ABSTRACT
Charles had briefly adopted the national perspective as Prince, but revived his father’s dynastic priorities on his accession, intent on recovering family rights in the Palatinate. The Commons repeated their rejection of this war aim, and remained determined only to pay for a sea war against Spain. Their position was set, and when the Long Parliament produced a full account of the king’s misdemeanours, a principal charge was “diverting” the nation’s military effort away from the required and most promising approach of dislodging Spain from the West Indies. Charles’s disastrous campaign against the Scottish Covenanters was also essentially dynastic in inspiration. He was not driven by a need to unify his kingdoms, but by the most consistent objective of the early Stuarts—to maintain or reassert the principles of hierarchy, in this instance by imposing a ceremonialist liturgy on the Kirk. This attacked the one common priority in Scottish society, and the defence and furtherance of the Kirk remained the defining purpose of the Covenanters. Contrary to some suggestions, Scottish affairs played no intrinsic part in the political struggle between King and Parliament in England.
