Kishlansky on the Short Parliament

 I have read the late Mark Kishlansky's essay on the Short Parliament of 1640 a couple of times in recent days. He was at pains to stress Charles I's integrity in his dealings with the House of Commons in April and May of that year. What he did not mention was the king's simultaneous attempts to acquire funds for his military ventures against Scotland from the Spanish Habsburg monarchy. No doubt he would have regarded it as contingency planning but his critics, had they known, would have viewed this as rank hypocrisy.  This is difficult to reconcile with Kishlansky's argument.

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