Editing Addled Parliament (section)

{{Short description|James I of England's parliament of 1614}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2023}}

{{Parliaments of England 1601}}
The '''Parliament of 1614''' was the second [[Parliament of England]] of the reign of [[James VI and I]] and sat between 5 April and 7 June 1614. Lasting only two months and two days, it saw no bills pass and was not even regarded as a parliament by contemporaries. However, for its failure it has been known to posterity as the '''Addled Parliament'''.{{efn|The nickname first appears in the form "addle parliament" in a letter of Reverend Thomas Lorkin to Sir [[Thomas Puckering]], an English correspondent abroad in [[Madrid]], little more than a week after the parliament dissolved. The form "Addled" first appears in the middle of the 19th century. "Addle" is an adjective denoting (of an egg) "rotten" or "putrid" and more generally anything "empty, idle, vain; muddled, confused, unsound". Some sources connect the parliament's nickname to the former definition, the historian [[James Williamson (historian)|J. A. Williamson]], for example, noting, "It was called the Addled Parliament, since it had hatched nothing".{{sfn|OED, "addle"}}{{sfn|OED, "addled"}}}}

James had struggled with debt ever since he came to the English throne. The failure of the [[Blessed Parliament]] of 1604–1611 to, in its seven-year sitting, either rescue James from his mounting debt or allow the king to unite his two kingdoms had left him bitter with the body. The four-year hiatus between parliaments saw the royal debt and deficit grow further, in spite of the best efforts of [[Lord High Treasurer|Treasurer]] [[Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury|Lord Salisbury]]. The failure of the last and most lucrative financial expedient of the period, a foreign [[dowry]] from the marriage of his [[heir-apparent]], finally convinced James to recall Parliament in early 1614.

The parliament got off to a bad start, with poor choices made for the king's representatives in Parliament. Rumours of conspiracies to manage Parliament (the "undertaking") or to pack it with easily controlled members, though not based in fact, spread quickly. The spreading of that rumour and the ultimate failure of Parliament have been generally attributed to the scheming of the [[crypto-Catholic]] [[Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton|Earl of Northampton]], but that allegation has met with some recent skepticism. Parliament opened on 5 April and, despite the king's wishes it would be a "Parliament of Love", flung itself immediately into the controversy over the conspiracies, which split Parliament and led to the exclusion of one alleged packer. However, by late April, Parliament had moved on to a familiar controversy, that of [[impositions]]. The [[House of Commons of England|House of Commons]] were pitted against the [[House of Lords of England|House of Lords]], culminating in a controversy over an unrestrained speech by one prelate.

James grew impatient with the parliamentary proceedings. He issued an ultimatum to Parliament, which treated it irreverently. Insult was added to injury by belligerent and supposedly-threatening attacks on him from the Commons. On the advice of Northampton, James dissolved Parliament on 7 June and had four [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Members of Parliament]] (MPs) sent to the [[Tower of London]]. James devised new financial expedients to settle his still-growing debt, with little success. [[Historiographically]], historians are divided between the [[Whig history|Whiggish]] view of the parliament as anticipating the constitutional disputes of future parliaments and the [[Historical revisionism|revisionist]] view of it as a conflict primarily concerned with James's finances.