English Language and Literature ETDs

Publication Date

5-9-1968

Abstract

Modern historians have agreed with Seventeenth Century writers that the most significant problem of Jacobean government was the conflict of the King’s Prerogative with the commonly accepted rights of English citizens. As everyone knows, the struggle, which began during the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign was not resolved and led finally under Charles to the Civil War. Observers of the time and some modern researchers have expressed the view that the people were on the defensive, trying to protect their native rights from overreaching monarchs. Many modern historians, however, believe that the Stuart kings--without a standing army, a paid beaurocracy, or the means to finance governmental crises without Parliamentary grants--could not possibly have been despots who ruled without the approval of their subjects. They have seen the monarchs themselves as on the defensive, trying to retain the absolute power claimed by the Tudor kings against the growing opposition from the commons, who were, in the name of native English rights, trying to take some of the king's privileges from him.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

Franklin Miller Dickey

Second Committee Member

Edith Buchanan

Third Committee Member

Barrett Lynn Beer

Fourth Committee Member

Mary Bess Whidden

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Download

Share

COinS