Editing Addled Parliament (section)

==Background==
{{Main|James VI and I|Blessed Parliament}}
[[File:King James I of England and VI of Scotland in Parliament by Renold or Reginold Elstrack (Elstracke).jpg|left|thumb|King James I at the [[Blessed Parliament]] on 5 November 1605.]]
James VI and I (1566–1625) ascended to the [[List of Scottish monarchs|Scottish throne]] on 24 July 1567, and subsequently to the [[List of English monarchs|English and Irish throne]] on 24 March 1603, becoming [[Union of the Crowns|the first king to reign over both kingdoms]].{{sfn|Wormald|2014}} James inherited, with the latter throne, a national debt to the amount of £300,000, a sum that only increased during his reign. By 1608, it stood at £1 million. During his predecessor [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]]'s reign, the inward revenue of the crown had steadily fallen; taxes from customs and land were consistently undervalued and the parliamentary subsidies steadily shrank.{{sfn|Wormald|2014}} It did not help that James reigned as "one of the most extravagant kings" in English history.{{sfn|Russell|1973|p=98}} In peace, Elizabeth's yearly expenditure never rose above £300,000; almost immediately after James took the throne, it was at £400,000.{{sfn|Russell|1973|p=98}} James had instituted various extra-parliamentary plans to recuperate this lost income, but these drew controversy from Parliament, and James still wanted money.{{sfn|Wormald|2014}} Moreover, James was keen to not be "a husband to two wives" as king, and to unite his crowns as one kingdom of [[Great Britain]];{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}} as his slogan went: "one king, one people, and one law".{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=59}}{{efn|In James's original Latinism: "{{lang|la|Unus Rex}} [...] {{lang|la|Unus Grex}} and {{lang|la|Una Lex}}".{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=59}}}} The first parliament of his reign, also known as the Blessed Parliament, was called in 1604; it took seven years, with proceedings held through five sessions, before James dissolved it,{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}} ending unsatisfactorily for both king and Parliament.{{sfn|Mathew|1967|p=221}} In the first session, it came to light that many members of the Commons feared James's proposed unification would lead to the dissolution of the English [[Common Law]] system. Though many prominent politicians publicly praised the idea of unification and MPs promptly accepted a commission to investigate the union, James's proposed adoption of the title "king of Great Britain" was rejected outright.{{sfn|Wormald|2014}}{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}} Between the first and second sessions, in October 1604, James assumed this title by proclamation, controversially circumventing Parliament. Unification was not brought up at the second session, in hopes of assuaging outrage,{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}} but discussions of the plans in the third session were exclusively negative; as Scottish historian [[Jenny Wormald]] put it, "James's union was killed by this parliament".{{sfn|Wormald|2014}} Unification was quietly dropped from discussion in the fourth and fifth sessions.{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}}

[[File:John de Critz Robert Cecil Earl of Salisbury c 1608.png|thumb|[[Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury]] depicted with the white staff of a [[Lord High Treasurer]]. Though a skilled treasurer, Salisbury was unable to significantly reduce the Crown's crippling debt before his death.]]

During the Blessed Parliament, Parliament's own aims saw similar disappointment; James rebuffed the proposed institution of Puritan ecclesiastical reforms,{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}} and failed to address two unpopular royal rights, [[purveyance]] and [[wardship]].{{sfn|Wormald|2014}}{{efn|According to Andrew Thrush of [[The History of Parliament]]: "Purveyance was the right of the Crown to take up provisions for the royal household at below the market rate, while wardship was the right of the Crown to manage the estates of minors whose lands were held of the king."{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}}}} In the second session, Parliament granted the king a subsidy of £400,000, keen to exhibit royal support in the wake of the [[Gunpowder Plot]],{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}} but thanks to the reduction of these subsidies under Elizabeth, this was rather less than the king desired.{{sfn|Wormald|2014}} After a three-year delay between sessions due to [[Bubonic plague|plague]], the fourth session was called in February 1610, and was dominated by financial discussion. [[Lord High Treasurer]], [[Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury]] proposed the [[Great Contract]]: a financial plan wherein Parliament would grant the Crown £600,000 immediately (to pay off its debts) and an annual stipend of £200,000 thereafter; in return, the king was to abolish ten feudal dues, among them, purveyance. After much haggling, in which wardship was added to the abolished dues, the session adjourned on a supportive note. However, when the next session began, support had cooled. Parliament refused to give an annual stipend unless James abolished [[impositions]] as well.{{efn|The feudal duty of impositions was an invaluable source of extra-parliamentary income for James, especially as trade expanded in England during his reign. By 1610, they already brought the Crown around £70,000 a year; by the 1630s, they brought in no less than £218,000.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=92}}{{sfn|Russell|1990|p=39}}}} Parliament did give the king an immediate subsidy, but the proposed £600,000 was reduced to a mere £100,000. By 6 November 1610, James demanded the other £500,000 and conditioned that, if impositions were to be abolished, Parliament would have to supply him with another equally lucrative income source. Parliament was outraged, and the Contract was abandoned three days later. Though both Salisbury and James made conciliatory gestures in hopes of securing any more financial support from Parliament, James grew impatient. On 31 December 1610, James publicly proclaimed the dissolution of the Parliament.{{sfn|Thrush|2010a}} James's first parliament had ended on a bitter note; "your greatest error", he chastised Salisbury, "hath been that ye ever expected to draw honey out of gall."{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=80}}

After this, James was not keen to call another Parliament.{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}}{{sfn|Stewart|2011|p=251}} However, without Parliament to raise taxes, the treasury was forced to find new ways to raise money.{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}}{{sfn|Mathew|1967|p=221}} In 1611, the City of London loaned the Crown £100,000; £60,000 was extracted from [[Louis XIII of France|the King of France]] over debts accumulated in the reign of [[Henry IV of France|Henry IV]]; honours were sold to wealthy gentlemen, raising £90,000; a forced loan was levied on nearly 10,000 people.{{sfn|Dietz|1964|pp=148–149}} Yet, after the death of Treasurer Salisbury in 1612, England's finances still remained destitute, with a debt of £500,000 and annual [[Deficit spending|deficit]] of £160,000.{{sfn|Dietz|1964|p=149}}{{sfn|Moir|1958|p=10}} However, James's principal fiscal expedient was to be the marriage of his [[heir-apparent]], [[Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales|Henry, Prince of Wales]], for which he expected a sizeable [[dowry]],{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}} not to mention a foreign ally.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=84}} James went into talks with several Catholic countries but, in late 1612, aged 18, Henry contracted [[typhoid]] and abruptly died;{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=85}} [[Charles I of England|Prince Charles]], newly heir-apparent at age 12, took his place in the negotiations. Negotiations were going most promisingly in France, where a marriage of Prince Charles to the 6-year-old Princess [[Christine of France]] promised a healthy sum of £240,000, almost halving James's debt.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=92}} However, by early 1614, France's internal religious strife had intensified to such a point that civil war seemed imminent, so negotiations stalled on the French side; James grew impatient.{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}} James's financial insecurity had only worsened in this time, the debt now at £680,000 and the deficit, £200,000.{{sfn|Roberts|1985|p=7}} [[Conspicuous consumption]] had raised yearly expenditure to an unsustainable £522,000.{{sfn|Russell|1973|pp=98–99}} A group of advisors, led by the [[Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk|Earls of Suffolk]] and [[William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke|Pembroke]], encouraged the king to call a parliament to raise funds, convincing James "that"—as he later put it—"my subjects did not hate me, which I know I had not deserved."{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=92}} Suffolk and Pembroke, though not optimistic about the parliament, encouraged James as they held what was then the general view in the [[Privy Council]]: that a Spanish or French alliance must be avoided, as to avoid strengthening the power of their allies in Court, the Scots.{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}} Northampton stringently opposed this summoning,{{sfn|Cramsie|2002|p=135}} but, in 1614, James reluctantly summoned another parliament. [[Writs of election]] were issued on 19 February that year.{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}}