How the Parliamentarians Won the First Civil War

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Precursor to War

The king's aborted attempt to arrest five MP's set off a chain of events that led to the first civil war. The King left London and finally settled in Oxford. Queen Henrietta fled back to France. Almost immediately petitions were being raised in the shires pledging support to Parliament. Parliament capitalized on their popularity by executing the Militia Ordinance organizing a militia and putting it under Parliament's control. Parliament went further with the Nineteen Propositions. These were framed as being a moderate set of proposals but reduced the role of the king to mere ceremony. Not only that Charles 1 noted that it did not just apply to him but to his successors.

Parliament was no longer tolerating dissent. Edward Dering was expelled from the commons for supporting episcopacy. Kentish gentlemen who expressed moderate opposition to the Militia Ordinance were impeached.

The king had little military support at this time. Maybe as little as 800 cavalry but there was still considerable support for the monarchy even if it was lukewarm for Charles himself. John Pym was starting to lose popularity. The Root and Branch petition evoked opposition. Sir Thomas Ashton organized two pro-episcopacy petitions and published the Remonstrance against Presbytery

The kernel of the arguments against abolishing episcopacy was the rubbish of chaos that could replace it, at least in the short run. This conjunction of traditional legal and maintenance of social order dominated the spring and summer of 1642. Pym's continued encouragement of popular participation filled many with trepidation especially given the evidence that popular uprisings could get out of hand. The Irish Rebellion had led to atrocities committed against protestants and riots in England were not unknown. Many raised the spectre of Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Parliamentarians took a relaxed view of the riots. They were "'honest inhabitants who were providing very acceptable services to the commonwealth

MP's were often caught between a rock and a hard place. Thomas Knyvett was on one day given a parliamentary commission to take command of an infantry and later read a royal proclamation denouncing the Militia Ordinance. The king followed up with his own army raising decree called the Commissions of Array. This was carefully worded as not a call to arms to defend an (unpopular) king but to secure peace in the country, deter foreign invasion and quell insurrection in the country.

MP's took up that theme, professing that they wanted to preserve peace. It was a difficult concept to sell. Trying to raise an army, not to fight a war and not to change the status quo is a difficult rallying call to arms. On the other hand, the Parliamentarians could appeal to peoples religious convictions; that the king was being duped by papists and that the Irish Rebellion could spread to England. The atrocities as bad as they were, were played up to the press and hardened peoples' attitudes. There were charismatic leaders supporting the Parliamentarian cause, such as the Earl of Warwick. Location played a significant role also. London and the South East were hard-line parliamentarian supporters and allowed to dissent amongst its population.

Committed Royalists were two distinctive group of people. Firstly, there were the Royalists that funded the the king's army. These were people committed to duty, preservation of existing and tradition forms of government that preserved a balance (unequal in many ways) between parliament and monarch. They were troubled by the religious schisms, factionalism and iconoclasm. Above all they wanted to preserve the traditional social order. as much as they might disagree with the king, the alternative was worse. Those who fought for the royalist cause, shared many of the same motivations. They had been brought up to take up arms for their landowners, squires and Earls. These groups needed each other. The landowners needed tenants to work their farms. The tenants needed food and shelter. Of course, this master / servant relationship was not always deterministic. Some tenants failed to support the summons from the landowner. Maybe they were anti-episcopal, some felt it wrong to disobey Parliament. Consequently,recruiting for the king's army got off to a slow start and had to rely on volunteers. This could lead to a disparate group of soldiers who had different reasons for joining up - comradeship, money, drink. A fact not lost on the Parliamentarians who could describe Royalists as ruffians, the feckless and the irreligious.

Most of all the typical royalist was someone who feared social upheaval and militant puritanism and therefore many only took to the king's cause once the parliamentarian forces were mobilized. After that began to happen then many tended to fall behind the king's banner once it looked inevitable that war was going to happen and they needed to pick a side.

The Battles of the Civil War

The slide into Civil War was very shallow. It was only when Charles raised his standard in Nottingham that the fat of war was recognized. The king was humiliated at Hull when the Governor refused to surrender the city to him. As the summer turned into autumn, Charles moved to Shrewsbury and managed to pick up a sizable following in the area and especially in Wales.


Edgehill kicked off the first major battle of the war, [1], although that had been a skirmish at Powick Bridge where Prince Rupert easily routed the Parliamentarians. At Edgehill, neither side gained an advantage but the Earl of Essex failed to stop the advance of the Royalist army towards London. By November 1642, it seemed against all odds that the Royalists were on course for a quick victory. At Turnham Green on the outskirts of London, the Royalist advance was checked, not by Essex's army so much, but the apprentices and others recruited by the Earl of Warwick. The king's cautious approach not only allowed Essex's men to regroup, but enabled a force of 24,000 face off the Royalist army of 12,000. The King pulled back and in essence this was the end of the fighting season until the following spring during which time the Civil War became more of political maneouvering and negotiation.

Early in the summer of 1643, the Royalists won battles at Bristol, Gloucester, Adwalton Moor, Gainsborough and Lincoln. This was the high water mark for the Royalists and once again they were approaching London, this time via Newbury. Newbury may have been a turning point as the Parliamentary army were able to thwart the London advance. Whether it was or not the tide was turning, if not decisively towards the Parliamentarians by the end of the 1643 battle season. However, the mistakes and lack of cohesion still troubled people like John Pym . He turned for the Scots to help which they did only in return for introducing compulsory Presbyterianism in England. Parliament thus pledged itself to the Solemn League and Covenant.The Scots contributed 20,000 soldiers and the king started to lose territory in the North especially after the Parliamentary army put pressure on the Scottish to take a more prominent role. Prince Rupert fought back with some brilliant military maneouvers but this led to total defeat at Marston Moor in 1644. The king had lost the North.

With the end of the 1644 Battle season, the Winter consistent of more negotiations with the King, the execution of Archbishop Laud and Cromwell's scathing indictment of some of the military leadership. A reorganization began. A New Model Army of highly trained soldiers was initiated. At the same time The Self Denying Ordinance disbarred many of the politicians in the Commons and the Lords from commanding the regiments such as the Earl of Essex, although this excluded Oliver Cromwell.

The New Model Army came under the control of sir Thomas Fairfax and scored a major victory at the Battle of Naseby. This was followed up by victories at Langport and Bristol at which the defeated Prince Rupert was dismissed by the King. There was no way back for the Royalists although minor battles continued until 1646. In April Charles escaped Oxford and tried to negotiate with the Scots, who sent him back to the Parliamentarians.

The parliamentarians won because

  • They had a better command structure, especially after the creation of the New Model Army.
  • Morale was maintained over four years of war
  • A better all round mobilization of resources

Initially the dash and elan of the Royalists caught the defensive, unimaginative Parliamentarians off guard. Commanders were chosen for their connections not their military aptitude. Cromwell's reforms took a while to bare fruit but an immediate positive effect was the control of the Navy. It was lucky that the Earl of Warwick was a well known sea-farer and managed to get the Navy behind them. The Navy coming out in favour of the Parliamentarians was especially ironic given the investment in ships as a result of Ship Money. Consequently they were able to supply key garrisons and prevent the Royalists from doing so. It may have also been the deciding factor that prevented the Irish from setting sail to aid the Royalists, although it may have been a mixed blessing had they done so. The Navy also played a role bombarding fortifications. In reply, the king was able to commandeer boats for his cause and he controlled large stretches of the coastline in the West that enabled him to import munitions.

Not only were inept commanders like Lord Essex sidelines buy the soldiers themselves were reformed and replaced. Local mercenaries and lukewarm soldiers from the shires were replaced by zealous activists who were fighting for a cause. As Cromwell said I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman, and id nothing else. The Royalists were on the other hand were not fighting for anything beyond maintaining the status quo and many supported saw the Royalist cause as one that was reluctantly going to war. Hardly a battle cry to invoke in the field. Price Rupert and his Blue Coats were nonetheless were drilled and brave but could not tip the balance of the War in their favor, especially after Naseby.

The control of London was key. First you had a well fortified city with a large anti-Royalist population. With the Navy on hand, London was a key port for the importation of munitions. Rich merchants could be relied on loan money quickly, especially to pay the Scots or organise the New Model Army. Although the Parliament was slow to repay. In general the eastern areas were wealthier and more prone to break for Parliament.


The influence of the Scots was also important in deciding the final outcome. The Scots could be fickle and likely to swap sides where they sniffed an advantage but on religious matters they always seemed destined to fall behind Cromwell. However, it was their perceived rather than real effect that provide decisive. Militarily they were not very successful but at least they stretched the Royalist resources thin across the country.

When contemporaries were asked why they supported Parliament, answers were mixed which shows that the Civil War meant subtly different things to different people but the most common answer was that James 1 had presided on an era of peace and prosperity but also one of heedless wantoness. We have to be careful to assume aristocrats and their farmhands were Royalists while the merchants and labourers were Roundheads. While these differences may explain which side they were likely to support it really does not explain the crisis itself or why these different groups picked up arms. religion above all was the clearest division as to what side you picked but even devout zealots on both sides had serious doubts as to whether God really meant for the citizens to go to war over their differences.

Propaganda played a useful sideshow galvanizing the base but it is unlikely it swayed those on the fence or caused many to switch sides. If it favoured any one it favoured the Parliamentarians. Reports of atrocities also hardened attitudes. However, atrocities were a sad fact of war, which one could argue affected the Civil War less than those in other Civil Wars. Because of the very fact that friends and even families were divided tempered the factional violence. It is thought that one in ten men fought in the war and more people were lost to war as a proposition of the population than the Great War of 1914-1918. The impact on the Irish was even more disastrous. Some propagandists exploited the war for their own ends - often mercenaries of military contractors. Propaganda victories were short lived and often cancelled themselves out. The pact with the Scots and the signing of the Covenant was a gift to the Royalists but the Cessation of hostilities with the Irish Catholics was jumped on by the parliamentarians.

More high-minded literature propaganda - may be that is too pejorative a term - at least informs the historian if not the majority of contemporaries. These included Thomas Hobbes Leviathan arguing for strong undivided government atop with an absolute ruler and Regicide apologist John Milton

It was somewhat ironic that during the Personal Rule the king had so antagonized MP's and citizens about the imposition of taxes that it was one reason why Parliament went to War with the King, yet Parliament used extra-parliamentary methods to impose tax that it would have made the king blush! On the other hand the king now had to rely on consent of local communities to raise funds for his soldiers and armaments.

In England, it would not be right somehow if the weather did not play a role. From day one when the king raised his standard in Nottingham only to see it blown down in a gale overnight it seemed to portend misery. It seemed to rain incessantly during the battle seasons of 1643 and 1644 and played a role holding up the Parliamentarian army from time to time. At best it delayed victory rather than altered the outcome

Evolution of military strategy played little part in the war although a more disciplined approach to fighting emerged. What tactics were deployed were learned by mercenaries in the Thirty Years War and Swedish and Dutch methods of war were studied. Numbers on the Battlefield were and are always decisive and in the major battles of Marston Moor and Naseby the parliamentarians managed to outnumber their opponents by maybe two to one. One often considers the what-ifs especially the defeated Royalists. What if the king had continued the push to London after Edgehill or if Rupert had not engaged at Marston Moor or antagonized the Earl or Newcastle before the fight at York or had poor relations with the king's other trusted ally, Lord Digby. Probably good luck cancelled out the bad on both sides and did not affect the final outcome. Parliament had bad luck also. They lost their most able politicians in the shape of Pym and John Hampden. Had they lost Fairfax and Cromwell as well......?. However, speculation is probably inconsequential. It was the New Model Army that probably made the biggest difference; especially at Naseby. After that it was just a matter of time before the king was defeated. Cromwell and his allies had in the end a strong plan and strategy for winning the war but no plan as to what would come next once peace was restored.




  1. http://bcw-project.org/military/english-civil-war/edgehill-campaign/battle-of-edgehill


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