Personal Rule

The Personal Rule (also known as the Eleven Years' Tyranny) is the period from 1629 to 1640, when King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland rules without recourse to Parliament.

He is entitled to do this under the Royal Prerogative, but his actions cause discontent among those who provide the ruling classes.Charles had already dissolved Parliament three times by 1628.

After the murder of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who was deemed to have a negative influence on Charles' foreign policy, Parliament begins to criticize the king more harshly than before.

Charles then realizes that, as long as he can avoid war, he can rule without Parliament.Whig historians sometimes called this period the Eleven Years' Tyranny.

The term is indicative of the partisan nature of activities at the time, which would eventually result in the English Civil War.

However, more recently revisionists refer to the eleven years a period of "Creative Reform", due to the measures taken by Charles to restructure English politics at this time.

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