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The Causes of the English Civil War
Charles I Oliver Cromwell
The English Civil War has many causes but the personality of Charles I must be counted as one of the major reasons. Few people could have predicted that the civil war, that started in 1642, would have ended with the public execution of Charles. His most famous opponent in this war was Oliver Cromwell – one of the men who signed the death warrant of Charles.
No king had ever been executed in England and the execution of Charles was not greeted with joy. How did the English Civil War break out?
As with many wars, there are long and short term causes.
Long term causes :
The status of the monarchy had started to decline under the reign of James I. He was known as the “wisest fool in Christendom”. James was a firm believer in the “divine right of kings”. This was a belief that God had made someone a king and as God could not be wrong, neither could anyone appointed by him to rule a nation. James expected Parliament to do as he wanted; he did not expect it to argue with any of his decisions.
However, Parliament had one major advantage over James – they had money and he was continually short of it. Parliament and James clashed over custom duties . This was one source of James income but Parliament told him that he could not collect it without their permission. In 1611, James suspended Parliament and it did not meet for another 10 years. James used his friends to run the country and they were rewarded with titles. This caused great offence to those Members of Parliament who believed that they had the right to run the country.
In 1621, James re-called Parliament to discuss the future marriage of his son, Charles, to a Spanish princess. Parliament was outraged. If such a marriage occurred, would the children from it be brought up as Catholics? Spain was still not considered a friendly nation to England and many still remembered 1588 and the Spanish Armada. The marriage never took place but the damaged relationship between king and Parliament was never mended by the time James died in 1625.
Short term causes :
Charles had a very different personality compared to James. Charles was arrogant, conceited and a strong believer in the divine rights of kings. He had witnessed the damaged relationship between his father and Parliament, and considered that Parliament was entirely at fault. He found it difficult to believe that a king could be wrong. His conceit and arrogance were eventually to lead to his execution.
From 1625 to 1629, Charles argued with parliament over most issues, but money and religion were the most common causes of arguments.
In 1629, Charles copied his father. He refused to let Parliament meet. Members of Parliament arrived at Westminster to find that the doors had been locked with large chains and padlocks. They were locked out for eleven years – a period they called the Eleven Years Tyranny.
Charles ruled by using the Court of Star Chamber. To raise money for the king, the Court heavily fined those brought before it. Rich men were persuaded to buy titles. If they refused to do so, they were fined the same sum of money it would have cost for a title anyway!
In 1635 Charles ordered that everyone in the country should pay Ship Money. This was historically a tax paid by coastal towns and villages to pay for the upkeep of the navy. The logic was that coastal areas most benefited from the navy’s protection. Charles decided that everyone in the kingdom benefited from the navy’s protection and that everyone should pay.
In one sense, Charles was correct, but such was the relationship between him and the powerful men of the kingdom, that this issue caused a huge argument between both sides. One of the more powerful men in the nation was John Hampden. He had been a Member of Parliament. He refused to pay the new tax as Parliament had not agreed to it. At this time Parliament was also not sitting as Charles had locked the MP’s out. Hampden was put on trial and found guilty. However, he had become a hero for standing up to the king. There is no record of any Ship Money being extensively collected in the areas Charles had wanted it extended to.
Charles also clashed with the Scots. He ordered that they should use a new prayer book for their church services. This angered the Scots so much that they invaded England in 1639. As Charles was short of money to fight the Scots, he had to recall Parliament in 1640 as only they had the necessary money needed to fight a war and the required authority to collect extra money.
In return for the money and as a display of their power, Parliament called for the execution of “Black Tom Tyrant” – the Earl of Strafford, one of the top advisors of Charles. After a trial, Strafford was executed in 1641. Parliament also demanded that Charles get rid of the Court of Star Chamber.
By 1642, relations between Parliament and Charles had become very bad. Charles had to do as Parliament wished as they had the ability to raise the money that Charles needed. However, as a firm believer in the “divine right of kings”, such a relationship was unacceptable to Charles.
In 1642, he went to Parliament with 300 soldiers to arrest his five biggest critics. Someone close to the king had already tipped off Parliament that these men were about to be arrested and they had already fled to the safety of the city of London where they could easily hide from the king. However, Charles had shown his true side. Members of Parliament represented the people. Here was Charles attempting to arrest five Members of Parliament simply because they dared to criticise him. If Charles was prepared to arrest five Members of Parliament, how many others were not safe? Even Charles realised that things had broken down between him and Parliament. Only six days after trying to arrest the five Members of Parliament, Charles left London to head for Oxford to raise an army to fight Parliament for control of England. A civil war could not be avoided.
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Causes English Civil War
Subject: History
Age range: 11-14
Resource type: Worksheet/Activity
Last updated
13 March 2021
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Causes of the ECW English Civil War Worksheets - Question Tree Sheets for History KS3 Students HIS/C8/TL/01 - Students love them!!
This Resource Contains: x2 Question Trees for KS3 History Topic - English Civil War Causes x1 Blank - Ceate your own Question Tree Template
How could you use this FREE resource? Homework tasks or plenary tasks or part of a lesson Targeted Intervention for a specific student Enlarge to A3 and do a fun group team competition learning task Review a topic once studied before an end of unit test.
In total, this resource contains 2 x 20 sets of Questions for students to attempt and tackle.
TOP TIPS: The resource is differentiated by the route the student takes and the question increase in difficulty as you advance down the tree. Each resource ends with a deeper thinking essay topic question. Students could then use the tree to plan out and then undertake a timed essay on the bigger Question at the bottom of the tree
Could be used with Cre8tive Resources Revision and Intervention packages, Marking Assessment Grids or Knowledge Organisers
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The English Civil Wars. Charles I became King of England in 1625. He repeatedly fell out with the English Parliament, which resulted in the outbreak of a civil war in 1642.
The First English Civil War (1642-1646); The Second English Civil War (Feb-Aug 1648) The Third English Civil War or Anglo-Scottish War (1650-1651) The causes of all three conflicts, sometimes collectively known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (England, Scotland, and Ireland), were much the same except that following Charles I's execution in 1649, the figurehead for the Royalists during the ...
Commanders of the English Civil War. Prince Rupert of the Rhine: Royalist: Charles' only effective commander. Robert Devereux: Earl of Essex: Parliamentarian: Won Parliaments first major victory at Newbury in September 1943 but due to him wanting to negotiate with the King rather than kill him, was eventually removed as a commander.
Download Short Term Causes of the English Civil War. Click the button below to download this worksheet for use in the classroom or at home. Download →. The problems between the King and Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell did not go away and very soon the country was at war. Oliver Cromwell and Parliament still wanted more power and no return ...
The English Civil War was a series of battles fought between 1642 and 1651. On one side were supporters of the king ( Charles I ) and on the other were supporters of Parliament (led by Oliver Cromwell ). The Civil War resulted in the execution of Charles followed by 11 years of a commonwealth, when England had no monarch. The monarchy was ...
The English Civil War (1642 and 1651) was the name given to a series of brutal conflicts and battles that took place all over Britain. The war was actually three seperate wars fought between Parlimentarians (supporters of Parliament) and royalists (supporters of the king). Both sides were vying for control of the country.
Resource type: Lesson (complete) File previews. pptx, 4.87 MB. PNG, 338.46 KB. The English Civil War. This lesson aims to explore the problems Charles brought upon himself to cause the English Civil War. Students are given information which they have to analyse and decide how and why there were opposing views from Parliament and the King on how ...
A detailed card sort on the causes of the English Civil War with teaching notes that include suggestions for differentiation, extended writing and/or a storyboard activity. The accompanying PowerPoint allows tasks to be projected easily and includes a fun keyword taboo plenary activity. The causes can be categorised in several ways - long/short ...
The two formal assessments are the essay on the causes of the Civil War and a source investigation into Oliver Cromwell. Writing frames and mark schemes are included for these. For more details, please refer to individual lesson summaries. was £12.50. This resource hasn't been reviewed yet. This KS3 unit should take around two hours to complete.
An outline of the SoW can be viewed below: The English Civil War. James I and divine right; The Gunpowder Plot; Charles I and Parliament; The Long Parliament - outbreak of war; Causes of the Civil War - essay; Fighting the English Civil War; Trial and execution of Charles I; Cromwell and the Commonwealth; The Restoration; The Great Fire of ...
This video gives an overview of the English Civil War, when it started, how long it lasted together with the cause and the devastating effect on the country....
The English Civil War has many causes but the personality of Charles I must be counted as one of the major reasons. Few people could have predicted that the civil war, that started in 1642, would have ended with the public execution of Charles. His most famous opponent in this war was Oliver Cromwell - one of the men who signed the death ...
This angered the large Presbyterian population and resulted in a large revolt in 1938 (Gentles 276). Two wars were fought as a result of this conflict. Both were failures and English soldiers retreated in great numbers in 1640. The essential reason for this was the drying up of funds to support the fighting.
Following the defeat of King Charles I in the English Civil Wars, and later his trial and execution, Oliver Cromwell became 'Lord Protector' in 1653. Cromwell was a Puritan, a strict ...
Key stage 3. Key stage 4. EYFS. Specialist. Curriculum plans. Plan a lesson. Support your team. Pupils. Learn online. Oak. Blogs. Webinars. About us. Contact us. ... The causes of the English Civil War. I can explain how Charles I angered Parliament, which was the main cause of the English Civil War. Download all resources. Share activities ...
If so, you can save a lot of time with our specific English Civil Wars modules below. View GCSE Module: Britain: Power and the people: c1170 to the present day →. View GCSE Module: War and British Society c.790 to c.2010 →. View Online Course: History of Warfare and British Society →. View KS3 Module: English Civil Wars, Interregnum ...
Download the f ree English Civil War PowerPoint and supporting PDF resources by clicking the buttons below. With KS3 English Civil war pdf worksheets and lesson plans, make your history classes informative and fun. Teach about King Charles 1, Oliver Cromwell & other important figures in a simple & easy to understand way with our resources.
Civil War - GCSE History RevisionCharles I became King of England in 1625. From the start of his reign, his relationship with Parliament gradually deteriorat...
Fully differentiated and resourced lesson on causes of the English Civil War. Starter is an AQA style interpretation question to help recall previous knowledge on Charles I that is broken down for KS3 students with a mark scheme. The lesson leads onto an exam style question with scaffolding for lower ability students.
civil war and that it was far from inevitable that the early Stuart polity would fail. We therefore needed short-term rather than long-term explanations of the English civil war; revolution, they claimed, was the result, not the cause, of civil war.eRevisionists suggested that a much greater degree of ideological consensus existed in early Stuart
A colour scheme also runs throughout to ease both your delivery and students comprehension. An outline of the SoW can be viewed below: The English Civil War 1. James I and divine right 2. The Gunpowder Plot 3. Charles I and Parliament 4. The Long Parliament - outbreak of war 5. Causes of the Civil War - essay 6. Fighting the English Civil War 7.
Age range: 11-14. Resource type: Worksheet/Activity. File previews. pdf, 11.76 MB. png, 678.22 KB. Causes of the ECW English Civil War Worksheets - Question Tree Sheets for History KS3 Students HIS/C8/TL/01 - Students love them!! This Resource Contains: x2 Question Trees for KS3 History Topic - English Civil War Causes. x1 Blank - Ceate your ...
In the years 1640 through 1649, a major conflict took place in England, the English Civil War. But why did this happen? When disagreement arose between King Charles I and Parliament, things took a turn due to issues with control and power. King Charles wanted to run the country like an absolutist, but Parliament wanted a say in the matter as well.