ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the financial deterioration, disastrous foreign policy and resulting fraught relations with Parliament of the first four years of the reign in the King’s new and divisive religious policy and handling of the Church, when Charles governed without calling an English Parliament. James chose Laud to engage in debate with the Jesuit in the Countess’s presence, and so well did he argue his case that the Countess stayed within the Church of England – for the time being. Laud’s prospects improved dramatically after the accession of Charles I, who was looking for someone just like him to take the Church in hand after the lax rule of Archbishop Abbot. Laud’s enemies accused him not merely of Arminianism – though he denied this and some of his beliefs and practices appear to be at variance with mainstream Arminianism – but also, far more seriously, of being a Catholic at heart.
