Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-27T16:45:51.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Charles I and Public Opinion on the Eve of the English Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2013

Tim Harris
Affiliation:
Brown University
Stephen Taylor
Affiliation:
Professor in the History of Early Modern England at the University of Durham
Grant Tapsell
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor at Lady Margaret Hall
Get access

Summary

In his biography of Archbishop Laud, penned in the 1650s, Peter Heylyn contrasted Queen Elizabeth's skilful deployment of royal ceremonial to make herself ‘popular’ with ‘her People’ - ‘never Majesty and Popularity were so matched together’, he observed - with James I's and Charles I's failings in this regard. The result was catastrophic: ‘first a neglect of their Persons … and afterwards a mislike of their Government’. Writing on the eve of the Restoration, the marquess of Newcastle agreed that ‘Sere-money doth Every thing’, and therefore advised the soon-to-be Charles II to imitate Queen Elizabeth and show himself ‘Gloryously, to [his] People’; he was adamant, however, that Charles should keep tight control over the press, since among the many errors of ‘these Laste two Raynes’ was allowing ‘Every man’ to become ‘a state man’ by their reading of domestic and foreign newsbooks. A quarter of a century later, licenser of the press and govern¬ment hack Roger L'Estrange concluded that Charles I's error had been not so much allowing the people to read the news as failing to do a good enough job in getting his own views across in the press. ‘The Government itself’, L'Estrange believed, ‘is Answerable in a High Measure for the Distempers of the Multitude’; ‘if the King's Friends would but take Half the Pains, to set them Right, that his Enemies do, to Mislead them, you would find … the Common People as well Dispos'd to Preserve the Government, as they are Otherwise, to Embroil it’.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×