Portal:United Kingdom/Featured/December 2005

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King Charles I (19 November 1600–30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625, until his execution. He famously engaged in a struggle for power with Parliament; he was an advocate of the divine right of kings. Many in England therefore feared that he was attempting to gain absolute power. There was widespread opposition to many of his actions, especially the levying of taxes without Parliament's consent. This is one of the many manifestations of popular discontent with an absolute monarchy.

Charles believed in a sacramental version of the Church of England, called High Anglicanism, with a theology based upon Arminianism, a belief shared by his main political advisor, Archbishop William Laud. Laud was appointed by Charles as the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 and started a series of reforms in the Church to make it more ceremonial, starting with the replacement of the wooden communion tables with stone altars. This was actively hostile to the Reformist tendencies of many of his English and Scottish subjects. His policy was obnoxious to Calvinist theology, and insisted that the Church of England's liturgy be celebrated with all of the ceremony and vestments called for by the Book of Common Prayer. Many of his subjects thought these policies brought the Church of England too close to Roman Catholicism.