On March 2, 1629, after years of escalating tensions with his own government, King Charles I of England dissolved parliament and ordered all the politicians to go home.

He was only in the fourth year of his reign, but Charles was already a very unpopular king. One of his worst habits was frequently abusing his power and taking unilateral executive actions-- raising taxes or passing new regulations-- which would ordinarily require the approval of parliament.

But Charles hated going through parliament, and he routinely found ways to bypass them; often he would creatively interpret obscure passages of ancient laws as justification to do whatever he wanted.

In one instance, Charles decided that a 400+ year old law, which had first been decreed under Henry III in the early 1200s, gave him the authority to demand payment from everyone in the country making more than 40 pounds per year. It did not.

In another example, he claimed that ‘tradition’ entitled him to collect customs and duties on various imports, even though English law clearly required parliamentary approval on all imposts.

Charles also famously demanded money from wealthy merchants and banks, calling them “forced loans”. He even seized literally TONS of silver from the Royal Mint that was being stored on behalf of wealthy individuals and foreign governments.

Parliament made attempts to block Charles; when he asked for money to raise an army and go fight in the Thirty Years War (which had been raging in Europe since 1618), parliament refused. When he wanted funds to bail out a close relative in Denmark, parliament again refused him.

Sometimes their disputes even spilled into the courts, where judges had to determine the legality of the king’s taxes and regulations.

But nothing was ever settled, and no compromises reached. In fact the conflict continued to escalate, until Charles finally dissolved parliament in 1629… effectively shutting down the government.

This is an often-repeated story throughout 5,000+ years of human history; there have been countless examples of dysfunctional governments and terrible leadership that fail to reach a rational compromise over the nation’s finances.

And such examples tend to be a hallmark of a nation in decline.

In the case of Charles, he would go on to be arrested, tried, and executed, and England plunged into a civil war.

Louis XV of France, and his successor Louis XVI, also routinely fought with their parliaments over royal finances. France would soon go bankrupt and dive head-first into revolution.