Skip to content

English Civil War

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

Placeholder for English Civil War - one of many...

Stephensonia

Enoch's mentioning of using French Salt Smugglers to enter post Civil War England doesn't seem to raise an eyebrow to either young Godfrey or Ben.

Authored entries

Wikipedia: The First English Civil War

The English Parliament, having controverted the king's authority, raised an army led by Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. The purpose of this army was twofold: it was to defeat both an invasion from Scotland and also the attempts by the king and his supporters to restore the monarchy's power. Charles I, in the meantime, had left London and also raised an army using the archaic system of a Commission of Array. He raised the royal standard at Nottingham in August.

In 1642 the military governor of Kingston upon Hull, Sir John Hotham declared the city for the Parliamentarian cause and refused the King entry into the city and its large arsenal. Charles took great personal affront to this act, and declared Hotham a traitor. Charles I besieged the city unsuccessfully. This siege precipitated open conflict between the Parliamentarian and Royalist causes.

At the outset of the conflict, although the Royal Navy and most English cities favoured Parliament, the King found considerable support in rural communities; however much of the country was neutral. It is thought that between them both sides had only in the region of 15,000 men. However, the war quickly spread and eventually involved every level of society throughout the British Isles. Many areas attempted to remain neutral but found it impossible to withstand both the King and Parliament. On one side the king and his supporters fought for traditional government in Church and state. On the other, supporters of Parliament sought radical changes in religion and economic policy, and major reforms in the distribution of power at the national level. In addition, Parliament was not the united front portrayed in much of later history. At one point in the nine years of war there were more members of Parliament and Lords in the King's parliament than there were at Westminster.

Parliament did, however, have more resources at its disposal, due to its possession of all major cities including the large arsenals at Hull and London. For his part, Charles hoped that quick victories would negate Parliament's advantage in material, which precipitated the first battle, the first siege of Hull in July 1642 which provided a decisive victory for Parliament.

A later battle at Edgehill was inconclusive, but regarded by the Royalists as a victory. One of the king's outstanding leaders was his nephew, Prince Rupert of the Palatinate, a dashing cavalry commander. Playing a minor part in the battle on the other side was a cavalry troop raised by a country gentleman, evangelical puritan, and former Member of Parliament named Oliver Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell was later to devise the New Model Army system still evident in military organisation today. This was characterised by a unified command structure and professionalism, which would firmly swing military advantage towards Parliament. The second action of the war was the stand-off at Turnham Green which saw Charles forced to withdraw to Oxford. This was to be his base for the remainder of the war. Roundhead.jpg
Armored Lord Protector Cromwell on Horse

In 1643 the Royalist forces won at Adwalton Moor and gained control of most of Yorkshire. Subsequent victories in the west of England at Lansdowne and at Roundway Down also went to the Royalists. Prince Rupert then was able to take Bristol. In the same year, Oliver Cromwell formed his troop of Ironsides, a disciplined unit which demonstrated his military ability. With their assistance, he was victorious at the Battle of Gainsborough in July.

After an inconclusive battle at Newbury in September, on October 11,1643, the Parliamentarian army won the Battle of Winceby giving them control of Lincoln. Political manoeuvring on both sides now led Charles to negotiate a ceasefire in Ireland, freeing up English troops to fight on the Royalist side, while Parliament offered concessions to the Scots in return for aid and assistance.

Parliament won at Marston Moor in 1644, gaining York with the help of the Scots. Cromwell's conduct in this battle was decisive, and marked him out as a potential political as well as a military leader. The defeat at the Battle of Lostwithiel in Cornwall, however, was a serious reverse for Parliament in the south-west of England.

In 1645 Parliament reorganized its main forces into the New Model Army, under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Cromwell as his second-in-command and Lieutenant-General of Horse. In two decisive engagements, the Battle of Naseby on June 14 and at Langport on July 10, Charles's armies were effectively destroyed.

Capture of Charles

Left with little recourse, Charles fled north, seeking refuge with the Scots in 1646 after disbanding his forces. This was the end of the First English Civil War.

Charles was ransomed by Parliament and held captive at Holdenby House whilst Parliament drew up plans. In the meantime, Parliament began to demobilize and disband the army. The army was unhappy about issues such as arrears of pay and living conditions and resisted the disbandment. Eventually the army kidnapped Charles in an attempt to negotiate using their hostage as a bargaining piece. He spent three months at Hampton Court Palace, before escaping to the Isle of Wight, where he was recaptured and imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Increasingly concerned, the army marched to London in August 1647 and debated proposals of their own at Putney.

The Second English Civil War

Charles took advantage of this deflection of attention away from him to negotiate a new agreement with the Scots, again promising church reform on December 28,1647. Although Charles himself was still a prisoner, this agreement led inexorably to the "Second Civil War".

A series of royalist rebellions and a Scottish invasion in July 1648 took place. All were defeated by the now powerful standing army. This betrayal by Charles caused Parliament to debate whether Charles should be returned to power at all. Those who still supported Charles's place on the throne tried once more to negotiate with him. Unpaid parliamentarian troops in Wales changed sides; the revolt was firmly put down by Cromwell.

Furious that Parliament were still countenancing Charles as a ruler, the army marched on parliament and conducted "Pride's Purge" (named after the commanding officer of the operation, Thomas Pride). 45 Members of Parliament (MPs) were arrested; 146 were kept out of parliament. Only 75 were allowed in, and then only at the army's bidding. This Rump Parliament was ordered to set up a high court of justice in order to try Charles I for treason in the name of the people of England.

Trial of Charles for Treason

Although Cromwell had some difficulty in finding judges to take part, in 1648, by a 68 to 67 vote, the Parliament found Charles I guilty of treason, being a "tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy". He was executed at the Palace of Whitehall in 1649. The majority of those who signed his death warrant were themselves executed or imprisoned upon the later Restoration of the Monarchy.

Ireland and Scotland

Thanks to former Member of Parliament Admiral Robert Blake blockading Prince Rupert of the Rhine 's fleet in Kinsale, Oliver Cromwell was able to land at Dublin on August 15, 1649 with the army to quell Royalist forces in Ireland, and later in Scotland (1649 -1650) to finally restore an uneasy peace. Resistance continued in Scotland under the valiant James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, whose forces were finally defeated at Carbisdale on April 27,1650, and Montrose was ignominiously executed.

Not all resistance had yet died out. Charles II was crowned in Scotland, claiming that the throne was rightfully his. Cromwell beat the Scottish Royalists at Dunbar on September 3,1650, but was unable to prevent Charles from marching deep into England. Cromwell finally engaged the new king at Worcester on September 3,1651, and beat him. Charles II fled abroad, ending the civil wars. The Commonwealth of England was then established, with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of England.

The victory made him very unpopular in Scotland and Ireland which, as nominally independent nations, were effectively conquered by English forces. In particular, Cromwell's suppression of the Royalists in Ireland during 1649 still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. The massacre of nearly 3,500 people in Drogheda after its capture -- comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests -- is one of the historical memories that has driven Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife during the last three centuries.

Origins of Parliamentary Democracy

Prior to the 1640s, there was no standing Parliament in England. The word 'parliament' designated one of a series of temporary committees, summoned occasionally at the pleasure of the King. Parliaments had no right to give orders to the King, and no means to enforce their wills. Their power was based primarily on the fact that the King, lacking a centralized bureaucratic government, greatly needed the willing and sympathetic cooperation of the English gentry in order to govern. Their power also had some basis in the prestige they held in the eyes of many Englishmen. By the early 17th century a King who mistreated his parliaments courted unpopularity. Westminster_Parliament_Copyright_20030922_Kaihsu_Tai.jpg
The Houses of Parliament ( Palace of Westminster ) in 2003,
with The London Eye in the background.

Parliamentary supremacy arises primarily from the English Civil War in the seventeenth century when members of the Long Parliament organized a Parliamentary army to resist the army of King Charles I. Parliamentary forces defeated the forces of King, and the remaining members of Parliament declared themselves the legitimate government of England. They tried and executed the King (the first time in European history that a King was tried by his own subjects) and reorganized the nation as a republic. In order to avoid certain connotations that the term republic carried at the time, they chose to describe the new state as the Commonwealth . The new government failed to become stable, however, and had to be reorganized several times, until finally Oliver Cromwell, whose military successes in the war had made him the most respected man in the government, took supreme power as Lord Protector (a politically acceptable term for dictator).

After Cromwell's death, no single man was able to fill the same role. The Monarchy was reinstated and Charles II invited back in 1660, with Parliament remaining as a full-time part of the system of governance. In the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Parliament deposed the Roman Catholic King James II and his infant heir and gave the throne to his protestant daughter and her husband, William of Orange. They reigned jointly as William and Mary -- Mary II and William III.

Parliament excluded all Catholic descendants of James II/VII from the throne. Since then the monarch has been generally subservient to parliament. But full parliamentary control of the executive did not occur until the Great Reform Act of 1832, that broadened the voting franchise and so made parliament the full representative of public opinion. Since then, parliament had been dominant, though the monarch still remains an important player in government, with government governing through the Royal Prerogative (ie, powers of the monarch) and with the monarch's formal approval still being required for Acts of Parliament and Orders-in-Council (executive orders).

Since the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain that unified the crowns of England and Scotland in 1707, Parliament has been very nearly sovereign (known as the supremacy of Parliament ), with the power to make or repeal nearly any law. That dominance continued in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (formed in 1801 when the crowns of Great Britain and Ireland were merged) and the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (formed in December 1922 when twenty-six of Ireland's thirty-two counties left to form the Irish Free State . However Parliament has never been completely sovereign, although it has often acted as if it were. In particular its sovereignty over the Church of Scotland was disputed for three centuries with Parliament finally admitting its lack of sovereignty in the 1920s .

More recently sovereignty has been further eroded by the European Union which, since Britain's accession to the European Economic Community in 1973, has the power to make laws which must be enforced in each member state, including Britain. On a regional level, a series of sub-parliaments or devolved administrations took over the day to day governance of certain regions, specifically Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. However, whereas it cannot block European legislation from the European Union (to which at a governmental level it can contribute and help shape) it can vary the powers of the devolved parliaments or even abolish them by a simple Act of Parliament.

A Parliament of sorts (consisting of the Barons, without any commoners) has existed for a very long time; the Barons first started stripping the King's powers away with the Magna Carta in 1215 but Parliament in a more recognisable form did not arise until many centuries later. Also, unlike now, Parliament only convened for short periods of time, and was then disbanded until the King called it again. Kings disliked calling Parliament, because the Members of Parliament were not under their control and so could cause problems. However, Parliament held the purse strings, so the King could not always ignore them, or bribe them, given that parliaments were not representative of public opinion, with many MPs elected from Rotten boroughs (corrupt constituencies where often only a handful of electors lived and could be bribed to elect a supporter or opponent of the King). These origins are reflected in the modern role of the monarch. It is she who formally summons, prorogues and dissolves parliament. At the moment that the latter royal order is made, all the MPs cease to hold office, with the resultant vacancies being filled by a general election. However this is always done on the advice (instruction) of Her Majesty's Government, which as it is answerable to parliament does parliament's wishes, or at least does not ignore the view of parliament, though parliament itself is not consulted.

Aftermath

It's estimated that around 10% of the British population may have died during the civil wars. As was usual in war, more deaths were caused by disease than by combat.

The wars left Britain as the only country in Europe without a monarch. In the wake of victory many of the ideals, and many of the idealists, were set aside. England, and later all of Britain, was ruled by the republican government of the Commonwealth of England during 1649 -1653 and 1659 -1660. Between the two periods, and due to infighting amongst various factions in parliament, Oliver Cromwell ruled over The Protectorate as Lord Protector, effectively a military dictator, until his death.

Upon his death, Oliver Cromwell's son known as Tumbledown Dick, attempted to assume similar positions and duties as his father. This led both persistent sides of the conflict, Royalist and Parliamentarian, to reject what seemed to be the replacing of one monarchy with another. Thereafter, the eldest son of Charles I, Charles II of England was invited to the throne, an event known as the Restoration.

While the monarchy was subsequently restored, the civil wars effectively set Britain on course to become a parliamentary democracy and help it avoid the later European republican movements that followed the Jacobin revolution in 18th century France and the later success of Napoleon. Specifically, future monarchs became wary of pushing Parliament too hard, and Parliament effectively chose the line of succession in 1688 with the Glorious Revolution and the 1701 Act of Settlement. After the Restoration Parliament's factions became political parties (later becoming the Tories and Whigs) with competing views and the ability to influence decisions of the monarch.