In 1629, Charles I dissolved his parliament having been presented the Petition of Right in 1628. In March 1629 the Speaker tried to dissolve Parliament, on the king’s orders, but was held in his chair by three MPS while the commons voted against some of the king’s decisions. The Speaker of the House was in a difficult position – he stated that he was parliament and the king’s servant. Charles I was not amused when he was told what had happened and dissolved parliament immediately. He decided that he did not need parliament to raise funds – instead he would rule by royal prerogative and that meant finding older ways of raising taxes. He returned in effect to personal rule and feudal taxation.

Charles used: feudal dues, customs duty and income from his own estates. James I had often been short of money and Charles’ favourite the recently assassinated Duke of Buckingham had involved England in a disastrous war with the French. Now Charles levied a tax called Distraint of Knighthood – any man who possessed more than £40 a year was required to attend a royal coronation, when one occurred, to receive a knighthood. Failure to do so resulted a fine. Charles’ coronation was in 1626 and £40 was not as much money as it had once been. Now though, Charles didn’t hesitate to levy the fine to raise funds. Not only was there this war in France to be fought there was also support to be provided for Charles’ sister, Elizabeth also known as the Winter Queen and her husband, Frederick V the Elector Palatine / King of Bohemia in the Thirty Years War.

There was also ship money. This was usually levied during time of war in coastal counties but Charles now directed that the tax should be raised across the whole kingdom. As a result there was a high profile court case against John Hampden who refused to pay.

And just in case you wanted something else – there was the grant of monopolies to individuals who paid for the right and then increased the price on whatever they held the monopoly upon.

Was Charles I a tyrant? He wasn’t a cruel man and didn’t have a secret police to enforce his whims but he ruled without recourse to parliament, on occasion men were imprisoned without trial and the taxes he imposed while legal in the strictest sense of the word had often fallen into disuse by the time he resurrected them. And then there were his religious beliefs which he tried to impose on all his subjects – more of that anon.