ABSTRACT
The scene was a depressingly familiar one: the survivors of a defeated expeditionary force limping home, ships leaking, short of food, clothes in rags, morale shattered, with no facilities to receive them. Charles stood by the duke, the king and Buckingham decided on further military escapades, parliament had to be called. According to Secretary Conway, Charles took the news of the reverse on Re with ‘the wisdom, courage and constancy of a great king’. Stories of his soldiers’ heroism, and, perhaps a thwarted desire for military glory that not even hours of hunting or tilting could satisfy, made Charles feel even worse about his own failure to send supplies. The success or failure of military ventures determined the state of relations between Charles and his first three parliaments much more than the evolution of long-term constitutional ideas or social changes.
