Origin of the English Civil War

Revision as of 18:34, 25 January 2014

The seeds of the ' the Great Rebellion"

On the face of it England had managed The Reformation without the violence that marred it in Europe and the transition of James 1 succession had been smooth. However the transition to a protestant church had been slow in the country. However the tumult abroad increasingly affected opinion in England and would eventual cause an outbreak of civil war violence that dwarfed the religious infractions abroad.

The long catalogue of events starts with he ascension of Charles 1 himself in 1625. He personified the concept of the Divine Right of Kings but could the defects of one man bring the whole kingdom to civil war? He was a dutiful king and one interested in bringing in reforms. However, in his execution of these he was arrogant, untrustworthy and lacked political judgment . It could be said that the seeds of civil insurrection blown in from continental Europe were already there and by his actions he fertilized them.

The Civil War was not a battle between Catholics and Protestants but really between two strands of protestantism. On the one hand an uneasy patch work of Episcopacy maintaining a Catholic structure and Calvinist theology and a Presbyterian on the other. For shorthand we could describe these as Anglican and Puritan.

Although Puritanism was originally a derogatory term. It's meaning lay in the observance of the word of God and its dismissed the pomp and imagery, idolatry of the Catholic church that could obscure the true meaning of the faith. To the Anglicans the Reformation was in danger of going too far. For the Puritans it had not gone far enough.

Charles 1 came to the throne already faced with an issue in Europe. He was forced to decide whether to send help to the Elector Palatine, the protestant Rhineland prince who was struggling against the Catholic powers around him. That England should defend the Elector Palatine was a shared cause of the crown and Puritans but the diplomatic bugling and military humiliation drove a wedge between the two. The two ears of crisis between Charles 1 and Parliament in 1626-9 and 1640-2 both had their background in this defeat.

Despite Charles 1 reputation for Sovereign power he took fewer steps that his continental Kings in reducing the democratic powers in those nations. That powers were already concentrated in the crown was accepted. Better a tyranny than anarchy. However, the growing aristocracy started to advocate on behalf of themselves and in general there was heightened [political awareness. Aristocracy sought to increase their powers by finding medieval precedents to exert their rights. The mercantile classes, lawyers etc also sought to push their rights through pamphleteering

Until now parliaments were the plaything of sovereigns and only met at the crown bidding to vote on taxes or approve the monarch's laws. They were similarly dissolved at will. The aristocracy sat in the upper house while the MP's, chosen by agreement with the local gentry sat in the lower. While continental parliaments were getting weaker, paradoxical the English parliament was growing stronger, maybe because of what they saw happening in Europe. Charles !'s increasingly aggressive foreign policy made him more reliant on parliament approving the funds he needed to carry out his designs but often these parliaments broke up in acrimony.

Examples on Parliament exerting its rights can be seen the Petition of Right in 1628. It warned that sovereign power was threatening to make slaves out of its inhabitants and that it sought to place itself above the laws and statutes of the kingdom. Charles accepted that petition but largely bypassed it.. However MP's went further in 1629 when they defied the adjournment of th parliament and declaring that anyone who aided the crown was a capital enemy to this Kingdom". It was an extremist statement that played in to the hands of the King. He dissolved parliament and had the ringleaders imprisoned. He then announced the end of parliaments until the people came better to understand themselves. Only eleven years later would he under duress call another.

During this time there was a growing opposition to what people saw as Popery or Arminism. Bound up in this were memories of the burning of protestants by Queen Mary 1, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the Gunpowder Plot i 1605. Most Catholics were loyal to the crown but were increasingly ostracized and treated with suspicion. Charles 1 was no catholic but suspicions were heightened by his marriage to catholic Queen Henrietta in 1625 and he was seen to promote Arminians at the expense of others. He made peace with France and Spain after 1629. In part he knew he could fund further wars but the result was increased prosperity and exempted England form the Thirty Years War.

The Kings ecclesiastical policy was supervised by Archbishop William Laud who to some had Catholic leanings. Laud's vision was both medieval and English and sought to increase the powers of the clergy. Both non-Puritans and Puritans alike were alarmed by Laud's policies He deployed the Star Chamber and sentenced three Puritan pamphleteers to imprisonment and torture. He removed the communion tables and replaced them with railed off alters. The Puritans were alarmed with his demoting of the Sabbath for solemn observance. The laissez-faire approach where people of many faiths were free to worships as they wished was curtailed. The Puritans either had to fall in line or conceal their true beliefs. Some exiled themselves to Holland. Others to Massachusetts. Other stayed at home and eventually played a prominent role in bringing down Charles.

Even without Parliament, Charles continued to raise funds through archaic laws that levied fines on the nobles. That the judges upheld these fines led many to believe that the judiciary was in the pocket of the sovereign.

The Stuarts avoided Scotland as much as possible and made themselves even more unpopular tan south of the border with the nobles and the Presbyterian Kirk as a result of the policies south of the border. In 1637 Charles imposed a new Prayer Book on the Scots, which was provocatively anti-Calvinist. Also the new powers given to the bishops threatened the Presbyterian structure of the church. The Scots revolted and Charles raised an army to suppress them but he was taken aback by the strength of their army and both sides drew back. In April 1640, financially drained by the Scottish action, Charles reconvened Parliament. Parliament refused to back the king and Charles dissolved the Short Parliament just three weeks later. In November 1640 he had no choice to call wheat would be known as the Long Parliament. By this time opposition had hardened given that King had allowed the clergy's parallel institution the Convocation to continue to sit. Charles inflamed sentiment with the appointment of Thomas Strafford, Earl of Warwick. He was the unpopular governor of Ireland. Like Charles and Laud he equated Puritanism with sedition. Worse was to come . The Scots invaded England and the king's authority and powers were in tatters. Twelve peers petitioned Chares to reconvene parliament. The Long Parliament would sit for the next thirteen years.

Initially the Long Parliament had two strengths. Its unity and the effectiveness of its leadership. Prominent amongst them was John Pym. His power was strengthened more given the vacuum left by Charles' impotency and inability to appoint royal ministers . The two houses coordinated themselves effectively although the peers were significantly less radicalized than the Commons. Through the influence of Pym, they abolished the Star Chamber and passed the Triennial Bill. This was a provision that forced the King to call a parliament at least every three years after dissolution and prevented the King dissolving Parliament without their consent. Their first target was Strafford. He was charged with treason and executed .

Pym pressed home his advantage and gave parliament veto power over crown appointments and gave Parliament the power to raise local militia's. Catholic Ireland viewed the events with alarm and feared that they would be next in the firing line. The Irish were made up of three quarters Gaelic Catholics, but ones who had acquired a Protestant component, through two waves of colonization dating back to the Normans as well as Queen Elizabeth's confication of Irish lands which were put in the hands of political allies. Ireland was a backdoor to England much like Scotland, and ironically it was the hated Strafford's falls that sowed a rebellion. The Irish fearing the anti-Catholic opinion in London and powerless King figured that they were to be driven out of Ireland. They picked up their arms and massacred 2,000 protestants in the Ulster region. Men women and children were tortured, burned and drowned. This only inflamed parliament further and there were calls to disarm Catholics in England. Somewhat fortunately the outbreak of civil war took the attention off the Irish and escaped control until 1649.

Charles, fearing complete that his remaining powers ebbing away under a constant barrage of new laws proposed by Pym decided to arrest Pym and his cohorts, but they slipped away and having found no help in tracking them down Charles no longer felt safe in London and abandoned it for the rest of his reign.