English Civil War
Introduction
Next to the Reformation itself, this war was the most pivotal event in early modern English history. The war was an violent struggle for power between Parliament and the King that at first seemed to have been settled in favor of Parliament, but in the end created a constitutional monarchy.
In 1642 when both Parliament and King declared they had control of the army. When some members of the army chose to obey the king while others chose to obey Parliament, the civil war began. It ended in 1649 with the execution of Charles I by Parliament the seeming victory of Parliament. Yet, within a few years, Oliver Cromwell was dictator (he called himself the Lord Protector), and he ruled England for most of the 1650. By the time he died, the English ruling class was ready to do almost anything to restore the monarchy, and Charles I returned to England in 1660. His return was nearly bloodless.
The conflict between king and Parliament has a very long history, going back almost to the beginnings of Parliament itself. For this essay, however, We choose to begin with a few words about James I.
English Civil War
Background to the Conflict
James VI of Scotland became James I of England. James was an autocratic King, a believer in divine right, and was innately suspicious of Parliament. He came from Scotland where he'd been overshadowed and he felt, bullied. He came to England determined to be a true king.
He was well-educated and was at first well-recieved. Soon enough, however, he offended Parliament with his autocratic behavior. Parliament protested, but James usually mollifed and temporized, and managed to avoid serious crises.
James maneuvering merely delayed a confrontation. After he died in 1625, the members of Parliament were determined to assert their claims. But they met with a new king who was every bit as autocratic as the old one.
English Civil War
Charles I (1625-1649)
Charles managed to do just about everything wrong, even when it wasn't his fault. For example, his father arranged a marriage with a Spanish princess. Because she was both Spanish and Catholic, she was instantly despised by the Parliamentary party. Moreover, Charles began to rely increasingly on French advisors at court, worsening the situation.
Charles was a failure in war with Spain, his ministers were widely hated, and he was even more arrogant with Parliament than his father had been, scolding them in letters and ignoring their please. The Parliament he called in 1628 turned out to make so many claims that he ordered it adjourned. When the speaker of the House rose to announce the king's command, two members of Parliament forcibly held him down while others gave impassioned speeches and passed resolutions. When they were quite done, they adjourned themselves. Charles was so outraged by this behavior, he went eleven years before calling another Parliament.
All of these problems could have been resolved except for one final and crucial failure, the one sort of failure never allowed a King : he lost in war. In his battles with England's mortal enemy, Spain, Charles failed where good Queen Bess had so spectacularly succeeded. In 1639, the Scots rose in rebellion too and Charles finally had to turn to Parliament to raise money.
The Second Civil War
The king was delivered (1647) by the Scots into the hands of Parliament, but the Presbyterian rule in that body had thoroughly alienated the army. The army resisted Parliament's proposal to disband it by capturing the king from the parliamentary party and marching on London. Army discontent gradually became more radical, and the desire grew to dispose of the king altogether. Refusing to accept the army council's proposals for peace Charles escaped in Nov., 1647, and took refuge on the Isle of Wight, where he negotiated simultaneously with Parliament and the Scots. In Dec., 1647, he concluded an agreement with the Scots known as the Engagement, by which he agreed to accept Presbyterianism in return for military support. In the spring of 1648, the second civil war began. Uprisings in Wales, Kent, and Essex were all suppressed by the parliamentary forces, and Cromwell defeated the Scots at Preston (Aug. 17, 1648). Charles's hopes of aid from France or Ireland proved vain, and the war was quickly over. Parliament again tried to reach some agreement with the king, but the army, now completely under Cromwell's domination, disposed of its enemies in Parliament by Pride's Purge (Dec., 1648;). The legislative remnant known as the Rump Parliament erected a high court of justice, which tried the king for treason and found him guilty. Charles was beheaded on Jan. 30, 1649, and the republic known as the Commonwealth was set up, governed by the Rump Parliament (without the House of Lords) and by an executive council of state. Charles I's son Charles II was recognized as king in parts of Ireland and in Scotland but was forced to flee to the Continent after his defeat at Worcester (1651). The years of the interregnum, under the Commonwealth to 1653 and the Proctetorate after that, are largely the story of Oliver Cromwell's personal rule, which was marked by strict military administration and enforcement of the Puritan moral code. After his death and the short-lived rule of his son, Richard Cromwell, the Commonwealth was revived for a brief and chaotic period. It ended in 1660 with the Restoration of Charles II. Although some of the changes brought about by the war were swept away (e.g., in the restoration of Anglicanism as the state church), the settlement of the contest between the king and Parliament was permanently assured in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
The Third English Civil War (Ireland, Scotland, and England)
Ireland had known continuous war since the rebellion of 1641, with most of the island controlled by the Irish Confederates.
The joint Royalist and Confederate forces under The Duke of Ormonde attempted to eliminate the Parliamentary army holding Dublin, but their opponents routed them at the Battle of the Rathmines (2 August 1649). Cromwell's suppression of the Royalists in Ireland during 1649 still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. After the siege of Drogheda, the massacre of nearly 3,500 people—comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and 700 others, including civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests (Cromwell claimed all the men carrying arms)—became one of the historical memories that has driven Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife during the last three centuries. However, the massacre has significance mainly as a symbol of the Irish perception of Cromwellian cruelty, as far more people died in the subsequent guerrlla and scorched-earth fighting in the country than at infamous massacres such as Drogheda and Wexford.
The execution of Charles I altered the dynamics of The civil war in Scotland, which had raged between Royalists and Coevanteres since 1644. At first, Sharles II encouraged Montrose to raise a Highland army to fight on the Royalist side. However, when the Scottish Covenanters (who did not agree with the execution of Charles I and who feared for the future of Presbyterianism and Scottish independence under the new commonwealth offered him the crown of Scotland, Charles abandoned Montrose to his enemies. However, Montrose, who had raised a Mercenary force in Norway, had already landed and could not abandon the fight. He did not succeed in raising many Highland clans and the Covenanters defeated his army at the Battle of Carbisdale in Ross-shire on 27 April 1650. The victors captured Montrose shortly afterwards and took him to Edinburgh. On 20 May the Scottish Parliament sentenced him to death and had him hanged the next day. Although Cromwell's New Model Army had defeated a Scottish army at Dunbar, Cromwell could not prevent Charles II from marching from Scotland deep into England at the head of another Royalist army. The Royalists marched to the west of England because English Royalist sympathies were strongest in that area, but although some English Royalists joined the army, they came in far fewer numbers than Charles and his Scottish supporters had hoped. Cromwell finally engaged and defeated the new king at Worcester on 3 September 1651. Charles II Escaped, via safe houses and a famous oak tree, to France, ending the civil wars.
