Addled Parliament

rdf:langString Addled Parliament

rdf:langString left

rdf:langString James I's remarks to Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, a few days after the dissolution.

rdf:langString The "

rdf:langString , and none that have either taken the Oath of Supremacy or Allegiance may do it with a good conscience, for in the Oath of Allegiance we are sworn to maintain the privileges of the Crown, and in this conference we should not confer about a flower, but strike at the root of the Imperial Crown, and therefore in my opinion it is neither fit to confer with them nor give them a meeting.

rdf:langString The House of Commons is a body without a head. The members give their opinions in a disorderly manner. At their meetings nothing is heard but cries, shouts, and confusion. I am surprised that my ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution to come into existence. I am a stranger, and found it here when I arrived, so that I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get rid of.

rdf:langString My Lords, I think it a dangerous thing for us to confer with them about the point of impositions. For it is a

rdf:langString The Parliament of 1614 was the second Parliament of England of the reign of James VI and I, which sat between 5 April and 7 June 1614. Lasting only two months and two days, it saw no bills pass and was not even regarded as a Parliament by its contemporaries. However, for its failure it has been known to posterity as the Addled Parliament. James had struggled with debt ever since he came to the English throne. The failure of the Blessed Parliament of 1604–1610 to, in its six-year sitting, rescue the king from his mounting debt or allow James to unite his two kingdoms, had left him bitter with the body. The four-year hiatus between Parliaments saw the royal debt and deficit grow further, despite the best efforts of Treasurer Lord Salisbury. The failure of the last and most lucrative financial expedient of this period, a foreign dowry from the marriage of his heir-apparent, finally convinced James to re-call Parliament in early 1614. The Parliament got off to a bad start, with poor choices made for the king's representatives in Parliament. Rumours of conspiracies to manage Parliament (the "undertaking") or pack it with easily controlled members, though not based in fact, spread quickly. The spreading of this rumour, and the ultimate failure of Parliament, has been generally attributed to the scheming of the crypto-Catholic Earl of Northampton, though this allegation has met with some recent skepticism. Parliament opened on 5 April and, despite the king's wishes it would be a "Parliament of Love", flung itself immediately into the controversy over the conspiracies, splitting parliament and leading to the exclusion of one alleged packer. However, by late April, Parliament had moved on to a familiar controversy, that of impositions. The Commons were pitted against the Lords, culminating in a controversy over an unrestrained speech by one prelate. James grew impatient with the Parliamentary proceedings. He issued an ultimatum to Parliament, but they treated it irreverently. Insult was added to injury by belligerent, and supposedly threatening, attacks on him from the Commons. On the advice of Northampton, James dissolved Parliament on 7 June, and had four Members of Parliament (MPs) sent to the Tower of London. James devised new financial expedients to settle his still-growing debt, to little success. Historiographically, historians are divided between the Whiggish view of the Parliament as anticipating the constitutional disputes of future Parliaments, and the revisionist view of it as a conflict primarily concerned with James's finances.