With Parliament banished, there was little restraint on Laud and Charles to implement the reforms they felt were needed to improve the quality of religious observations and the spiritual wealth of all English. Not everyone would approve their efforts.

In 1637 Charles sought an example to squash opposition to Ship Money, and chose a minor country squire. John Hampden refused to back down.

Charles had done the right thing of we wanted to avoid parliaments – reducing costs by making peace. But, how was he to raise money to clear that £2m debt? Well, two words came in to play – many, and various.

Relationships with the other kingdoms was definitely the royal preserve. But policy options might vary, from favouring the desires of his protestant subjects, to the Spanish faction on the privy Council. But his clout was always hampered by the poor state of the Royal Navy

Charles was determined to run his court completely differently to his father. Controlled, regulated, ordered; an example of a warm, loving and enlightened household that would prove an example of the majesty and stability of his reign.

Was it an ‘Eleven years tyranny’ or ‘Halcyon Days’ that followed 1629? Either way, foreign ambassadors were not hopeful of England’s future. But Charles first priority was to reduce the Vipers of parliament to submission.

Dramatic events in 1628 – a horrible murder, and one of the great set pieces of the English Revolution. Mayhem! Treason!  Murder!

As so often, war demands money, and in England, money meant parliament. So the outcome of ‘The Favourites’ War’, Buckingham’s attempt to relieve La Rochelle in 1627, would be  critical.

The battle of Lutter in 1626 convinced Charles of the tearing need to intervene in the Thirty Years War in defence of hos sister Elizabeth’s rights and in the cause of Protestantism. But the cupboard was bare – how to raise money? Without calling that pesky parliament!

The 1626 parliament was opened by William Laud – not a good sign for the resolutely Calvinist parliament. Despite a remarkably positive response to the call for subsidies – their linkage to resolutions of grievances did not go down well with Charles

As the 1626 parliament opens, full of hope once more, we take a while to introduce William Laud, and discuss the idea that a theme of the English civil wars is an ideological struggle between lawyers and Arminian clerics

The reconvened parliament in Oxford went poor, and after a month Charles closed it down, and concentrated instead on the Spanish war.  Surely, the recapturing the glory of Drake & Hawkins would relight Parliament’s fire for war!

For Charles I, April to June 1625 was his like the honeymoon  period given to new football managers – enthusiastic full of hope – and depressingly brief. The honeymoon period with his newly arrived wife Henrietta Maria, was similarly brief.

In March 1625 Charles came into his inheritance on the death of his father. Was it a poison chalice or the holy grail? What sort of man accepted the chalice and duty and would place his hands on the tillers of the Three Kingdoms?