The Short Parliament and the Covenanter leaders' letter to Louis XIII
Mark Kishlansky on Charles I’s attempt to exploit the
Scots Covenanters’ letter to Louis XIII of France in the Short Parliament of
1640
In a conference held at Selwyn
College, Cambridge after Mark Kishlansky’s death, Peter Lake described him as a
‘contrarian’, one of those historians happy to challenge old orthodoxies and
received views in the interests of generating new interpretations. There was,
perhaps, no better example of this predilection than Kishlansky’s analysis of
King Charles I’s dealings with the Short Parliament of 1640. He presented Charles
as an eirenic figure ready and willing to make a series of concessions to the
House of Commons in his efforts to secure supply for his aim of defeating the
rebellious Scots Covenanters who had overturned his rule in Scotland. His
obstinate and obstructive critics, mainly in the lower House, frustrated him
and doomed the Parliament to dissolution.[1]
This ingenious hypothesis was
explained in some detail. The ace up his sleave that the King thought he held,
a letter addressed ‘au roi’ to Louis XIII of France from the leaders of the
Covenanters apparently seeking his help, was played by Charles I himself when
he addressed both Houses at the opening of the Parliament on 13th
April, 1640.[2] It
was played again by two Privy Councillors, the newly ennobled Lord Cottington
before the House of Lords on 16th April,[3]
and by Sir Francis Windebank in the House of Commons on the same day.[4]
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John Glanville, reported the earlier remarks
of the King and Lord Keeper again on the morning of 17th April.[5]
The only response, Kishlansky noted, came from John Pym who observed that “the
French king did never receive much less entertain the notion”, an assurance
that could only have been based on consultation with the Scottish Commissioners
then in London.[6]
It is perfectly possible that
some, at least, of Charles I’s critics in the Short Parliament had been or were
in contact with the Scots. But the particular point that Pym made in diverting discussion
of this letter was certainly not a novel one. It had been made by the King
himself on 13th April. Harvard MS. Eng. 982 covering proceedings in
the Commons recorded that, in referring to the letter in question, Charles was
reported to have said that, “because it may touch a neighbour of mine I will
say nothing on but yt which a just God forbid I should for my p[ar]te, I thinke it was never accepted by him.
(Indeede it is a letter to the French K.) but I know not that ever hee had it
for by chance I interrupted it as it was going to him and therefore I hope you
will understand rightly in that.”[7]
The version in the Journal of the House of Lords is almost identical.[8]
When Speaker Glanville reported the speeches of the King and Lord Keeper on
preceding days to the Commons on 17th April, he was noted to have
stated that “His Majesty cleared the French King, that, for anythink [sic] he
knew, he had not received this letter.” Pym’s observation upon which Kishlansky
laid stress was more likely to have been prompted by the remarks of the king
and his councillors than by any contacts with the Scots. If so, it was Charles
I and his advisers who had opened the way to this objection.
[1]
See Mark Kishlansky, A lesson in loyalty: Charles I and the Short Parliament,
in Royalists and Royalism during the English Civil Wars, edited by Jason
McElligott and David L. Smith (Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 2010),
Pp.16-42.
[2]
Proceedings of the Short Parliament of 1640, edited by Esther S.Cope and
Willson H.Coates (Camden Society. 4th Series. Volume 19. London,
1977), Pp.54, 122.
[3]
Cope and Coates, op.cit., p.58.
[4] Ibid.,
p.134. Cf. The Short Parliament (1640) Diary of Sir Thomas Aston, edited by Judith
D.Maltby (Camden Society. 4th Series. Volume 35. London, 1988), p.3.
[5]
Commons’ Journal, Volume 2, p.5.
[6]
Kishlansky, loc.cit., p.27 and n.63.
[7]
Cope and Coates, op.cit., p.122.
[8]
Lords’ Journal, Volume 4, p.48.
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