In 1603, Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish cousin James Stuart succeeded her as James I (r. 1603–1625). James was a firm believer in the divine right of kings. He went so far as to lecture the House of Commons: “There are no privileges and immunities which can stand against a divinely appointed King.”6 Such a view ran directly counter to English traditions that a person’s property could not be taken away without due process of law. James I and his son Charles I (r. 1625–1649) considered such constraints intolerable and a threat to their divine-right prerogative. Consequently, bitter squabbles erupted between the Crown and the House of Commons. The expenses of England’s intervention in the Thirty Years’ War only exacerbated tensions. Charles I’s response was to refuse to summon Parliament from 1629 onward.