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 commanders

In July 1643 the Earl of Essex was commissioned Captain General of the Parliamentarian armies. He was a cautious commander (he took his coffin with him on his campaigns!) who believed that the war should be ended with negotiation with the king. 

Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex
by Wenceslas Hollar
Public domain

The royalist cavalry was commanded by the king's nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine. He was the most energetic of the royalist commanders and in November 1644 he was appointed Captain General of the royalist army.

Prince Rupert pillaging Birmingham
with his dog Boy, who was believed
to have demonic powers
Public domain

1642: the first campaigns

With the start of the war there was a great deal of local disorder. 
Churches were attacked and communion rails torn down. A Catholic priest was lynched as he tried to escape to France. Riots spread from the eastern counties to the north of England as mobs took their revenge on local landowners.

On 23 September Rupert routed a small parliamentary force at Powick Bridge outside Worcester. But Essex entered Worcester the day after the clash and his men vandalized the cathedral. On 13 October the king began to march towards London with about. 6,000 infantry and 1,500 dragoons and was joined by 14,000 Lancashire men. On 19 October Essex left Worcester.  

On 23 October the two armies met at Edghill on the road from Warwick to Banbury and Oxford. The king’s standard-bearer, Sir Edmund Verney, was killed. Rupert might have won Edgehill decisively, using ‘new’ Swedish tactics of charging, but his advantage was thrown away when he and his men dashed off the field in pursuit of the enemy. After the battle Charles secured Banbury and then settled in what were meant to be temporary headquarters in Oxford.  

In November the royalists took Brentford and advanced on London.
The City trained bands and any other citizens who could appear in arms, including thousands of apprentices and militiamen from Hertfordshire, Essex and Surrey (about 24,000 men) assembled at Turnham Green on 13 November. 

The royalists retreated. The campaigns then closed down for the winter.

The campaigns of 1643

On the whole, 1643 went well for the royalists. They controlled much of the north and the south-west. In February the queen arrived from Holland, landing at Bridlington after a stormy voyage, with arms, money, and 3,000 troops. Essex failed to take Oxford, the king’s headquarters, and Hampden was killed at Chalgrove Field in Oxfordshire. In July Rupert took Bristol.

The Parliamentary army was evolving. In December 1642 an Eastern Association had been formed, embracing Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Hertfordshire.  Oliver Cromwell, the MP for Cambridge, was Colonel with his own regiment of horse. By the spring of 1643 it  had grown to a full regiment. Already it was noted for its religious zeal and its comparatively meritocratic approach to fighting.  

When the Sussex county committee complained at the modest birth of one of his troop commanders, Cromwell said: 

‘I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, that that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else.

The Earl of Manchester was put in charge of the Association.

Taxation

During the war, the Westminster Parliament found that it had almost to invent a government as it went along. The two-chamber Committee of Safety acted with reasonable efficiency as a national executive. Until his final illness, it was dominated by John Pym.

His most notable contribution to the parliamentary victory was financial.  On 22 July 1643 the excise tax was introduced This was a purchase tax on a very wide range of (initially) home-produced consumer goods. Based on Dutch models, it was charged first on beer and ale, strong waters (spirits), cider and soap, but was later imposed on a wide range of imported goods. 

The Excise Ordinance appointed eight Commissioners, all belonging to the City of London, who were allowed 3d in the £ of all duty collected. They were authorized to appoint the sub-commissioners (or collectors) and throughout their history the Commissioners retained this right. By the end of the first Civil War it was yielding about £300,000 a year, which was more than half as much again as the highest annual demand for Ship Money. 

The tax was always unpopular:

1. The burden fell disproportionately on the poor, who had previously escaped taxation. 
2. The tax was foreign in origin and linked to war. 
3. The excisemen were not always local men, and their inquisitorial searches for excisable commodities were quite often met with violence. 

But in spite of its unpopularity, the tax was too useful to be abandoned. Although it was considered a parliamentary duty, Charles I raised his own excise in the areas under his control. 

The Scots alliance

The Solemn League and Covenant
Public domain

Pym's last contribution to the Parliamentary cause was to set in motion an alliance with the Scots. Parliamentary commissioners were sent to Edinburgh, and on 17 August 1643 the English commissioners and the Scots and signed the Solemn League and Covenant in which Parliament agreed to establish a Presbyterian system in England in return for military help.  Like Charles I, both sides wanted to unite the two countries in a common religious system – something that disgusted those who wanted genuine freedom of religion. 

The Covenant was adopted by the English Parliament and all the members of the Commons and the Assembly of Divines solemnly swore to it in St Margaret's Church, Westminster (now simply known as 'Margaret's) on 25 August. All male Englishmen over the age of eighteen were now required to subscribe and a similar requirement was imposed in Scotland.

This was troubling to those on the parliamentary side who believed they were fighting for religious liberty. 

Conclusion

1. By the end of 1643 the war seemed at a stalemate. If anything, the psychological advantage seemed to be with the king. He did not have to win - simply avoid being defeated.
2. However, Pym had laid the foundations of an effective (if unpopular) taxation system, which made it possible to fund the parliamentary army.
3. The alliance with the Scots gave Parliament a valuable ally.
4. The Eastern Association was proving an effective fighting force.