The English Civil War (22 August 1642-3 September 1651) was a series of armed conflicts between the royalist Cavaliers and the Parliamentarians over the manner of England's government. There were three civil wars (1642-1646, 1648-1649, 1649-1651), resulting in the trial and execution of King Charles I of England in 1649, the exile of Charles II of England in 1651, and the replacement of the English monarchy with the Commonwealth of England and The Protectorate. The wars established the precedent that English monarchs could not rule without Parliament's consent, a rule that would become law after the 1688 Glorious Revolution.
Background[]
King Charles I of England believed in the king's "divine right" to rule unchallenged. This absolutism brought him into a long and bitter conflict with his Parliament. Alongside concern at his despotism, there was suspicions in Protestant England that the House of Stuart had Catholic sympathies. When, in 1638, Presbyterians in Scotland signed a national covenant noting their defiance against King Charles, the king undertook two "Bishops' Wars" for his right to impose his own hierarchy on the Scottish Kirk. The failure of this enterprise not only damaged his authority at home, but saddled England with an enormous debt for reparations to the Scots. In order to raise taxes, Charles had to recall his Parliament, to the alarm of Ireland's "Old English" Catholic nobility, fearful for their position in a situation in which the Protestants of Scotland and England's Parliamentarians were in the ascendant. Their rebellion in 1641 precipitated a political crisis, with many assuming that Charles had encouraged the Catholic uprising. Such trust as still existed between the king and his critics now broke down as many demanded his removal.
War[]
Charles' attempt to arrest leading Parliamentarians in Parliament itself precipitated the outbreak of civil war. He raised his standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642. He had 2,000 cavalry (his aristocratic "cavaliers"), but only a few hundred infantrymen. Meanwhile, the Earl of Essex had been assembling a Parliamentarian force, derisively nicknamed the "Roundheads" by their opponents on account of the radical Protestant fashion for close-cropped hair. While the war was fought in the defense of sincerely-held principles, a number of soldiers signed up as mercenaries, including leading officers who were veterans of the Thirty Years' War.
The two armies met on 23 October at the Battle of Edgehill in Warwickshire. Led by the King's nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the Cavaliers charged with scorching pace and force, scattering the Parliamentarian horses before them. Some infnatrymen fled, but the core was disciplined, and apparently forgotten by Charles' Royalists, who seemed to think the battle already won. The Royalists threw away their advantage, chasing plunder while the Parliamentarian infantry pushed forth, their cavalry regrouping. Neitehr could win a convincing victory. The king's army headed for London, growing as it went. Essex was waiting west of the city at Turnham Green. He had been busy creating volunteer town and village militias, so he also had an ample force, too big for the king to think of tackling. Charles withdrew to Oxford to ponder his next move, and the armies criss-crossed southern England, closing occasionally for brief engagements over the next year; many of these battles were won by the Royalists. Much of this good work was undone in one afternoon in Newbury in September 1643 where, once again, the Royalist cavalry charged to apparently devastating effect against Essex's horsemen. However, the Royalists could not break the steady resolve of Parliamentarian pikemen, despite heavy losses on both sides.
Essex seemed no more able to press his advantage than Charles had been before. Both armies struggled to sustain support among their troops, and both were short of supplies and funding. Men deserted and preyed on the country people, who grew disillusioned with the conflict. Both sides sought help from outside; Charles from Catholic lords, his enemies from the Presbyterian Scots. The Parliamentarians already had the answer to their problems, with Oliver Cromwell raising his own forces and becoming Lieutenant-General of the Horse in July 1644. He became a Lieutenant-General of the Horse, and he led 3,000 cavalry under Thomas Fairfax at the Battle of Marston Moor, near York. Fairfax led the infantry, including Scottish soldiers. Cromwell led the Parliamentarian attack, striking unexpectedly in the evening. His cavalry came forward in close formation. The attack started well but faltered when Fairfax's infantry was slowed down by marshy ground, and Cromwell was injured during the Royalist counterattack; many Parliamentarian soldiers fled in panic as night fell. The Scots stood firm, however, and Cromwell launched an audacious cavalry counterattack across the battlefield to attack the Royalist horse, putting them to flight before turning on the infantry. With Fairfax's footsoldiers pressing forward, Royalist resistance collapsed.
Marston Moor gave the Parliamentarians mastery in the north, but Essex was being overwhelmed in the south. Fairfax created a "New Model Army", umbering 20,000, a body of professional full-timers who could be deployed at speed wherever needed. With 11 regiments of cavalry, 12 of infantry, and a single regiment of dragoons, they were trained and drilled in the best modern continental style. Its men were well supplied and regularly paid, and the army was depoliticized, with its officers being expressly barred from sitting as MPs. Above all, it was centralized and imbued from top to bottom with the Protestant vitrue and military value of discipline. The army won another victory at the Battle of Naseby in Northamptonshire the following June, decisively defeating Charles. Charles sued for peace, but Scottish nobles came to his rescue in 1648, bringing 20,000 troops. They were halted by Cromwell at Preston, and the Second Civil War was quickly over. In 1649, the Parliamentarians tried and executed Charles. In 1649, the Parliamentarians set out to quash the Irish rebellion, massacring the entire 2,800-strong garrison of Drogheda and some civilians when the city was stormed by Cromwell's troops. He went on to Wexford, where he slew 3,500 more.
The role of Scotland in the conflict changed at the same time. Rifts over political aims and the doctrinally-radical Protestantism of the New Model Army led to the Scots supporting a Stuart monarchy, considering it as a better option for maintaining their Presbyterian religious settlement. In 1648, the Scots mounted an invasion of England, and they were prepared for another by 1650. This time, they were led by Charles I's son, Charles II of England. Cromwell returned from Ireland and marched an army north, besieging Edinburgh. He ran out of supplies and withdrew as far east as Dunbar, where he trounched the much larger Scottish army on 3 September, having drawn it down from its superior position on higher ground before deftly outflanking it. Back in England, at the Battle of Worcester (exactly a year after the Battle of Dunbar), Cromwell smashed Charles II's Royalist army once and for all. Charles went into hiding and then fled to France, ending the wars.
Aftermath[]
The execution of Charles took England into uncharted waters, transforming it from a kingdom into the Commonwealth of England. Cromwell passed Penal Laws in Ireland that prevented Catholics from holding public office and restricted their property rights. Priests were persecuted, and mass had to be held in secret. In 1653, Cromwell suspended his bickering Parliament and established The Protectorate, which he ruled as a military dictator. His death in 1658 led to his son Richard Cromwell taking over, and he led England for just nine months before he was deposed and the Protectorate ended. A reconvened parliament invited Charles II to return from exile and take his crown, and the Stuart monarchy was restored in 1660.
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