why did the nobility in Europe become royalist to the king during the beginner of the 17 century
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Explanation: The 17th century was a time of great political and social turmoil in England, marked by civil war and regicide. Matthew White introduces the key events of this period, from the coronation of Charles I to the Glorious Revolution more than 60 years later.
The 17th century was a period of huge political and social upheaval. From an age characterised by the Crown’s tight control of the state, the century witnessed years of war, terror and bloodshed that enveloped the kingdom, as well as the execution of Charles I and the introduction of a republic. Yet all this was again to be overthrown with the restoration of Charles II: a short-lived return to autocratic royal influence finally swept away with the installation of William and Mary as ruling monarchs.
Charles I and notions of absolutism
The origins of the English Civil Wars are firmly rooted in the actions of one man: King Charles I. As a child, Charles was never destined to succeed to the throne. The weak and sickly second son of James I, Charles had lived in the shadow of his elder brother Henry, who was educated in the ways of kingship by his father. All this changed when, in 1612, Henry contracted smallpox and died, suddenly placing Charles as heir to the throne, eventually to be crowned in his own right in 1625.
Paintings of London in the friendship album of Michael van Meer, c. 1614-1615
Paintings of London in the friendship album of Michael van Meer, 1614-15
King James I riding to Parliament with three noblemen.
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The old king, James I, had been schooled in notions of compromise, forced to negotiate with his nobles on matters of religion and affairs of state. Charles, by contrast, adopted a starkly different approach, believing that his authority alone was supreme and ordained by God: defined by the principle of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’. ‘It is for me to decide how our nation is to be governed’ he wrote; ‘I alone must answer to God for our exercise of the authority he has invested in me’.[1]
Charles I’s absolutism manifested itself at a time of emerging self-confidence among the English elite. Though Parliament met only sporadically during this period – and acted mainly in an advisory role to the sovereign – by the time Charles was crowned he was already highly dependent on the gentry’s ability to raise adequate tax revenues (derived from agricultural rents, which far exceeded any other sources of income). It was this body of landowning gentlemen that constituted the bulk of Members of Parliament, men who, in theory, could by withholding his sources of income, hold the king to account.
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