The Civil War: the first phase, 1642-3

Among the books I have consulted, the following have been especially useful: 
Barry Coward, The Stuart Age. England 1603-1714 (Longman, 2nd edition, 1994)
Leanda de Lisle, White King. Charles I, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr (Chatto & Windus, 2008)
Royle, Trevor, Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660 (Abacus, 2004)
David L. Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles 1603-1707. The Double Crown (Blackwell, 1998)
Austin Woolrych, Britain in Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2002)
John Wroughton, The Longman Companion to the Stuart Age 1603-1714 (Longman, 1997)

The period between 1640 and 1660 is the most momentous in British history. It saw a series of dramatic events, all of them with major constitutional implications:

1. The creation of the New Model Army and the rise of religious and political radicalism within the Army
2. The trial and execution of the king and the setting up of a republic (the Commonwealth)
3. The brutal conquest of Ireland
4. A series of parliamentary experiments that saw the dissolution of the Long Parliament and the establishment of Cromwell as Lord Protector
5. The growth of religious dissent in the 1650s.

'Cavaliers and Roundheads'

Both sides applied derogatory terms to the other. ‘Cavalier’ was taken from the Spanish cabelleros and was used to mock the court’s continental ways. ‘Roundhead’ derived from the craze among apprentice boys for cutting their ‘love-locks’. In fact, the leaders of both armies had similar hairstyles. You can't necessarily tell a man's allegiance from his portrait!

Taking sides

With king and Parliament both calling out the militia, men were forced to choose sides. However, the commonest reaction was probably neutralism. In the localities very many of the country gentry and still more of the middling sort could not understand why king and parliament could not reach an agreement and neutralist feeling was widespread. 

Even the politically committed, such as the Parliamentarian, Sir William Waller, and the Royalist, Sir Edmund Verney, often took up arms with a heavy heart. Waller was fighting his good friend, Sir Ralph Hopton, Verney his son, Ralph.

Yet however wide the neutralist feelings, there would not have been a Civil War if there had not been profound ideological divisions. 

1. Royalists feared parliamentary absolutism, religious radicalism and popular rebellion, and wished to protect a balanced constitution in the Church.
2. Parliamentarians feared royal absolutism, mistrusted Charles I, and wished to promote parliamentary liberties and 'godly reformation'. 

Both sides therefore feared absolutism, but differed in their assessments on who was the greatest threat to liberty. They disagreed in their assessment of Charles I and in their attachment to the Church of England. 

There were divisions within both royalist and parliamentary ranks.  Conservative parliamentarians like Denzil Holles had more in common with ‘constitutional royalists’ like Viscount Falkland than with quasi-republicans on their own side . 

Religious motivation was strong on both sides. Puritans were fighting for reformation in the church. Many royalists were motivated by a strong attachment to the Prayer Book services and sacraments. Catholics were either neutralist or royalist.

The Civil War lends itself only partially to a class analysis. Where the middling or lower orders were able to take an independent position, this was rarely royalist. Popular enthusiasm for the parliamentary cause was found among the cloth-workers, who were usually inclined to Puritanism. On the other hand, among the gentry, the division was between people of the same social class. 

The Civil War: the victory of Parliament

Representation by an unknown artist of the
parliamentary victory at Naseby, 14 June 1645
Public domain

1643: was anyone winning?

By the end of 1643 it looked as if the war was being fought to a stalemate, with neither side delivering a knock-out blow. If anything, the psychological advantage lay with the king: Parliament had to win, he had only to fight for a draw. Parliamentary leaders like the earls of Essex and Manchester, the commander of the Eastern Association, believed that in the end there would have to be a negotiated settlement with the king.

However, in retrospect, it can be seen that three factors favoured Parliament:

1. Pym’s excise tax was unpopular but successful.
2. The Scots alliance had added 20,000 soldiers to the parliamentary forces.
3. The Eastern Association under the earl of Manchester was proving an efficient military force.

The Eastern Association

The most effective of the parliamentary armies was the Eastern Association under Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester.  In January 1644 Manchester he his cavalry commander, Oliver Cromwell, pushed through Parliament a financial ordinance increasing by 50 per cent the monthly assessments levied on the individual counties of the Eastern Association and putting the money in the hands of a committee at Cambridge under Manchester’s control. In February Cromwell was appointed Lieutenant-General of the Association.

The Long Parliament and the coming of the Civil War

The Long Parliament in session,
Speaker Lenthall
in the chair

The Long Parliament meets

This Parliament, the longest in English history, met under tense circumstances on 3 November 1640. To put it mildly, it was unusual to have an English Parliament’s existence secured by 18,000 troops occupying north-eastern England! Most of the members had already served in the Short Parliament and were ready for conflict if necessary. The MP Thomas Knyvett wrote, 

‘Now reformation goes on again as hot as toast.’ Quoted in Barry Coward, The Stuart Age (1994), pp. 189-90. 

The strongest ideological drive behind the opposition to the king in the 1640s was religious zeal, and demands for a constitutional parliamentarianism went hand in hand with a craving for 'godly reformation’. The targets of the opposition were Laud (who had oppressed the Puritans and made the Scots revolt) and Strafford (who had acted tyrannically and thrust the second war upon them). The aim - to rescue the king from his ‘evil counsellors’ - was highly traditional, going back to the days of King John. 

Pym leads the opposition

John Pym, Charles's most
tenacious opponent

The new leaders had emerged quickly, with John Pym soon becoming the voice of the parliamentary opposition. He also had contacts with the radical groups in the City, who organized marches of apprentices and others to Westminster. The historian, C. V. Wedgwood has described him in her book, The King's Peace (Collins, 1955, p. 364) as

‘a child of the Elizabethan age, reared in hatred of Spain, in strong Protestant beliefs, and in the faith that God intended the English to establish his Gospel by sea-power and settlement over the face of the earth’. 

He was a revolutionary who nevertheless saw himself as a conservative, harking back to the days of Good Queen Bess.

The Personal Rule attacked

The main business of Parliament was to attack Strafford. By 25 November he was in the Tower while a committee prepared articles of impeachment accusing him of ‘endeavouring to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and government of England and Ireland’, of erecting an ‘arbitrary and tyrannical government’ in Ireland, and of provoking war against the Scots. 

On 7 December the Commons proclaimed Ship-money an illegal tax. 

On 11 December the Root and Branch Petition for the complete abolition of episcopacy (bishops) was presented to parliament. It claimed to be signed by 15,000 citizens of London, now highly radicalized and potentially dangerous. This was embarrassingly radical, and Pym managed to have the Petition referred to the committee for religion.

On 18 December Laud was impeached as ‘an actor in the great design of the subversion of the laws ... and of religion’. In March 1641 he was imprisoned in the Tower. But Parliament was happy to allow him to languish there until he was executed in 1645.

The end of the Personal Rule

The Scots revolt

The historian, the earl of Clarendon wrote: 

‘a small, scarce discernible cloud arose in the north, which was shortly after attended with a storm’.

The collapse of the personal rule was brought about by events in Scotland, highlighting Charles’s problems as the monarch of multiple kingdoms. Just as he attempted to impose uniformity on England, so he tried to bring Scottish religious practice in line with England’s. 

James VI had presided over an uneasy compromise in Scotland. Since the Reformation the country had had a Presbyterian rather than an Anglican church structure. In 1610 James had restored bishops, but he allowed the Presbyterian structure to continue at lower levels. His policy was to make Scottish religion more conformable to Anglican norms, but he sensibly did not push the Scots too far.

Charles was more out of touch with Scottish affairs than his father had been. He did not visit Scotland until 1633, and the Scots were deeply hurt by the fact that he had waited for eight years before he was crowned in Scotland. They were also offended that he chose Holyrood rather than the more traditional Scone or Stirling, and that the ceremony was conducted before a raised altar behind which was a tapestry into which was woven a crucifix. 

In 1636 Charles issued a new 'Book of Canons', regulating worship according to the Anglican pattern, based on the English canons of 1604. These were imposed by royal prerogative without consultation. The Scots Privy Council was treated as a rubber stamp and was ordered to command the use of the new prayer book when it was ready in 1637.

Archbishop Laud's
Book of Common Prayer
Public domain

The king's council in Scotland fixed Sunday 28 July for the introduction of the new Prayer Book throughout the country and announced that they themselves would mark the occasion by going in procession to St Giles' for the morning service. But as soon as the dean, Dr Hannah, began the service, the crowd at the back of the church rioted. The demonstration had been premeditated as the principal ministers, gentry, citizens and lords had had three months to consider their strategy. The religious fervour of the population was genuine. Even the ministers willing to use the Book could do so only if their congregations allowed them. Those who tried to defy their congregations faced violence.