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English Civil Wars
By: History.com Editors
Updated: September 10, 2021 | Original: December 2, 2009
Between 1642 and 1651, armies loyal to King Charles I and Parliament faced off in three civil wars over longstanding disputes about religious freedom and how the “three kingdoms” of England, Scotland and Ireland should be governed. Notable outcomes of the wars included the execution of King Charles I in 1649, 11 years of republican rule in England and the establishment of Britain’s first standing national army.
Background: The Rise of the Stuarts and King Charles I
England’s last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I , died in 1603, and was succeeded by her cousin, James Stuart . Already King James VI of Scotland, he became King James I of England and Ireland as well, uniting the three kingdoms under a single ruler for the first time. Though at first the Catholic minority in England welcomed James’ ascension to the throne, they later turned against his regime, even attempting to blow up the king and Parliament in the Gunpowder Plot .
James’ son, Charles I, succeeded him on the throne in 1625. His marriage to a Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria of France fueled suspicions (especially among more radical Protestants, known as Puritans ) that the king would introduce Catholic traditions back into the Church of England. Charles also believed strongly in his divine right to rule, and in 1629 he dismissed Parliament altogether; he would not recall it for the next 11 years.
War in Scotland
Beginning in the late 1630s, Charles made efforts to establish a more English-like religious practice in Scotland, generating fierce resistance among that country’s Presbyterian majority. A Scottish army defeated Charles’ forces and invaded England, forcing Charles to recall Parliament in 1640 to generate the money to pay his own troops and settle the conflict. Instead, Parliament acted quickly to restrict the king’s powers, even ordering the trial and execution of one of his chief ministers, Lord Strafford.
Amid the political upheaval in London, the Catholic majority in Ireland rebelled, massacring hundreds of Protestants there in October 1641. Tales of the violence inflamed tensions in England, as Charles and Parliament disagreed on how to respond. In January 1642, the king tried and failed to arrest five members of Parliament who opposed him. Fearing for his own safety, Charles fled London for northern England, where he called on his supporters to prepare for war.
Did you know? In May 1660, nearly 20 years after the start of the English Civil Wars, Charles II finally returned to England as king, ushering in a period known as the Restoration.
First English Civil War (1642-46)
When civil war broke out in earnest in August 1642, Royalist forces (known as Cavaliers) controlled northern and western England, while Parliamentarians (or Roundheads) dominated in the southern and eastern regions of the country. The king’s forces appeared to be gaining the upper hand by early 1643, especially after concluding an alliance with Irish Catholics to end the Irish Rebellion. But a key alliance between the Parliamentarians and Scotland that year led to a large Scottish army joining the fray on Parliament’s side in January 1644.
On July 2, 1644, Royalist and Parliamentarian forces met at Marston Moor, west of York, in the largest battle of the First English Civil War. A Parliamentarian force of 28,000 routed the smaller Royalist army of 18,000 , ending the king’s control of northern England. In 1645, Parliament created a permanent, professional, trained army of 22,000 men. This New Model Army, commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell , scored a decisive victory in June 1645 in the Battle of Naseby, effectively dooming the Royalist cause.
Second English Civil War (1648-49) and execution of King Charles I
Even in defeat, Charles refused to give in, but sought to capitalize on the religious and political divisions among his enemies. While on the Isle of Wight in 1647-48, the king managed to conclude a peace treaty with the Scots and marshal Royalist sentiment and discontent with Parliament into a series of armed uprisings across England in the spring and summer of 1648.
After Fairfax, Cromwell and the New Model Army easily crushed the Royalist uprisings, hard-line opponents of the king took charge of a smaller Parliament. Concluding that peace could not be reached while Charles was still alive, they set up a high court and put the king on trial for treason. Charles was found guilty and executed by beheading on January 30, 1649 at Whitehall.
Third English Civil War (1649-51)
With Charles dead, a republican regime was established in England, backed by the military might of the New Model Army. Beginning late in 1649, Cromwell led his army in a successful reconquest of Ireland, including the notorious massacre of thousands of Irish and Royalist troops and civilians at Drogheda. Meanwhile, Scotland came to an agreement with the executed king’s eldest son, also named Charles, who was crowned King Charles II of Scotland in early 1651.
Even before he was officially crowned, Charles II had formed an army of English and Scottish Royalists, prompting Cromwell to invade Scotland in 1650. After losing the Battle of Dunbar to Cromwell’s forces in September 1650, Charles led an invasion of England the following year, only to suffer another defeat against a huge Parliamentarian army at Worcester. The young king narrowly escaped capture, but the decisive victory ended the Third English Civil War, along with the larger War of the Three Kingdoms (England, Scotland and Ireland).
Impact of the Civil Wars
An estimated 200,000 English soldiers and civilians were killed during the three civil wars, by fighting and the disease spread by armies; the loss was proportionate, population-wise, to that of World War I.
In 1653, Oliver Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and tried (largely unsuccessfully) to consolidate broad support behind the new republican regime amid the continued growth of radical religious sects and widespread uneasiness about the new standing army.
After Cromwell’s death in 1658, he was succeeded as protector by his son Richard, who abdicated just eight months later. With the continued disintegration of the republic, the larger Parliament was reassembled, and began negotiations with Charles II to resume the throne. The triumphant king arrived in London in May 1660, beginning the English Restoration .
British Civil Wars. National Army Museum .
Mark Stoyle. Overview: Civil War and Revolution, 1603-1714. BBC .
The English Civil Wars: Origins, events and legacy. English Heritage .
Simon Jenkins. A Short History of England: The Glorious Story of a Rowdy Nation . (PublicAffairs, 2011)
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Causes of the English Civil War
The English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 was a period of social belligerence, religious disputes, political experimentation and instability in England, Scotland and Ireland. However, less is known but much is debated about the causes since they did not seem likely to produce the conflicts, just the type of it. Some historians have focused on society and the masses, others on elites, others on socio-economic aspects and many more in the running of the church and the state. Others complain about the top-down approaches, too much focus on Scotland and Ireland, and misinterpretations of documents left by royalists and parliamentarians. There are those who argue it was a religious conflict, while others argue that it was portrayed by some contemporaries as a holy war. Although many still disagree, there is a growing consensus among historians that religion did played a paramount role in causing the conflicts. The years leading to the Civil War were a period of royal miscalculations, Scottish and Irish revolts due mainly to religious tensions, religious discussions between royalists and parliamentarians, and religious zeal which produced an unexpected and unwanted civil war. While political and constitutional grievances seemed to have triggered the conflicts and build up tension, religion was the primary underlying factor.
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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 ...
The English Civil Wars are traditionally considered to have begun in England in August 1642, when Charles I raised an army against the wishes of Parliament, ostensibly to deal with a rebellion in Ireland. But the period of conflict actually began earlier in Scotland, with the Bishops' Wars of 1639-40, and in Ireland, with the Ulster ...
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.
The English Civil War. The English Civil war took place in 1642 until around 1650 and included warfare in not just England but also Scotland and Ireland. The two opposing sides were the English parliamentary party and English monarch, King Charles I. This civil war was not concerned about who ruled these three kingdoms, but which type of ...
On July 2, 1644, Royalist and Parliamentarian forces met at Marston Moor, west of York, in the largest battle of the First English Civil War. A Parliamentarian force of 28,000 routed the smaller ...
The English Civil War was a highly complex conflict, one which cannot be pinned on one cause alone. Indeed, several things contributed to the animosity between Parliament and the monarchy, which ...
The English Civil War broke out in 1642 and lasted for nine years (Coates 1-2). The parliament and monarchial administration disagreed on the ideals and principles upheld by each side and their unwillingness to cede ground on any issue (Henry and Delf 2). In the end, a war became the only option to settle their issues (Henry and Delf 2-6).
The English Civil War (1642-1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of religious freedom.It was part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The first (1642-1646) and second (1648-1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the ...
The English civil war broke out on 22nd August 1642. It caused many deaths and divided some families. There were many reasons for this, including religious arguments, financial arguments, the actions of Charles himself, all the causes were linked together, (Parliamentarian and Royalist) some of the events of 1642 and the demands made by ...
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
By going to war with the Scots, Charles was dragging Ireland and England into civil war.123 Ireland was the next kingdom to fall. Here, Strafford's rule had reduced the Catholic majority to a sect filled with fear for their land and livelihood. Plantation was one of Strafford's main aim as Lord Deputy of Ireland.
In this essay I discuss the struggle to define the meaning of the death of a prominent London parliamentarian, Rowland Wilson, in order to argue that a full understanding of the English Revolution … Expand
The essential cause of the Civil War consisted of an ongoing political battle between the States' Rights versus the Federal Rights. Due to the political battle, other probable reasons for the Civil War began to develop such as slavery and the differences in the Northern and Southern economies. 766 Words.
Causes of the English Civil War. Steffan Blanco. 2016. The English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 was a period of social belligerence, religious disputes, political experimentation and instability in England, Scotland and Ireland. However, less is known but much is debated about the causes since they did not seem likely to produce the conflicts ...
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 ...
There were many reasons for this intellectual battle, including political arguments, economical arguments and also religious arguments, which will be categorised and stated in this essay. To begin with, one of the fundamental causes of The Civil War includes a religious argument, about James I's and Charles I's dedication to the 'Divine ...
Long Essay on Causes of the Civil War Essay 500 Words in English. Long Essay on Causes of the Civil War Essay is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10. There were various causes for the civil war to take place. Some causes were cultural, while some were political, others were economic. The Union between the north and the south was split ...
- Events of Long Parliament (1640-1660) , whilst essential in triggering key divisions of support between Parliament and Charles, were not as significant as the problem of the three kingdoms in causing the ECW in 23 October 1642- Battle of Edgehill - Events causes divisions within groups and support wavered between the Parliamentarians (Roundheads)and Royalists (Cavaliers) - Finance also very ...
What Caused The English Civil War Essay. Explain why the Civil War broke out in 1642. The civil war that took place in 1642 and was a turning point in British history; it was an outbreak of war between two huge powers which was the Parliament and the Monarch. The civil war that occurred from 1642 to 1649 in England was unique in that it pitted ...
The Civil War, fought between 1861 and 1865, was a defining moment in American history. Understanding the causes of this conflict is crucial for comprehending the development of the United States as a nation. This essay will examine the economic, political, social, and leadership factors that contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War and ...
Over the years, several reasons were given for the issue of why this war was fought. The issues range from controlling land, to economics, but more often you hear it was mainly about slavery. The American Civil War of 1861-1865 was fought between the southern states (The Confederates) and the northern states (The Union).
The American Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865, remains one of the most defining and consequential events in U.S. history.It was a conflict born out of a complex web of political, economic, and social factors. In this essay, we will explore the causes of the Civil War, with a particular focus on the role of slavery, states' rights, sectional differences, and the influence of the federal ...
The English Civil War permanently and directly shaped the balance of power between the monarch and the parliament of England. The underlying problems facing Charles I during his reign began in the 16th century. In 1550, the price of food in England had doubled from that of 1500. The cost then doubled again by 1590 and in 1640 the price was six ...
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