Editing Addled Parliament (section)

===Preparations===
[[File:Randolph Crewe by Peter Lely.jpg|thumb|left|[[Ranulph Crewe]], [[Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)|Speaker]] for the Addled Parliament. Crewe was a surprising choice for Speaker, a last minute pick with little previous experience.]]

The Privy Council as a whole was not optimistic about the upcoming parliament. Two of the king's closest advisors were unavailable: Salisbury was dead and the 74-year-old Northampton was ill.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=92}} Even Suffolk and Pembroke were clueless of any way to prevent Parliament from bringing up thorny issues such as impositions again.{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}} However, two Councillors were to provide advice to the king over his new parliament, which would prove significant.{{sfn|Stewart|2011|p=251}} [[Attorney General for England and Wales|Attorney General]] [[Sir Francis Bacon]], who had been among the most vocal in favour of calling Parliament, publicly blamed Salisbury entirely for the failure of the previous Parliament; he held a private grudge against the treasurer, suspecting he had undermined his early career. He asserted that Salisbury's deal-making with Parliament had been the root of the king's failure, and that James should instead approach Parliament as their king, rather than some merchant, and therefore request subsidies on the basis of the Commons' goodwill to their ruler.{{sfn|Willson|1967|pp=344–345}}{{sfn|Stewart|2011|pp=251–252}} Bacon added to this that the king should employ patronage to win over the men of Parliament to his side.{{sfn|Duncan|Roberts|1978|p=489}} [[Sir Henry Neville (died 1615)|Sir Henry Neville]] offered advice to the king on how to warm relations with Parliament, which he accepted amiably,{{sfn|Thrush|2010c}} but Neville's more portentous offer was that of an "undertaking", whereby Neville and a group of "patriots" would arrange to manage the Parliament in James's favour, in return for the office of Secretary of State.{{sfn|Duncan|Roberts|1978|p=481}} James rejected the undertaking derisively, and no such conspiracy was ever arranged,{{sfn|Duncan|Roberts|1978|p=481}} but rumours of its actual occurrence spread quickly in the lead up to Parliament.{{sfn|Duncan|Roberts|1978|p=491}}

MPs later accused James of trying to [[wikt:pack#Verb|pack]] the parliament.{{sfn|Thrush|2010b}}{{sfn|Moir|1958|p=52}} Indeed, Bacon had plainly advised the king on the "placing of persons well-affected and discreet" in Parliament,{{sfn|Duncan|Roberts|1978|p=481}}{{sfn|Mathew|1967|pp=221–222}} and James had unapologetically packed the Irish Parliament the previous year.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=93}}{{efn|James attempted to pack the Irish Parliament of 1613 with Protestants by adding 84 new seats to the former 148 that election: 38 represented tiny or as-yet nonexistent settlements in the Protestant [[Ulster plantation]]. The election came out with a Protestant majority of 32. James insisted he was within his royal right in doing this and mocked the parliament's anger at this.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=93, 148}}}} An atypically large number of Crown officials found themselves in this parliament;{{sfn|Moir|1958|p=53}} four Privy Councillors had seats in the Commons, alongside plenty of Crown lawyers.{{sfn|Mathew|1967|pp=222–223}} Though there is no evidence that the Crown sought to pack Parliament with easily controlled and pacified MPs, James certainly promoted the election of those sympathetic to the Crown's ambitions.{{sfn|Moir|1958|p=53}} The Privy Council, in actuality, seemed more apathetic with regard to appointing useful parliamentary officials. Few of the expected preparations were made.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=92}} After some Byzantine wrangling in which another better-qualified candidate was dropped, [[Ranulph Crewe]], judge and MP for the [[rotten borough|government-controlled borough]] of [[Saltash (UK Parliament constituency)|Saltash]], was chosen at the last minute to be the [[Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)|Speaker of the House of Commons]].{{sfn|Moir|1958|pp=41–42}} This was a surprising choice: Crewe's previous experience in Parliament was limited to a short stint as an MP in [[9th Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I|1597–98]] and an appearance on two minor legal counsels; his legal career was no more impressive.{{sfn|Hunneyball|2010}} Crewe's inexperience at dealing with rowdy MPs was no doubt among the factors that allowed Parliament to descend into disorder, as it rapidly did.{{sfn|Smith|1973|p=169}} James's most senior representative in the House of Commons, [[Ralph Winwood]], [[Secretary of State (England)|Secretary of State]], was announced similarly late. Though a spirited official and zealous Puritan, Winwood had no parliamentary experience at all and was a terse, unlikable figure.{{sfn|Croft|2003|p=92}}{{sfn|Willson|1967|p=345}} Though sometimes caricatured as juvenile, and thus prone to passionate outbursts, the new House of Commons as a whole was not especially young or inexperienced;{{efn|61% (281 out of 464) of the members had never sat in Parliament before, a little above the Elizabethan average of 50%, but perfectly reasonable given the decade-long interval between elections.{{sfn|Moir|1958|p=55}}}} it was the inexperience of his most important officials and advisors that was to damage the king.{{sfn|Moir|1958|p=55}}