Democracy on a Teeter-Totter

The Stuarts of Scotland had no use whatsoever for the concept of “We The People” government. Five years before James VI of Scotland became James I of England, the scholarly James wrote “The Trew Law of Free Monarchies” which extolled the divine right of kings.
Louis XIV of France could not have put it better. James pointed out in 1598 that kings predated Parliaments and all other instruments of popular rule. God had instituted kings; mere men had created Parliaments.
In England, 1603, he was stuck with a Parliament. He chided it in most undiplomatic terms when it dared to refuse his royal will, urging it to “use it’s … liberty more modestly”. He finally settled matters to his satisfaction by refusing to call a Parliament into session at all for seven or eight years.
Appalled at the diversity of religious opinion in England, he summoned a group of scholars to create one, single, “authorized version” of the Bible that would be the only one anyone could use. This Bible would very carefully show that kings were ordained of God and subjects must obey.
On a more ridiculous note, James insisted that his name appear in that Bible. The scholars obliged by changing the name of one of the Apostles from the English “Jacob” to the Scottish “James”. Thus we have the brothers, James and John. Parliament refused to Authorize the King James version and, detested by Catholics, repudiated by Protestants, the dusty volumes sat unused for the better part of a century. Today, of course, it is viewed as one of the twin pillars of the English language.
His intolerance for religious diversity resulted in the settlement of New England by English Pilgrims (who fled England because of him) and Puritans (who planned to return to England and establish a more pure church). Others just went underground.
He retained considerable popularity among the people of England because he was cautious in foreign policy—unlike Elizabeth—and kept peace with Europe. He established trading posts in Japan and Virginia. It was basically a peaceful, prosperous time.
There were exceptions. James was harsher on Catholics than Elizabeth had been and in 1605 a disaffected Catholic named Guy Fawkes tried to blow him and Parliament up—but this just bound the people closer to him.
He died in 1625 and was succeeded by his son, Charles I. English democracy was still intact, but it was beginning to look a bit tattered. Those of us who enjoy living in democracies probably owe a great debt to Charles. He totally lacked his father’s circumspection. He became a living example of what the wag said about the Stuarts: “They never forgot a thing; they never learned a thing.”
He married a Catholic against Parliament’s express wishes. Unlike his father, he made no attempt to compromise. Listening to bad advice he immediately involved England in expensive foreign wars. When Parliament tried to restrain him by requiring him to get annual approval for his expenses, he retaliated by dissolving Parliament and ruling without it for eleven years (1629-1640).
He raised revenue by royal fiat; no English king since the 1300s had entirely dared to do that. In French style he routinely arrested people without any due process of law. This went to the heart of the Magna Carta of 1215. The English people became rightly fearful that they had a would-be tyrant on their throne.
But even Charles—more vehemently espousing the divine right of kings than his father ever had—got himself into a deep enough financial hole that he had to summon a Parliament. (Same thing finally happened in France in 1789.) It refused to cooperate with his demands and he dissolved it after only one month (the “short Parliament” of 1640).
But all his advisors told him he needed Parliament. That fall he finally called another one. It sat from 1640 to 1660—the “long Parliament”. It forced the king to sign a law requiring him to call a Parliament at least every three years—and if he failed to do that, authorizing Parliament to meet on its own. This was a powerful new step for English democracy.
Another new and important law declared the king could no longer dissolve Parliament without its consent. It also abolished his French style “Star Chamber” courts that operated outside of the legal system. Things got to be too much for Charles.
On January 4, 1642, Charles forced his way into Parliament with armed troops to arrest five members of Commons that he considered to be most irritating. They had gotten wind of the warrants and all the members had fled.
In very bad odor for his use of force, Charles retreated to his stronghold at Oxford and carried out the old medieval practice of “raising his standard.” Pro-Catholics, high church Anglicans, his Scots and most of the English nobility rallied to him. Parliament raised its own army.
By October of that year Parliament and king were at war. Modern democracy as both England and America know it today hung in the balance. As in the later issue of slavery in America, the sword would determine what ballots could not.
Which would it be: We The People or I The King?