Talk:Charles I

I deleted the passage about belief in "special powers", because it was only half-correct. Belief in "curing people": this goes back to the Middle Ages. Kings (at first the French monarchs) were believed to cure the "King's evil" (=scrofula, a skin disease) and did so by touching people. This developed into a fixed ritual which almost every monarch did perform. Has nothing to do with the belief in the "divine right of kings" that the Early Stuarts are famous for. Being "head of state" and "head of church" are traditional prerogatives of a monarch (the "head of church" having been introduced after the separation from Rome. What, you might ask, what IS the divine right of kings? Keep the suspense, I will talk about it in Session 4.

[A.P.]

ship money/taxes

"inventing special taxes (e.g. ship money)" the king did not "invent taxes". Taxes could only be raised by Parliament. Punkt. He took traditional fees (e.g., ship money or tonnage and poundage) and changed them so that they came close to taxes.