ING OF THE SCOTS

1635-1640

[Sidenote: England in 1635.]

When Weston died in 1635 six years had passed without a Parliament, and
the Crown was at the height of its power. Its financial difficulties
seemed coming to an end. The long peace, the rigid economy of
administration, the use of forgotten rights and vexatious monopolies,
had now halved the amount of debt, while they had raised the revenue to
a level with the royal expenditure. Charles had no need of subsidies;
and without the need of subsidies he saw no ground for again
encountering the opposition of Parliament. The religious difficulty gave
him as little anxiety. If Laud was taking harsh courses with the
Puritans, he seemed to be successful in his struggle with Puritanism.
The most able among its ministers were silenced or deprived. The most
earnest of its laymen were flying over seas. But there was no show of
opposition to the reforms of the Primate or the High Commission. In the
two dependent kingdoms all appeared to be going well. In Scotland
Charles had begun quietly to carry further his father's schemes for
religious uniformity; but there was no voice of protest. In Ireland
Wentworth could point to a submissive Parliament and a well-equipped
army, ready to serve the king on either side St. George's Channel. The
one solitary anxiety of Charles, in fact, lay in the aspect of foreign
affairs. The union of Holland and of France had done the work that
England had failed to do in saving German Protestantism from the grasp
of the House of Austria. But if their union was of service to Germany,
it brought danger to England. France was its ancient foe. The commercial
supremacy of the Dutch was threatening English trade. The junction of
their fleets would at once enable them to challenge the right of
dominion which England claimed over the Channel. And at this moment
rumours came of a scheme of partition by which the Spanish Netherlands
were to be shared between the French and the Dutch, and by which Dunkirk
was at once to be attacked and given into the hands of France.

[Sidenote: Ship-money.]

To suffer the extension of France along the shores of the Netherlands
had seemed impossible to English statesmen from the days of Elizabeth.
To surrender the command of the Channel was equally galling to the
national pride. Even Weston, fond as he was of peace, had seen the need
of putting a strong fleet upon the seas; and in 1634 Spain engaged to
defray part of the