Learning outcomes:
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to examine the nature of Charles I’s personality and beliefs and how these influenced his policies as King
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to assess the extent of Charles I’s responsibility for causing the English Civil War and Revolution
Session titles:
1. Politics and the constitution, 1625-38
This session will examine the political and constitutional developments of the first part of Charles I’s reign. It will look at his deteriorating relationship with Parliaments in the opening years of his reign, and then at his Personal Rule which began in 1629.
2. Religion and the Church, 1625-38
This session will look at the religious history of the first part of Charles’s reign, and thus forms the ecclesiastical counterpart to the first session. We will look in particular at the policies of Charles and his Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, and consider how far they destabilised the Church of England.
3. The coming of Civil War, 1638-1642
This session will look at how England descended into civil war in the years immediately before 1642. We will explore the issues that divided people and led to the emergence of two sides. Charles’s handling of the situation will be a central theme.
4. Charles I and the Royalists, 1642-1646
This session will examine Charles’s leadership of the Royalist cause during the first civil war. The course of the war and the reasons for the eventual Royalist defeat by 1646 will be explored, as will the strengths and weaknesses of the Royalist war effort.
5. The steps to the scaffold, 1646-1649
The final session will consider why the search for a settlement after the civil war proved unsuccessful, and how and why Charles was ultimately brought to public trial and execution in January 1649. It will end with a concluding assessment of why he has remained such a controversial figure.