17. Things fall apart

Charles I, like his father, proved extremely good at not being at all good at getting on with people he really needed to be really good at getting on side. Just like with his Dad, that mainly meant Parliamentarians. People like John Hampden, one of the great warriors against royal overreach, and a certain Oliver Cromwell who - and I don't think this is a spoiler - would have a pretty big role to play later.

There was one big difference between father and son, though: James managed to avoid things getting so bad that they degenerated into actual warfare.

Welcome to the threshold of the English Civil Wars.

King Charles I, by Gerrit van Honthorst, oil on canvas, 1628
National Portrait Gallery, London, 4444
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License