ABSTRACT
After the Long Parliament first met on 3 November 1640 MPs set about removing what they regarded as the abuses and abusers of the Personal Rule. The abolition of Crown devices like High Commission and Ship Money and the dismissal of royal servants such as Laud and Strafford was done in the expectation that their removal would lead automatically to an improvement in the body politic. However, no such improvement occurred. Instead, the King himself was implicated in a number of schemes that envisaged the use of force against Crown opponents: the first and second Army Plots, the ‘Incident’ and the Antrim Plot.
