said that if his master should justify him in such insulting language as he had used, he would serve him in the same manner. The Star Chamber fined him ten thousand pounds for speaking so disrespectfully of a lord.

Murmurs silenced.

By these and similar proceedings, large sums of money were collected by the Star Chamber for the king's treasury, and all expression of discontent and dissatisfaction on the part of the people was suppressed. This last policy, however, the suppression of expressions of dissatisfaction, is always a very dangerous one for any government to undertake. Discontent, silenced by force, is exasperated and extended. The outward signs of its existence disappear, but its inward workings become wide-spread and dangerous, just in proportion to the weight by which the safety-valve is kept down. Charles and his court of the Star Chamber rejoiced in the power and efficacy of their tremendous tribunal. They issued proclamations and decrees, and governed the country by means of them. They silenced all murmurs. But they were, all the time, disseminating through the whole length and breadth of the land a deep and inveterate enmity to royalty, which ended in a revolution of the government, and the decapitation of the king. They stopped the hissing of the steam for the time, but caused an explosion in the end.

The kingdom of Scotland.

Charles was King of Scotland as well as of England. The two countries were, however, as countries, distinct, each having its own laws, its own administration, and its own separate dominions. The sovereign, however, was the same. A king could inherit two kingdoms, just as a man can, in this country, inherit two farms, which may, nevertheless, be at a distance from each other, and managed separately. Now, although Charles had, from the death of his father, exercised sovereignty over the realm of Scotland, he had not been crowned, nor had even visited Scotland. The people of Scotland felt somewhat neglected. They murmured that their common monarch gave all his attention to the sister and rival kingdom. They said that if the king did not consider the Scottish crown worth coming after, they might, perhaps, look out for some other way of disposing of it.