Grand Remonstrance

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The Grand Remonstrance was a list of grievances presented to King Charles I of England by the English Parliament on 1 December 1641, during the Long Parliament; it helped to foment the English Civil War.

[edit] Background

In 1625, Charles the First became the King of England. Almost immediately he created a general mistrust within many of the members of parliament. His Spanish War was not going according to plan and he did not give any explanation to Parliament. Furthermore, Charles did not bother explaining any of his other foreign policy decisions.

The Parliament met again in 1626 in February. Here, they began to question the King, more on his current policies and the position he got England into. There had been a missed opportunity to win the war—when there wasn’t an expedition sent out to the Spanish port of Cadiz—that was later blamed on the Duke of Buckingham, an advisor to the king.

Buckingham later misinformed the King and that led England to fight a two-front battle with both Spain and France. Buckingham also forced a loan onto the people that the chief judge said was illegal. He was arrested, so the king arrested over 70 knights and the judge who did not want to contribute.

In 1628 Parliament passed resolutions against the King that opposed his taxation policies and random arrests against individuals that defied his taxes. In response, parliament put together the Petition of Right that had four fundamental principles—

no imprisonment without cause
no quartering of soldiers on subjects
no martial law in peacetime
no taxes without consent of parliament


The king continued to act for the next 11 years without calling a parliament.

[edit] The Grand Remonstrance

The Grand Remonstrance was set up by MP John Pym and many of his colleagues. The document outlined that the King had been a pawn used to serve the interests of the Lords and his associates but the very fact the King had executed many of these self-serving plans meant that he could not be trusted.

Although the Remonstrance reflected the mistrust of the King by Parliament it only passed the House of Commons by 11 votes, 159 votes to 148, and helped to create pro-Royal feeling in a number of MPs who had previously opposed many of Charles's policies. After the votes, members of opposing factions grew into a heated debate. In fact, two prominent members of the Parliament, Viscount Falkland and Edward Hyde, had broke off and started their own royalist party.

The Remonstrance itself outlined over 200 points on which Parliament felt betrayed by Charles or, more specifically, by his advisor's. In particular it accused the despised Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (already executed in May 1641) and Archbishop Laud (imprisoned and finally beheaded 1645) of misleading the King and misrepresenting Parliament, and demanded that the King appoint counselors only with Parliamentary approval. The reasoning behind that was Buckingham along with countless advisor's had used the Kings power as a tool for self-serving interests and even jeopardized the very security of England when in war. Parliament passed the Remonstrance without the King's permission.

In Grand Remonstrance was delivered the King on December 1st. King Charles I did not acknowledge the document at first. As pressure grew for the coming weeks, parliament had no choice but to publicly distribute the document around England to ensure that the King could no longer avoid the issue. December 23rd, the King finally made his official response with the help of Edward Hyde where he delegitimized the document. Charles responded by promising to look into the abuses mentioned, but he maintained his right to choose his own ministers. His legitimacy was further questioned after a couple months of the formal vote when he unsuccessfully attempted to arrest five MP’s that he thought were the creators of the list of grievances. Consequently; in the face of much adversity in London, he was forced to flee London and began mustering forces for the civil war to come.


For the list of grievances for the Grand Remonstrance, visit http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur043.htm


Bibliography

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British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved. (http://www.answers.com/topic/john-pym)

David Plant. The Grand Remonstrance 1641, British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glossary/grand-remonstrance.htm accessed on 02/21/2008