Episode 321: Trouble in Germany

made his behavior seem worse. The first was George Villiers. The king doted upon his new faith it more than he had Somerset. The people liked Villiers, but the court did not. Their suspicions would prove correct. The second factor was the King's health, which was now clearly on the decline. James drank frequently and immoderately. He perspired, heavily, caught frequent colds. In fact, he was always sneezing. His face had become red, and he had grown fat, hair white. At the age

of fifty, he was rapidly aging. He was still adverse to business and preferred to hunt, but now he rode more slowly and allowed his horse to be guided by grooms, So the eyes of people who are rising at court turned more and more often to the air. Presumptive Charles, at the age of fifteen, had acquired many of the virtues of a prince. He was excellent at tennis, great at jousting, He delighted in horses and masks, and he was already in connoisseur of art music. Yet he was

also high and reserved. He was silent and quite frankly secretive. He blushed at an indelicate word. He was only five feet and four inches in height and had a pronounced stutter. The Venetian ambassador reported that Charles's chief endeavor quote is to have no other aim than to second his father, to follow him and do his pleasure, and not to move except as his father does before. His father always

aims at suppressing his own feelings end quote. As a result of all this, Charles grew to be uncertain and hesitant, apt to cling to the few maxims that he already had. In fact, he was simply too modest for his own good. As to the king, James now tended to vacillate between indecision and rash action. He seemed frankly unable to contemplate the consequences of his actions, be they positive or negative. He had an absolutely sense of his divine right and

his divine mission as king. Those two perceived realities often clouded his vision, though to be fair, not as badly as they would those of his son. Now, as to the old Sir Edward Coke, the jurist, he was not destined to remain in the King's service for much longer. He not agreeing at all with the principle of the divine right of kings. He was removed from the Privy Council in order to stop his summer circuit of the Kingdom.

He was told to revise his law reports quote, wherein as his Majesty was informed, there were many exorbitent and extravagant opinions and quote. Five months later, in November sixteen sixteen, Coke was dismissed from his office. Once again, James had failed to consider the impact of his actions. He had effectively turned Coke into a martyr for the rule of law and the liberes of the English people. This happened at a time when economic conditions in England were beginning

to worsen. Now, before I get into this, let me say that many of these issues were not unique to England, not at all. In a few episodes here, I'm going to step back and cover the serious economic and demographic changes that faced Europe in the early modern period. But in terms of England, things hadn't been good over the course of the sixteenth century. The population had exploded in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, yet at this

point in history the land did not produce more. Worse still was the policy of enclosure, and had it continued relatively unobated. Enclosure was the policy whereby large landowners and closed would have been previously communal lands, mostly for sheep grazing. Good economic policy for the landowners, but disastrous for the common people who lost these lands as a source of forage and grazing land for their communal animals. As you

can imagine, it bred a lot of resentment. In sixteen eighty eight, it was reported that half of the population of England lived below the subsistence level. Things were not that bad yet, but they were certainly on the way. The purchasing power for wagejourners had fallen since the mid sixteenth century. In Sheffield in sixteen sixteen it was reported that of two thousand people in the parish, seven hundred and twenty five could not survive unless they received some

form of charity. In this same period, as I alluded to before, the economic situation of the upper and middle classes increased dramatically, leading to massive income inequality. But really all these pre industrial chains benefited the new members of parliament. These were the so called country gentlemen. These were the new men who made their money based on business acumen and the prevailing market conditions of the day. It was said in James's reign that they could buy out the

lords three times over. These men had fewer connections to the monarchy and tended to be puritan in their beliefs. Certainly, changing market conditions had a lot to do with the rise of this new class and decline of the lords. However, there was also a major factor at play here that the decline in military power and prestige for the lord class diminished the status of the nobility. Not to mention, of course, that James sold lordships left and right. The

gentry was also changing a lot. This is around the time that we can finally begin to speak of what we might call a profetational class. In England, the number of lawyers rose by forty percent between fifteen ninety and sixteen thirty, in a period when doctors and surgeons also multiplied. The merchant class, too was thriving, and it was no longer considered to be a demeaning profession. The sons of squires were more than happy to become apprentices, with the

hope of eventually rising to partners. The division between rich and poor had been sharpened, while at the same time the wealthier elements of society were drawing closer together. The gentry now also controlled the machinery of local government. The lords, lieutenant and deputies, the sheriffs and justices of the peace were indispensable for the order and safety of the country.

The king and his counsel totally relied upon them for matters like the collection of taxes, the regulation of trade, and the raising of truth in the event of a foreign war. In turn, a form of local government grew up at quarter sessions, where the most important men of the county or sometimes the borough, met to discuss the business of the community. These were now collectively known as the Commission of the Peace, and their clerk was called

the Clerk of the Peace. Their authority filtered down to high constables and all kinds of hundreds and petty constables, even churchwardens and overseers of the poor in the parish. So it's a total transformation and increase in the amount of local government. The country. Gentry had also in large part taken against the courts. In a local election of sixteen fourteen, both candidates claimed to be representing the country and denied charges of ever becoming a courtier. Soon enough,

court factions and county factions would manifest themselves throughout England. Meanwhile, in the Court continued to pivot in the direction of the new favorite, George Villiers. In sixteen seventeen he was created the Earl of Buckingham an appointed Master of the Horse. For the record, I will from this point forward, with a few reminders, refer to Villiers as Buckingham. That's because generally that is exclusively what he has called in the

sources Buckingham. That is, Villiers now became the major source of court patronage, and in fact he insisted that his clients acknowledge him and not the King as their sole source of patronage. Unfortunately, this only added to the corruption that was already so endemic to James's reign. Everything could be sold, everything came at a price. If you wanted a title or a monopoly, which were still kicking around despite Parliament's best efforts, then you had to pay for it.

Increasingly that meant paying the Duke of Buckingham. None of this, absolutely, none of this benefited the people. Let me give you one point example. When a group of monopolis was granted the maintenance of a lighthouse at Dungeons for a yearly commission, being rewarded with the tolls on all shipping that passed by. They provided for the lighthouse itself only one single candle. That's right, one candle, And that, my friends, is why monopolies are bad. In March of sixteen seventeen, the King

traveled north. He told his Privy Council back in Scotland that quote, we have had, these many years a great and natural longing to see our native soil and place of birth and breeding. He called it a charmingly solemn like instinct. On his slow journey, he was attended by hundreds of courtiers who ate their way through the land like locusts. By the middle of May, the party had finally reached Edinburgh. No one was sure how the visit was to be paid for, and those who were on

the route feared the worst. No English king, after all, had come this way for hundreds of years. When James reached the border, he dismounted from his horse and lay on the ground between the two countries, proclaiming that in his very person he symbolized the union between Scotland and England. Many of his counselors and nobles had not wanted to go along with James. They took no interest in and had no positive expectations of Scotland. For them, it was

a savage, distant land. The Queen herself declined to go, claiming she was ill. And in that same summer of sixteen seventeen, Sir Walter Raleigh, newly released from the tower, sailed to Guiana in search of gold. The King had expressly ordered him not to attack the Spanish in any way. He was still, after all, trying to marry his son to the Spanish princess. When Raleigh eventually reached the mouth

of the Orinoco, river. He sent a lieutenant, Lawrence Camus up the river to determine the location of a fabled lost mine of gold. On his way, however, Camus attacked the Spanish who held Saint Toomai, and after an inconsequential combat in which Raleigh's own son was killed, he eventually returned to the main fleet. There was now no possibility of reaching the Mind, and Raleigh made a rather ignominious return to England. Kamus himself was killed on board ship.

The wrath of the king was intense, and sometimes the wrath of King's meant death. James believed that he had been deliberately deceived by Raleigh on the pretext of finding gold, and that Raleigh had always intended to attack the Spanish.

He felt that the explorer had unjustifiably and unnecessarily earned for him the anger of Spain, and of course, the Spanish king complained angrily in response to this behavior through his going to be notorious English ambassador, the Count of Gondomar, which yes, definitely sounds like a title of Lord of the Rings. As a result of the weak willed English king sent Raleigh to the scaffold, it was commonly complained for years afterwards that James sacrificed one of England's greatest

heroes for the honor of Spain. Now, while in the Tower in sixteen oh seven, Raleigh had begun a quite ambitious work, not unlike this one, titled History of the World. He never finished it. In fact, Raleigh had started with the creation, so he started before us, and at the time of his death he had only reached Rome's Second Macedonian War in one eighty eight PCE. If you're interested in hearing more about that, check out Western sev two

point zero free seven day trial link in the show notes. Anyway, not everything James did was reviled. I don't want to heap on him. In sixteen seventeen. That same year he issued a royal decree that became known as the Dancing Book. In it, he expressly declared that e on Sundays, dancing, archery, and other leisure activities would be permitted. The Puritans, as you could probably guess, despised the Dancing Book. Soon, those of the Puritan persuasion would become the principal opponents of

royal policy. Now, in other positive news, since the King's ascension, England had enjoyed a full fifteen years of peace, but in April of sixteen eighteen, the powder keg that was the Holy Roman Empire finally burst. Now a lot of these events I am going to cover in an upcoming series on the Thirty Years War. So now I'm only going to discuss these events as they relate to England directly. But here's the short version, just so you know what's

going on. In April sixteen eighteen, in Bohemia, which is roughly today's Czech Republic, Bohemian rebels seized the Holy Roman Emperor's deputies and chucked them out the window. This is the so famously titled Defenestration of Prague. Bohemia had been ruled by the fiercely Catholic Habsburg family. The rebels declared the territory to be Protestant, effectively throwing down the gauntlet to the Habsburgs, which of course included Philip the Third

of Spain. This was all hugely problematic for James. His son in law, Frederick of the Palatinate, was the leading Calvinist prince in the region and supported the rebels. James still wanted to marry his son Charles to Philip's daughter for the money, so he was caught between a rock and well another rock. Things got worse in March sixteen nineteen, when the Holy Roman Emperor died and the Archduke Ferdinand

was elected to replace him. The Bohemians took this opportunity to formally depose the new Holy Roman Emperor as their sovereign, and instead they invited Frederick of the Palatinate to take his place. Frederick hesitated for about nine seconds before accepting the offer, a fact that greatly irritated James, who clearly expected his son in law to consult him on this first. Frederick traveled to Prague that October to formally accept the crown.

Protestants in England were delighted. James was despondent. James, in his opinion, was now at loggerheads with those of his subjects. James was really angry by what he considered to be Frederick's rashness in accepting the crown of Bohemia. His son in law was, in that sense an aggressor. He had flouted the divine right of kings. After all, the Holy Roman Emperor had been the crown sovereign of Bohemia for centuries.

He told Frederick's envoy, quote, you are to come in good time to England to spread these principles among my people, that my subjects may drive me away and place another in my room end quote. He didn't want to drop his purported Spanish connection, that he'd spent so much time. Yet his daughter was the Queen of Bohemia. Surely there was some glory there. This was the greatest dilemma of

his reign, especially in terms of foreign policies. It combined in fashion his enmity was Spain and a relationship with his fellow Protestants in Europe. He had been trying for a long time to play this sort of balancing act, but now he was at a point where it just didn't seem practicable any longer. Relations with the Spanish weren't a difficult and delicate balance. His purported marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta was protracted, had been going on forever.

It was never popular in England either. Some in the English countryside could still remember the days when Queen Mary had been married to fill up the Second of Spain. They didn't want more Spanish involvement in their kingdom, and as we will see in our next episode this whole Spanish marriage thing. It's about to take a major and really bizarre twist. Now, of course, the biggest issue here is that James had no money for war, even if he wanted one, and it's far from clear that he did.

England had no standing army and was not at all ready for military action. Politics and diplomacy, though could not be separated from the issues of religion, all were intimately related on the continent, where the division between Catholic and Protestant remained at the single most important factor of the age. Anyone who's lived through the religious wars in France could tell you that there were, of course divisions within the

ranks of the Protestants themselves. There were ongoing debates throughout the continent, some of which involved English theologians about the future fate of Calvinism. The role that Calvinism was going to continue to play and its permutations are going to be of critical notes for the history of England going forward. Making matters worse, James's health continued to deteriorate. He was

by now suffering from both gout and arthritis. His wife, Queen Anne, died in the spring of sixteen nineteen, pitching the king into a deep depression. In that same spring, it looked certain that James would follow his wife to the grave. Charles and Buckingham both raced to his bedside for the proverbial deathbed speech. It proved premature, and the king recovered. James returned to London that June in high spirits. He had some cause for it. His famous and brand

new banqueting house had been completed. He had spent a fortune on it, nearly fifteen thousand pounds. This was at a time when the treasury was bare and the financial situation of England on the decline. Again. New cheaper clothes had replaced the more expensive English wolves, reducing English exports. Plus, with new alternatives, the Dutch could extract lower prices for the English wool they did want, reducing English bargaining power further. The balance of trade, in other words, was not in

England's favor. Far too many useless luxury items were being imported into England at high prices, especially wine and tobacco. Between sixteen eighteen and sixteen twenty two, the number of broadcloths exported out of London fell by forty percent England had enjoyed a series of bumper crops, at least under James, but in sixteen twenty three the harvest failed completely. Indeed, it seemed that the horsemen of the Apocalypse were on England's very sure and it was during this period that

many Englishmen decided to check out. I will cover all this in much greater detail later, but it's worth noting for the moment that inten teen oh seven. Jamestown, the first real successful English colony in the New World, was founded in Virginia. In sixteen twenty also during James's reign, the famous Pilgrims set sail for New England. In the decades of the early seventeenth century, some sixty thousand englishmen

and women left for the New World. Next week, Charles and Buckingham leave England, set for Spain on a romantic, end idiotic quest, and the reign of James the First will come to an end.