The Most Important Reasons For The Unpopularity Of The Personal Rule Essay

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‘The most important reason for the unpopularity of the Personal Rule was religion.’ How far do you agree? Tyranny can be defined as ‘cruelty and injustice in the exercise of authority over others’, yet now in the modern day the period of ruling by King Charles I without calling parliament for eleven years is often called ‘The Eleven Years Tyranny’ by historians. This essay will cover why this might be, by looking at the various factors contributing to the unpopularity of the Personal Rule, the most important of which will become clear to be religion. Other factors that will be covered in this essay include Charles’ methods of raising funds, the policy of ‘thorough’ in Ireland, the fact that Parliament had no way of passing grievances in the …show more content…

Most people were Church of England Anglican and they did not like churches and church proceedings that were in any way ‘popish’ (appeared to be fancy and Catholic). Nevertheless there were two extremes either side of the more popular beliefs; Arminianism and Puritanism. Puritans wanted to purify the practices of the church to make them less extravagant and more godly. Arminians, on the other hand, liked ceremonies, Bishops and obedience to royalty. It is not difficult to guess which branch Charles I had an affinity for. He appointed William Laud, an Arminian, as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. William Laud, now in what can be seen as the most authorial church role, came up with 5 church aims: uniformity across the country, ‘beauty of holiness’- making churches fit for worship, the eradication of Puritanism, to increase church influence in government, and to restore the wealth of the clergy. The first and second factors, as simple as they may sound, upset the general public because they involved forcing the congregation to contribute towards improvements that they didn’t want, such as a stone alter. The stone alter also upset the gentry, many of whom would be members of parliament, as the alter was moved to the East of the church where the family pew would normally be. Charles was against Puritanism as many wanted to see the episcopacy abolished, which might explain

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