Leo Santifaller: Ergänzungsband 2/2. Festschrift zur Feier des 200 jährigen Bestandes des HHStA 2 Bände (1951)
VII. Allgemeine und österreichische Geschichte. - 68. Eduard McCabe (London): Another centenary. The execution of Charles I
Another centenary. 337 regulation of wages, and also a much needed improvement of manners in Church *). According to this view, Charles anticipated rulers like Joseph II; It should be noted, however, that he was only the spokesman of a system of government that had been imposed for more than a century and that the performance and the disinterestedness of the government fell a long way short of its professions * 2). The Parliamentary opposition comprised those who preferred the historic English system to despotic government, and the Common law, developing at the required pace, to any newfangled, efficient Roman system which would put an end to the freedom or licence they enjoyed to pursue their individual interest. The death of Charles by putting an end to benevolent despotism as administered by a council should have been a blow to the people at large, and a gain for the new privileged classes who could exploit the situation. Two centuries must pass before ordinary people could take advantage of the loose wording of the privileges enjoyed by the men of property. Our concern is more what happened, then why it happened and it is only the second line of enquiry that is bound to lead back to the personality of Charles himself. It is not then very surprising that the studies we are dealing with, subject as they are to the modernist fondness for rationalisation, should draw back from the individual so as to bring the community into vision. This feature is marked in the next group of historians who have drawn attention to the economic stresses of the early 17th century. The sinister symptom of these stresses was the fact that, as one historian puts it, “In the Stuart period, the finances, like so much else in the national institutions, went seriously wrong” 3). It was not a simple case of the Crown being short of money; in fact during the Personal Government (1629—40) the public finances showed a surprising resiliance and, on the very eve of the summons to the Long Parliament, the Lord Treasurer managed to raise sufficient supplies for the Scottish wars to be waged 4). (The historian quoted here maintains on the contrary that the root of Charles’ troubles was not finance but his estrangement of the gentry.) Whatever its origins, the capitalist system by the beginning of the 17th century had secured the mastery in the different economics of Western Europe 5). Its expansion had been quickened by the influx of precious metals from America 6), which caused a rise in prices; this, in turn and in devious ways, encouraged a transfer of power from the old landholding classes to the merchant classes engaged in international trade. Such a process would be one of adjustment, would have “the inevitability of gradualness”. It was the rush on the part of the privileged to “muscle in” on the spoils of capitalism that was resented by those for whom commerce was a profession 7). This repercussion, the rivalry between one type of adventurer and another, had in it the seeds of strife. During the Stuart period the traffic at Court in patents and monopolies was countered on the part of influential merchants by the method of the chartered company; and on the part of those who were struggling, by setting up their own joint-stock companies or by becoming interlopers 8). The situation accords readily with the theory of a “Puritan struggle against Anglo-Catholic monopolies” 9). We have had occasion before to mention how comment on this subject has passed from the personal to the universal, from the locality to the continent. When it is true to its own nature, economics knows no boundaries. In economic terms European significance is now x) Keir D. Lindsay, Constitutional history of Modern Britain, p. 170; Tawney R., Religion and the rise of capitalism, p. 161. 2) Tawney, op. cit., p. 158. 3) Clark G. N., The Seventeenth Century, p. 44. 4) Dietz F. C., English Public Finance, 1558—1641. 5) Clark, op. cit., pp. 10—12. 6) Hamilton Earl J., “American Treasure and the Rise of Capitalism” (Economica November, 1929). Wiebe, cit. Robertson, Rise of Economic Individualism, pp. 178—183. 7) Unwin G., Gilds and Companies of London, pp. 304—328. 8) Dobbs M., Studies in Capitalism, pp. 167—172. 9) Robertson, op. cit., p. 81. 22 Festschrift, II. Band.
