ABSTRACT
The loss of Buckingham The abrupt dissolution of his third Parliament, followed fairly closely by the end of his wars with France (Treaty of Susa, April 1629) and Spain (Treaty of Madrid, November 1630), gave Charles his first chance to turn his mind to the ‘government and order’ which he wanted to spread from his Court into all parts of his kingdoms. The recent wars had brought much domestic disorder and cost many lives, more perhaps than Charles realised according to the Commons’ Remonstrance of June 1628; but of one death, that of Buckingham, he was, of course, acutely conscious (37). He had grown up, politically, in the Duke’s company, and Buckingham had helped to give his early government much of its character and shape. Between 1625 and 1628 he had acted as Charles’s most trusted adviser and agent, a strong influence on the course of foreign policy, and, for the first time, had been closely involved in a broad range of central administrative affairs (147). He had already presided to some effect over the reforming Commission for the Navy between 1618 and 1624, taking the first steps towards re versing thirty years of mismanagement; and Charles subsequently put him at the head of commissions investigating ways of improving Crown revenues in both England and Ireland, and supervising the sale of the last sizeable group of Crown lands (32, 54).
