ABSTRACT
As soon as the 1626 Parliament had ended, Charles issued a proclamation forbidding the circulation of its last remonstrance, which he had refused to accept (30). Soon afterwards he issued his own Declaration o f the True Causes which moved his Majestie to assemble and after inforced him to dissolve the last two meetings o f Parliament (40). Not all its readers may have been convinced by his apologia. It repeated the assumption that support for war had been agreed by Parliament in 1624, and so should have been provided by its successors in 1625 and 1626. It did so despite consistent reluctance by a majority in the Commons to press ahead until they had a clearer idea of the nature of, and immediate necessity for, the war Charles and Buckingham wanted. It also blamed the ‘violent and ill advised passions of a few Members’ in 1626 for his difficulties in both Parliaments, apparently oblivious of the way Charles himself had undermined that contention (70). He had, after all, kept seven of the 1625 leaders out of the 1626 Commons by pricking them sheriff; yet others of similar stature and temper had at once replaced them, making his definition of a ‘few’ seem unusually elastic, if not deliberately misleading (40, 79) [see also doc. 17].
