1985/04/01 by Richard Cust · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Scottish History and National Identity #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Opposition (politics) #Prerogative #Law #Loan #Political science #Politics #Parliament #History #Economics
paper · doi:10.1086/385832
openalex publication_date 1985/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The Forced Loan of 1626–27 has traditionally been regarded as one of the milestones of early seventeenth-century politics. The great nineteenth-century Whig historian S. R. Gardiner saw it as the product of “new counsels” by which Charles I came increasingly to rely on the royal prerogative, and he depicted the opposition to this as a principled defense of Englishmen's liberties. Others writing in the same tradition have generally echoed these views. Thus the loan has been presented as the climax to a first stage of struggle between “Court” and “Country” or as a staging post on the “high road to Civil War.” Latterly, however, this verdict has come into question. With the work of “localist” and “revisionist” historians we have come to appreciate more clearly the extent of attachment to the local community and the continual striving toward consensus in relations between king and subject. This has led to a general revaluation of what have traditionally been regarded as clashes of principle. Local historians have stressed that opposition to taxes generally owed far more to backsliding and provincial inertia than to any concern for constitutional propriety. And a greater understanding of the problems of administration—particularly in wartime—has led to a recognition that government decision making was often a reflex action, prompted by the immediate need to make ends meet. These insights have been incorporated into the work of Conrad Russell, who has provided the most recent assessment of the loan.