Cobbling of Wikipedia History
At the accession of Charles I in 1625, England and Scotland had both experienced relative peace, both internally and in their relations with each other, for as long as anyone could remember. Charles hoped to unite the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland into a new single kingdom, fulfilling the dream of his father, James I of England (James VI of Scotland).
Although pious and with little personal ambition, Charles expected outright loyalty in return for "just rule". He considered any questioning of his orders as, at best, insulting. This trait, and a series of events, each seemingly minor on their own, led to a serious break between Charles and his English Parliament, and eventually to war.
Before the fighting, the Parliament of England did not have a large permanent role in the English system of government, instead as a temporary advisory committee — summoned by the monarch whenever the Crown required additional tax revenue, and subject to dissolution by the monarch at any time. Because responsibility for collecting taxes lay in the hands of the gentry, the English kings needed the help of that stratum of society in order to ensure the smooth collection of that revenue. If the gentry refused to collect the King's taxes, the Crown would lack any practical means with which to compel them.
One of the first events to cause concern about Charles I came with his marriage to a French Roman Catholic princess, Henrietta-Marie de Bourbon. The marriage occurred in 1625, right after Charles came to the throne. Charles' marriage raised the possibility that his children, including the heir to the throne, could grow up as Catholics, a frightening prospect to Protestant England.
Charles funded an expeditionary force to relieve the French Huguenots whom Royal French forces held besieged in La Rochelle. The royal favourite, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, secured the command of the English force. Unfortunately for Charles and Buckingham, the relief expedition proved a fiasco (1627), and Parliament, already hostile to Buckingham for his monopoly on royal patronage, opened impeachment proceedings against him. Charles responded by dissolving Parliament. This move, while saving Buckingham, reinforced the impression that Charles wanted to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny of his ministers. Having dissolved Parliament, and unable to raise money without it, the king assembled a new one in 1628. (The elected members included Oliver Cromwell.)
Charles I avoided calling a Parliament from 1629 to 1640, known as the "Eleven Years' Tyranny" or "Charles's Personal Rule". During this period, Charles's lack of money determined policies. Unable to raise revenue through Parliament — reluctant to convene it — he resorted to other means. Thus, not observing often long-outdated conventions became, in some cases, a finable offense. During the "Personal Rule," Charles aroused most antagonism through his religious measures: he believed in High Anglicanism, a creed shared with his main political advisor, Archbishop William Laud. In 1633, Charles appointed Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury and started making the Church more ceremonial, replacing the wooden communion tables with stone altars. Puritans accused Laud of reintroducing Catholicism; when they complained, he had them arrested. In 1637 John Bastwick, Henry Burton, and William Prynne had their ears cut off for writing pamphlets attacking Laud's views — a rare penalty for gentlemen, and one that aroused anger. Moreover, the Church authorities revived the statutes passed in time of Elizabeth I about church attendance, and fined Puritans for not attending Anglican church services.
Charles wanted one, uniform Church throughout Britain, and introduced a new, High Anglican, version of the English Book of Common Prayer to Scotland in summer of 1637. This was violently resisted. In spring of 1639, King Charles I accompanied his forces to the Scottish border, to end the rebellion known as the Bishops War. Scots army defeated Charles's forces. Charles eventually agreed not to interfere with Scotland's religion, and paid the Scots war-expenses. Charles finally bowed to pressure and summoned another English Parliament in November 1640. The new Parliament immediately began to discuss grievances against Charles. The legislators passed a law which stated that a new Parliament should convene at least once every three years — without the King's summons, if necessary.
In early January 1642, a few days after his failure to capture five members of the House of Commons, fearing for his own personal safety and for that of his family and retinue, Charles left the London area. As the summer progressed, cities and towns declared their sympathies for one faction or the other. At the outset of the conflict, much of the country remained neutral, though the Royal Navy and most English cities favoured Parliament, while the King found considerable support in rural communities. In general, the early part of the war went well for the Royalists. The turning-point came in the late summer and early autumn of 1643, when the Earl of Essex's army forced the king to raise the siege of Gloucester and then brushed the Royalist army aside at the First Battle of Newbury (20 September 1643), in order to return triumphantly to London. Charles negotiated a ceasefire in Ireland, freeing up English troops to fight on the Royalist side in England, while Parliament offered concessions to the Scots in return for aid and assistance.
In 1645 Parliament reaffirmed its determination to fight the war to a finish. It re-organized its main forces into the New Model Army ("Army"), under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Cromwell as his second-in-command and Lieutenant-General of Horse. In two decisive engagements — the Battle of Naseby on 14 June and the Battle of Langport on 10 July — the Parliamentarians effectively destroyed Charles' armies. In May 1646 he sought shelter with a Scottish army at Southwell in Nottinghamshire. This marked the end of the First English Civil War.
Charles I took advantage of the deflection of attention away from himself to negotiate a new agreement with the Scots, again promising church reform, on 28 December 1647. Although Charles himself remained a prisoner, this agreement led inexorably to the Second Civil War. A series of Royalist uprisings throughout England and a Scottish invasion occurred in the summer of 1648. Forces loyal to Parliament[7] put down most of the uprisings in England after little more than skirmishes, but uprisings in Kent, Essex and Cumberland, the rebellion in Wales, and the Scottish invasion involved the fighting of pitched battles and prolonged sieges. The Parliamentarians under Cromwell engaged the Scots at the Battle of Preston (17 August – 19 August). The battle resulted in a victory by the troops of Cromwell over the Royalists and Scots, and marked the end of the Second English Civil War.
The betrayal by Charles caused Parliament to debate whether to return the King to power at all. Those who still supported Charles' place on the throne tried once more to negotiate with him. Furious that Parliament continued to countenance Charles as a ruler, the Army marched on Parliament in December 1648. Troops arrested 45 Members of Parliament (MPs) and kept 146 out of the chamber. They allowed only 75 Members in to set up a High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I for treason. Charles's beheading took place on 30 January 1649. (After the Restoration in 1660, Charles II executed the surviving regicides not living in exile or sentenced them to life imprisonment.)
English Interregnum: 1649–1660. Scotland offered Charles II its crown. With his original Scottish Royalist followers and his new Scottish Covenanter (who did not agree with the execution of Charles I) allies, King Charles II became the greatest threat facing the new English republic. In response to the threat, Cromwell left some of his lieutenants in Ireland to continue the suppression of the Irish Royalists and returned to England. He arrived in Scotland on 22 July 1650 and proceeded to lay siege to Edinburgh. Cromwell's army then took Edinburgh, and by the end of the year his army had occupied much of southern Scotland. In July 1651, Cromwell followed Charles into England, leaving George Monck to finish the campaign in Scotland. Cromwell finally engaged the new king at Worcester on 3 September 1651, and defeated him. Charles II escaped, via safe houses and a famous oak tree, to France, ending the civil wars.These estimate indicate that England suffered a 3.7% loss of population, Scotland a loss of 6%, while Ireland suffered a loss of 41% of its population. Putting these numbers into the context of other catastrophes helps to understand the devastation to Ireland in particular. The Great Hunger of 1845-1852 resulted in a loss of 16% of the population, while during the second world war, the population of the Soviet Union fell by 16%. (Charles Carlton (1992). The Experience of the British Civil Wars, Routledge, ISBN 0415103916. pg 214).
The republican government of the Commonwealth of England ruled England (and later all of Scotland and Ireland) from 1649 to 1653 and from 1659 to 1660. Between the two periods Oliver Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector (effectively a military dictator) until his death in 1658. Upon his death, Oliver Cromwell's son Richard became Lord Protector, but the Army had little confidence in him. After seven months the Army removed Richard, and in May 1659 it re-installed the Rump Parliament. However, since the Rump Parliament acted as though nothing had changed since 1653 and as though it could treat the Army as it liked, military force shortly afterwards dissolved this, as well. After the second dissolution of the Rump, in October 1659, the prospect of a total anarchy loomed as the Army's pretence of unity finally dissolved into factions. Into this atmosphere General George Monck, Governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched south with his army from Scotland. On 4 April 1660, in the Declaration of Breda, Charles II made known the conditions of his acceptance of the Crown of England. Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first time on 25 April 1660. On 8 May 1660, it declared that King Charles II had reigned as the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I in January 1649. Charles returned from exile on 23 May 1660. On 29 May 1660, the populace in London acclaimed him as king. His coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661. These events became known as the English Restoration.
The civil wars effectively set England and Scotland on course to adopt a parliamentary monarchy form of government, for although the monarchy was restored, it was still only with the consent of Parliament. This system would result in the outcome that the future Kingdom of Great Britain, formed in 1707 under the Acts of Union, would manage to forestall the kind of bloody revolution typical of European republican movements and which generally resulted in the total abolition of monarchy. Specifically, future monarchs became wary of pushing Parliament too hard.
Although pious and with little personal ambition, Charles expected outright loyalty in return for "just rule". He considered any questioning of his orders as, at best, insulting. This trait, and a series of events, each seemingly minor on their own, led to a serious break between Charles and his English Parliament, and eventually to war.
Before the fighting, the Parliament of England did not have a large permanent role in the English system of government, instead as a temporary advisory committee — summoned by the monarch whenever the Crown required additional tax revenue, and subject to dissolution by the monarch at any time. Because responsibility for collecting taxes lay in the hands of the gentry, the English kings needed the help of that stratum of society in order to ensure the smooth collection of that revenue. If the gentry refused to collect the King's taxes, the Crown would lack any practical means with which to compel them.
One of the first events to cause concern about Charles I came with his marriage to a French Roman Catholic princess, Henrietta-Marie de Bourbon. The marriage occurred in 1625, right after Charles came to the throne. Charles' marriage raised the possibility that his children, including the heir to the throne, could grow up as Catholics, a frightening prospect to Protestant England.
Charles funded an expeditionary force to relieve the French Huguenots whom Royal French forces held besieged in La Rochelle. The royal favourite, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, secured the command of the English force. Unfortunately for Charles and Buckingham, the relief expedition proved a fiasco (1627), and Parliament, already hostile to Buckingham for his monopoly on royal patronage, opened impeachment proceedings against him. Charles responded by dissolving Parliament. This move, while saving Buckingham, reinforced the impression that Charles wanted to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny of his ministers. Having dissolved Parliament, and unable to raise money without it, the king assembled a new one in 1628. (The elected members included Oliver Cromwell.)
Charles I avoided calling a Parliament from 1629 to 1640, known as the "Eleven Years' Tyranny" or "Charles's Personal Rule". During this period, Charles's lack of money determined policies. Unable to raise revenue through Parliament — reluctant to convene it — he resorted to other means. Thus, not observing often long-outdated conventions became, in some cases, a finable offense. During the "Personal Rule," Charles aroused most antagonism through his religious measures: he believed in High Anglicanism, a creed shared with his main political advisor, Archbishop William Laud. In 1633, Charles appointed Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury and started making the Church more ceremonial, replacing the wooden communion tables with stone altars. Puritans accused Laud of reintroducing Catholicism; when they complained, he had them arrested. In 1637 John Bastwick, Henry Burton, and William Prynne had their ears cut off for writing pamphlets attacking Laud's views — a rare penalty for gentlemen, and one that aroused anger. Moreover, the Church authorities revived the statutes passed in time of Elizabeth I about church attendance, and fined Puritans for not attending Anglican church services.
Charles wanted one, uniform Church throughout Britain, and introduced a new, High Anglican, version of the English Book of Common Prayer to Scotland in summer of 1637. This was violently resisted. In spring of 1639, King Charles I accompanied his forces to the Scottish border, to end the rebellion known as the Bishops War. Scots army defeated Charles's forces. Charles eventually agreed not to interfere with Scotland's religion, and paid the Scots war-expenses. Charles finally bowed to pressure and summoned another English Parliament in November 1640. The new Parliament immediately began to discuss grievances against Charles. The legislators passed a law which stated that a new Parliament should convene at least once every three years — without the King's summons, if necessary.
In early January 1642, a few days after his failure to capture five members of the House of Commons, fearing for his own personal safety and for that of his family and retinue, Charles left the London area. As the summer progressed, cities and towns declared their sympathies for one faction or the other. At the outset of the conflict, much of the country remained neutral, though the Royal Navy and most English cities favoured Parliament, while the King found considerable support in rural communities. In general, the early part of the war went well for the Royalists. The turning-point came in the late summer and early autumn of 1643, when the Earl of Essex's army forced the king to raise the siege of Gloucester and then brushed the Royalist army aside at the First Battle of Newbury (20 September 1643), in order to return triumphantly to London. Charles negotiated a ceasefire in Ireland, freeing up English troops to fight on the Royalist side in England, while Parliament offered concessions to the Scots in return for aid and assistance.
In 1645 Parliament reaffirmed its determination to fight the war to a finish. It re-organized its main forces into the New Model Army ("Army"), under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Cromwell as his second-in-command and Lieutenant-General of Horse. In two decisive engagements — the Battle of Naseby on 14 June and the Battle of Langport on 10 July — the Parliamentarians effectively destroyed Charles' armies. In May 1646 he sought shelter with a Scottish army at Southwell in Nottinghamshire. This marked the end of the First English Civil War.
Charles I took advantage of the deflection of attention away from himself to negotiate a new agreement with the Scots, again promising church reform, on 28 December 1647. Although Charles himself remained a prisoner, this agreement led inexorably to the Second Civil War. A series of Royalist uprisings throughout England and a Scottish invasion occurred in the summer of 1648. Forces loyal to Parliament[7] put down most of the uprisings in England after little more than skirmishes, but uprisings in Kent, Essex and Cumberland, the rebellion in Wales, and the Scottish invasion involved the fighting of pitched battles and prolonged sieges. The Parliamentarians under Cromwell engaged the Scots at the Battle of Preston (17 August – 19 August). The battle resulted in a victory by the troops of Cromwell over the Royalists and Scots, and marked the end of the Second English Civil War.
The betrayal by Charles caused Parliament to debate whether to return the King to power at all. Those who still supported Charles' place on the throne tried once more to negotiate with him. Furious that Parliament continued to countenance Charles as a ruler, the Army marched on Parliament in December 1648. Troops arrested 45 Members of Parliament (MPs) and kept 146 out of the chamber. They allowed only 75 Members in to set up a High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I for treason. Charles's beheading took place on 30 January 1649. (After the Restoration in 1660, Charles II executed the surviving regicides not living in exile or sentenced them to life imprisonment.)
English Interregnum: 1649–1660. Scotland offered Charles II its crown. With his original Scottish Royalist followers and his new Scottish Covenanter (who did not agree with the execution of Charles I) allies, King Charles II became the greatest threat facing the new English republic. In response to the threat, Cromwell left some of his lieutenants in Ireland to continue the suppression of the Irish Royalists and returned to England. He arrived in Scotland on 22 July 1650 and proceeded to lay siege to Edinburgh. Cromwell's army then took Edinburgh, and by the end of the year his army had occupied much of southern Scotland. In July 1651, Cromwell followed Charles into England, leaving George Monck to finish the campaign in Scotland. Cromwell finally engaged the new king at Worcester on 3 September 1651, and defeated him. Charles II escaped, via safe houses and a famous oak tree, to France, ending the civil wars.These estimate indicate that England suffered a 3.7% loss of population, Scotland a loss of 6%, while Ireland suffered a loss of 41% of its population. Putting these numbers into the context of other catastrophes helps to understand the devastation to Ireland in particular. The Great Hunger of 1845-1852 resulted in a loss of 16% of the population, while during the second world war, the population of the Soviet Union fell by 16%. (Charles Carlton (1992). The Experience of the British Civil Wars, Routledge, ISBN 0415103916. pg 214).
The republican government of the Commonwealth of England ruled England (and later all of Scotland and Ireland) from 1649 to 1653 and from 1659 to 1660. Between the two periods Oliver Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector (effectively a military dictator) until his death in 1658. Upon his death, Oliver Cromwell's son Richard became Lord Protector, but the Army had little confidence in him. After seven months the Army removed Richard, and in May 1659 it re-installed the Rump Parliament. However, since the Rump Parliament acted as though nothing had changed since 1653 and as though it could treat the Army as it liked, military force shortly afterwards dissolved this, as well. After the second dissolution of the Rump, in October 1659, the prospect of a total anarchy loomed as the Army's pretence of unity finally dissolved into factions. Into this atmosphere General George Monck, Governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched south with his army from Scotland. On 4 April 1660, in the Declaration of Breda, Charles II made known the conditions of his acceptance of the Crown of England. Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first time on 25 April 1660. On 8 May 1660, it declared that King Charles II had reigned as the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I in January 1649. Charles returned from exile on 23 May 1660. On 29 May 1660, the populace in London acclaimed him as king. His coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661. These events became known as the English Restoration.
The civil wars effectively set England and Scotland on course to adopt a parliamentary monarchy form of government, for although the monarchy was restored, it was still only with the consent of Parliament. This system would result in the outcome that the future Kingdom of Great Britain, formed in 1707 under the Acts of Union, would manage to forestall the kind of bloody revolution typical of European republican movements and which generally resulted in the total abolition of monarchy. Specifically, future monarchs became wary of pushing Parliament too hard.
posted by Raul de Saldanha at
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