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	{{Otheruses\|English Civil War (disambiguation)}}
	{{History of England}}

	The '''English Civil War''' consisted of a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians (known as ]s) and Royalists (known as ]s) between ] and ]. The ] (1642–]) and ] (]–]) ]s pitted the supporters of ] against the supporters of the ], while the ] war (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of ] and supporters of the ]. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the ] on ] ].

	The Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son Charles II, and the replacement of the English monarchy with first the ] (1649–1653) and then with a ] (1653–1659), under the personal rule of ]. The monopoly of the ] on Christian worship in England came to an end, and the victors consolidated the already-established ] in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British monarchs could not govern without the consent of Parliament, although this concept became firmly established only with the ] later in the century.
	{{Campaignbox English Civil War}}

	==Terminology ==
	The term ''English Civil War'' appears most commonly in the singular form, despite the fact that historians frequently divide the conflict into two or three separate wars. Although the term describes events as impinging on ], from the outset the conflicts involved wars with and civil wars within both ] and ]; see ] for an overview.

	Unlike other ], which focused on who ruled, this war also concerned itself with the manner of governing the ]. Historians also refer to the English Civil War as the '''English Revolution''' and works such as the ] call it the '''Great Rebellion'''. ] historians such as ] (1912–2003) have long favoured the term "English Revolution".

	==Background ==
	=== The King's aspirations===
	]

	Contemporaries must have found it unthinkable that a civil war could result from the events taking place. War broke out less than forty years after the death of the popular ] in 1603. 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 VI of Scotland). Many English Parliamentarians had suspicions regarding such a move, because they feared that setting up a new kingdom might destroy the old English traditions which had bound the English monarchy. As Charles shared his father's position on the power of the crown (James had described kings as "little Gods on Earth", chosen by God to rule in accordance with the doctrine of the "]"), the suspicions of the Parliamentarians had some justification.

	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 ], and eventually to war.

	===Parliament in the English constitutional framework ===
	Before the fighting, the ] did not have a large permanent role in the English system of government, instead functioning 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 ] lay in the hands of the ], 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. Parliaments allowed representatives of the gentry to meet, confer and send policy-proposals to the monarch in the form of Bills. These representatives did not, however, have any means of forcing their will upon the king — except by withholding the financial means required to execute his plans.

	=== Parliamentary concerns and the Petition of Right===
	], 1660.]]

	One of the first events to cause concern about Charles I came with his marriage to a ] ] princess, ]. 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 also wanted to take part in the conflicts underway in Europe, then immersed in the ] (1618 - 1648). As ever, foreign wars required heavy expenditure, and the Crown could raise the necessary taxes only with Parliamentary consent (as described above). Charles experienced even more financial difficulty when his first Parliament refused to follow the tradition of giving him the right to collect customs duties for his entire reign, deciding instead to grant it for only a year at a time.

	Charles, meanwhile, pressed ahead with his European wars, deciding to send an expeditionary force to relieve the ] ] whom Royal French forces held besieged in ]. The royal favourite, ], 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 ], opened ] 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 ].) The new Parliament drew up the ], and Charles accepted it as a concession in order to get his subsidy. Amongst other things the Petition referred to ].

	===The Personal Rule and the rebellion in Scotland ===
	Charles I avoided calling a Parliament for the next decade. Depending upon their political affiliation, people referred to this time either as the "Eleven Years' Tyranny" or as "Charles' Personal Rule".

	During this period, Charles' lack of finances largely determined his policies. Unable to raise revenue through Parliament – due to his reluctance to convene it - he resorted to other means of financing his affairs. Thus failure to observe often long-outdated conventions became in some cases a finable offence (for example, a failure to attend and to receive ] at Charles' coronation), with the fines being paid to the crown. Charles also tried to raise revenue in the form of ]. Exploiting a naval war-scare in 1635, he demanded that the inland counties of England pay a tax to support the ]. This policy relied on an established law, but it was a law which the authorities had ignored for centuries, and so was regarded by many as yet another extra-Parliamentary (and therefore illegal) tax. A number of prominent men refused to pay Ship Money on these grounds. Reprisals against men such as ] and ] (fined after losing their case 7 to 5 for refusing to pay ship money and for making a stand against the legality of the tax) aroused widespread indignation.

	During the "Personal Rule", Charles aroused most antagonism through his religious measures: he believed in a sacramental version of the ], called ], with a theology based upon ], a belief-system shared by his main political advisor, Archbishop ]. Charles appointed Laud as ] in 1633 and started a series of reforms in the Church to make it more ceremonial, starting with the replacement of the wooden ] tables with stone altars. Puritans accused Laud of trying to reintroduce ], and when they complained, Laud had them arrested. In 1637 ], Henry Burton and William Prynne had their ears cut off for writing pamphlets attacking Laud's views — a rare penalty for ] to suffer, and one that aroused anger. Moreover, the church authorities revived the statutes passed in the time of ] concerning church attendance and fined Puritans around the country for failure to attend Anglican services.

	The end of Charles' independent governance came when he attempted to apply the same religious policies in Scotland. The ], although reluctantly Episcopal in structure, had long enjoyed its own independent traditions. Charles, however, wanted one uniform church throughout Britain and introduced a new, High Anglican, version of the English ] into Scotland in the summer of 1637. This met with a violent reaction. A riot broke out in Edinburgh, allegedly started in a church by one ]; and in February 1638 the Scots formulated their objections to royal policy in the ]. This document took the form of a "loyal protest", rejecting all innovations not first been tested by free parliaments and General Assemblies of the church.

	Before long, Charles had to withdraw his Prayer Book and summon a General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which met in ] in November, 1638. The Assembly, affected by the radical mood of the times, not only rejected the Prayer Book, but went on to take the even more drastic step of declaring the office of bishop as unlawful. Charles demanded the acts of the Assembly be withdrawn; the Scots refused to comply, and both sides began to raise armies.

	Charles accompanied his forces to the border in the spring of 1639 to end the rebellion, known as the ]. But after an inconclusive campaign he decided to accept the Scottish offer of a truce; the ]. The truce proved temporary, and a second war followed in the summer of 1640. This time a Scots army defeated Charles' forces in the north and went on to capture ]. Charles eventually had to agree not only not to interfere with religion in Scotland, but to pay the Scottish war-expenses as well.

	===Recall of Parliament ===

	Charles needed to suppress the rebellion in his northern realm. He had insufficient funds, however, and had perforce to seek money from a newly-elected ] in 1640. The majority faction in the new Parliament, led by ], took this appeal for money as an opportunity to discuss grievances against the Crown, and opposed the idea of an English invasion of Scotland. Charles took exception to this '']'' (offence against the ruler) and dissolved Parliament after only a few weeks; hence the name "the ]".

	Without Parliament's support, Charles attacked Scotland again, breaking the truce at Berwick, and suffered a comprehensive defeat. The Scots then seized the opportunity and invaded England, occupying ] and ].

	Meanwhile, another of Charles' chief advisers, ], had risen to the rôle of Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632 and brought in much-needed revenue for Charles by persuading the Irish Catholic gentry to pay new taxes in return for promised religious concessions. In 1639 Charles recalled him to England, and in 1640 made him Earl of Strafford, attempting to have him work his magic again in Scotland. This time he proved less successful, and the English forces fled the field in their second encounter with the Scots in 1640. Almost the entirety of Northern England was occupied, and Charles was forced to pay £850 per day to keep the Scots from advancing. If he did not, they would "take" the money by pillaging and burning the cities and towns of Northern England.

	All this put Charles in a desperate financial position. As King of Scotland, he had to find money to pay the Scottish army in England; as King of England, to find money to pay and equip an English army to defend England. His means of raising revenue without Parliament fell critically short of achieving this. Against this backdrop, and according to advice from the ] (the ], but without the ], so not a Parliament), Charles finally bowed to pressure and summoned a Parliament in November 1640.

	===The Long Parliament===
	{{main\|Long Parliament}}

	The new Parliament proved even more hostile to Charles than its predecessor. It immediately began to discuss grievances against Charles and his Government, and with Pym and Hampden (of Ship Money fame) in the lead, took the opportunity presented by the King's troubles to force various reforming measures upon him. 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. Other laws passed by the Parliament made it illegal for the king to impose taxes without Parliamentary consent, and later, gave Parliament control over the king's ministers. Finally, the Parliament passed a law forbidding the King to dissolve it without its consent, even if the three years were up. Ever since, this Parliament has been known as the "Long Parliament". However, Parliament did attempt to avert conflict by requiring all adults to sign ].

	In early 1641 Parliament had ], arrested and sent to the ] on a charge of ]. John Pym claimed that Wentworth's statements of readiness to campaign against "the kingdom" aimed in fact at England itself. Unable to prove the case in court, the ], led by Pym and ], resorted to a ]. Unlike a guilty finding in a court case, attainder did not require a legal burden of proof, but it did require ]. Charles, still incensed over the Commons' handling of Buckingham, refused. Wentworth himself, hoping to head off the war he saw looming, wrote to the king and asked him to reconsider. Wentworth's execution took place in May, 1641.<ref>Jacob Abbott '''' Chapter ''</ref>

	Instead of saving the country from war, Wentworth's sacrifice in fact doomed it to one. Within months, the Irish Catholics, fearing a resurgence of Protestant power, ], and all Ireland soon descended into chaos. Rumours circulated that the King supported the Irish, and Puritan members of the Commons soon started murmuring that this exemplified the fate that Charles had in store for all of them.

	In early January 1642, accompanied by 400 soldiers, Charles attempted to arrest five members of the House of Commons on a charge of treason. This attempt failed. When the troops marched into Parliament, Charles inquired of ], the ], as to the whereabouts of the five. Lenthall replied "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." In other words, the Speaker proclaimed himself a servant of Parliament, rather than of the King.

	===Local grievances ===
	In the summer of 1642 these national troubles helped to polarize opinion, ending indecision about which side to support or what action to take. Opposition to Charles also arose owing to many local grievances. For example, the imposition of drainage-schemes in ] negatively affected the livelihood of thousands of people after the King awarded a number of drainage-contracts. Many regarded the King as worse than insensitive, and this played a role in bringing a large part of eastern England into Parliament’s camp. This sentiment brought with it people such as the ] and Oliver Cromwell, each a notable wartime adversary of the King. Conversely, one of the leading drainage contractors, the ], was to die fighting for the King at the ].

	== The First English Civil War==
	]
	{{Main\|First English Civil War}}

	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. Further negotiations by frequent correspondence between the King and the Long Parliament through to early summer proved fruitless. As the summer progressed, cities and towns declared their sympathies for one faction or the other: for example, the garrison of Portsmouth under the command of Sir ] declared for the King, but when Charles tried to acquire arms for his cause from ], the depository for the weapons used in the previous Scottish campaigns, Sir ], the military governor appointed by Parliament in January, initially refused to let Charles enter Hull, and when Charles returned with more men, ]. Charles issued a warrant for Hotham to be arrested as a traitor but was powerless to enforce it. Throughout the summer months, tensions rose and there was brawling in a number of places, with the first death of the conflict taking place in Manchester.<ref>Trevor Royle ] pp. 158-166</ref>

	At the outset of the conflict, much of the country remained neutral, though the ] and most English cities favoured Parliament, while the King found considerable support in rural communities. Historians estimate that between them, both sides had only about 15,000 men{{Fact\|date=February 2007}}. However, the war quickly spread and eventually involved every level of society, throughout the ]. Many areas attempted to remain neutral, some formed bands of ] to protect their localities against the worst excesses of the armies of both sides, but most found it impossible to withstand both the King and Parliament. On one side, the King and his supporters thought that they fought for traditional government in Church and state. On the other, most supporters of the Parliamentary cause initially took up arms to defend what they thought of as the traditional balance of government in Church and state, which the bad advice the King had received from his advisers had undermined before and during the "Eleven Years' Tyranny". The views of the Members of Parliament ranged from unquestioning support of the King — at one point during the First Civil War, more members of the Commons and Lords gathered in the King's ] than at ] — through to radicals, who wanted major reforms in favour of ] and the redistribution of power at the national level.

	After the debacle at Hull, Charles moved on to ], where on ] ], he raised the ]. When he raised his standard, Charles had with him about 2,000 cavalry and a small number of Yorkshire infantry-men, and using the archaic system of a ], Charles' supporters started to build a larger army around the standard. Charles moved in a south-westerly direction, first to ], and then on to ], because the support for his cause seemed particularly strong in the ] valley area and in ].<ref>Trevor Royle ] pp 170, 183</ref> While passing through ], in what became known as the "]", he declared that he would uphold the "Protestant religion, the laws of England, and the liberty of Parliament".

	The Parliamentarians who opposed the King, had not remained passive during this pre-war period. As in the case of Kingston upon Hull they had taken measures to secure strategic towns and cities, by appointing men sympathetic to their cause, and on ] they had voted to raise an army of 10,000 volunteers, appointing ] commander three days later. He received orders "to rescue His Majesty's person, and the persons of the ]] and the ] out of the hands of those desperate persons who were about them". The ], whom Parliament appointed, used the ] to order the militia to join Essex's army.<ref>Trevor Royle ] pp 165, 161</ref>

	Two weeks after the King had raised his standard at Nottingham, Essex led his army north towards ], picking up support along the way (including a detachment of ] cavalry raised and commanded by ]). By the middle of September Essex's forces had grown to 21,000 infantry and 4200 cavalry and dragoons. On ] he moved his army to ] and then to the north of the ], a strategy which placed his army between the Royalists and London. With the size of both armies now in the tens of thousands, and only Worcestershire between them, it was inevitable that cavalry reconnaissance units would sooner or later meet. This happened in the first major skirmish of the Civil War, when a cavalry troop of about 1,000 Royalists commanded by ], a German nephew of the King and one of the outstanding cavalry commanders of the war, defeated a Parliamentary cavalry detachment under the command of Colonel ] in the ], at a bridge across the ] close to ].<ref>Trevor Royle ] pp 171-188</ref>

	]]]

	Rupert withdrew to Shrewsbury, where, a council-of-war discussed two courses of action: whether to advance towards Essex's new position near Worcester, or to march along the now opened road towards London. The Couincil decided to take the London route, but not to avoid a battle, for the Royalist generals wanted to fight Essex before he grew too strong, and the temper of both sides made it impossible to postpone the decision. In the ] words: "it was considered more counsellable to march towards London, it being morally sure that Essex would put himself in their way". Accordingly, the army left Shrewsbury on ], gaining two days' start on the enemy, and moved south-east. This had the desired effect, as it forced Essex to move to intercept them.<ref>]</ref>

	The first ] of the war, fought at ] on ] 1642, proved inconclusive, and both the Royalists and Parliamentarians claimed it as a victory. The second field action of the war, the stand-off at ], saw Charles forced to withdraw to ]. This city would serve as his base for the remainder of the war.

	In 1643 the Royalist forces won at ], and gained control of most of ]. In the Midlands, a Parliamentary force under ] besieged and captured the cathedral city of ], after the death of the original commander, Lord Brooke. This group subsequently joined forces with Sir John Brereton to fight the inconclusive ] (] ]), where the Royalist commander, the ], was killed. Subsequent battles in the west of England at ] and at ] also went to the Royalists. Prince Rupert could then take ]. In the same year, Oliver Cromwell formed his troop of "]s", a disciplined unit that demonstrated his military leadership-ability. With their assistance, he won a victory at the ] in July.

	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 ] and then brushed the Royalist army aside at the ] (] 1643), in order to return triumphantly to London. Other Parliamentarian forces won the ], giving them control of ]. Political manoeuvering to gain an advantage in numbers led Charles to negotiate a ceasefire in ], 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.

	With the help of the Scots, Parliament won at ] (] ]), gaining ] and the north of England. Cromwell's conduct in this battle proved decisive, and demonstrated his potential as both a political and an important military leader. The defeat at the ] in ], however, marked a serious reverse for Parliament in the south-west of England. Subsequent fighting around ] (] 1644), though tactically indecisive, strategically gave another check to Parliament.

	]]]

	In 1645 Parliament reaffirmed its determination to fight the war to a finish. It passed the ], by which all members of either House of Parliament laid down their commands, and re-organized its main forces into the ] ("Army"), under the command of Sir ], with Cromwell as his second-in-command and ] of Horse. In two decisive engagements — the Battles of ] on ] and of ] on ] — the Parliamentarians effectively destroyed Charles' armies.

	In the remains of his English realm Charles attempted to recover a stable base of support by consolidating the ]. He began to form an axis between Oxford and ] in Nottinghamshire. Those towns had become fortresses and showed more reliable loyalty to him than to others. He took ], which lies between them, but found his resources exhausted. Having little opportunity to replenish them, in May 1646 he sought shelter with a Scottish army at ] in Nottinghamshire. This marked the end of the First English Civil War.

	==The Second English Civil War ==
	{{Main\|Second 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 ] ]. 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<ref>
	and the
	</ref>
	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.

	In the spring of 1648 unpaid Parliamentarian troops in ] changed sides. Colonel ] defeated the Royalist rebels at the ] (]) and the rebel leaders surrendered to Cromwell on ] after the protracted two-month ]. ] defeated a Royalist uprising in Kent at the ] on ]. Fairfax, after his success at ] and the pacification of ], turned northward to reduce ], where, under their ardent, experienced and popular leader Sir ], the Royalists had taken up arms in great numbers. Fairfax soon drove the enemy into ], but his first attack on the town met with a repulse and he had to settle down to ].

	In the North of England, Major-General ] fought a very successful campaign against a number of Royalist uprisings — the largest that of Sir ] in ]. Thanks to Lambert's successes, the Scottish commander, the ], had perforce to take the western route through ] in his pro-Royalist Scottish invasion of England. The Parliamentarians under Cromwell engaged the Scots at the ] (] – ]). The battle took place largely at ] near ] in ], and resulted in a victory by the troops of Cromwell over the Royalists and Scots commanded by Hamilton. This Parliamentarian victory marked the end of the Second English Civil War.

	Nearly all the Royalists who had fought in the First Civil War had given their parole not to bear arms against the Parliament, and many honourable Royalists, like ], refused to break their word by taking any part in the second war. So the victors in the Second Civil War showed little mercy to those who had brought war into the land again. On the evening of the surrender of Colchester, Parlementarians had Sir Charles Lucas and Sir ] shot. Parlianentary authorities sentenced the leaders of the Welsh rebels, Major-General ], Colonel ] and Colonel ]<!--Some sources use Powell--> to death, but executed Poyer alone (] ]), having selected him by lot. Of five prominent Royalist peers who had fallen into the hands of Parliament, three, the Duke of Hamilton, the ], and ], one of the Colchester prisoners and a man of high character, were beheaded at Westminster on ].

	== Trial of Charles I for treason==
	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 and conducted "]" (named after the commanding officer of the operation, ]) in December 1648. Troops arrested 45 Members of Parliament (MPs) and kept 146 out of the chamber. They allowed only 75 Members in, and then only at the Army's bidding. This ] received orders to set up a high court of justice in order to try Charles I for treason in the name of the people of England.

	At the end of the trial the ] (judges) found Charles I guilty of ], as a "tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy".<ref>
	Sean Kelsey, Sean. "" '']'' 2003, Volume 118, Number 477 Pp. 583-616
	</ref><ref>
	]. '''' speech to the Anglo-Australasian Lawyers' association, on January 22 1999.
	</ref>
	His ] took place on a scaffold in front of the ] of the ] on ] ]. (After the ] in 1660, Charles II executed the surviving ]s not living in exile or sentenced them to life imprisonment.)

	==The Third English Civil War ==
	{{Main\|Third English Civil War}}

	=== Ireland===
	{{See also\|Cromwellian conquest of Ireland}}

	Ireland had known continuous war since the ], with most of the island controlled by the ]. Increasingly threatened by the armies of the English Parliament after Charles I's arrest in 1648, the Confederates signed a treaty of alliance with the English Royalists. The joint Royalist and Confederate forces under ] attempted to eliminate the Parliamentary army holding ], but their opponents routed them at the ] (] 1649). As the former Member of Parliament ] blockaded Prince Rupert's fleet in ], Oliver Cromwell could land at ] on ] ] with an army to quell the Royalist alliance in ].

	Cromwell's suppression of the Royalists in ] during 1649 still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. After the ], the massacre of nearly 3,500 people — comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests — became one of the historical memories that has driven Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife during the last three centuries. However, the massacre has significance mainly as a symbol of the Irish perception of Cromwellian cruelty, as far more people died in the subsequent ] and scorched-earth fighting in the country than at infamous massacres such as Drogheda and ]. The ] conquest of Ireland ground on for another four years until 1653, when the last ] and Royalist troops surrendered. Historians have estimated{{Fact\|date=September 2007}} that up to 30% of Ireland's population either died or had gone into exile by the end of the wars. The victors confiscated almost all Irish Catholic-owned land in the wake of the conquest and distributed it to the Parliament's creditors, to the Parliamentary soldiers who served in Ireland, and to English people who had settled there before the war.

	===Scotland ===
	{{See also\|Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms#Montrose's defeat and death\|Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms#Third Civil War}}

	The execution of ] altered the dynamics of the ], which had raged between Royalists and ] since 1644. By 1649, the struggle had left the Royalists there in disarray and their erstwhile leader, the ], had gone into exile. At first, ] encouraged Montrose to raise a Highland army to fight on the Royalist side. However, when the Scottish Covenanters (who did not agree with the execution of Charles I and who feared for the future of ] and Scottish independence under the new ]) offered him the crown of Scotland, Charles abandoned Montrose to his enemies. However, Montrose, who had raised a ] force in ], had already landed and could not abandon the fight. He did not succeed in raising many Highland clans and the Covenanters defeated his army at the ] in ] on ] ]. The victors captured Montrose shortly afterwards and took him to ]. On ] the Scottish Parliament sentenced him to death and had him hanged the next day.

	]

	Charles II landed in Scotland at ] in ] on ] ] and signed the ] ] and the ] ] immediately after coming ashore. With his original Scottish Royalist followers and his new Covenanter 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 ] ] and proceeded to lay siege to Edinburgh. By the end of August disease and a shortage of supplies had reduced his army, and he had to order a retreat towards his base at ]. A Scottish army, assembled under the command of ], tried to block the retreat, but Cromwell defeated them at the ] on ]. 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's forces crossed the ] into ] and defeated the Scots at the ] (] 1651). The New Model Army advanced towards ], which allowed Charles, at the head of the Scottish army, to move south into England. Cromwell followed Charles into England, leaving ] to finish the campaign in Scotland. Monck took ] on ] and ] on ]. The next year, 1652, saw the mopping up of the remnants of Royalist resistance, and under the terms of the "]", the Scots received 30 seats in a united Parliament in London, with General Monck appointed as the military governor of Scotland.

	===England===
	Although Cromwell's New Model Army had defeated a Scottish army at Dunbar, Cromwell could not prevent Charles II from marching from Scotland deep into England at the head of another Royalist army. The Royalists marched to the west of England because English Royalist sympathies were strongest in that area, but although some English Royalists joined the army, they came in far fewer numbers than Charles and his Scottish supporters had hoped. Cromwell finally engaged the new king at ] on ] ], and defeated him. ], via safe houses and a famous ], to France, ending the civil wars.

	==Political control==
	During the course of the Wars the Parliamentarians established a number of successive committees to oversee the war-effort. The first of these, the ], set up in July 1642, comprised 15 Members of Parliament.

	Following the ]-] alliance against the Royalists, the ] replaced the Committee of Safety between 1644 and 1648. Parliament dissolved the Committee of Both Kingdoms when the alliance ended, but its English members continued to meet and became known as the ]. A second Committee of Safety then replaced that committee.

	==Casualties ==
	As usual in wars of this era, disease caused more deaths than combat. Matthew White cites a number of sources which give a range for the deaths in the British Isles (IONA) from 1641 to 1652. For England and Wales and Scotland, White uses two sources for the number of deaths resulting from the war, and these range between 100,000 and 150,000. Two sources give a range of battle-deaths, the first source gives 84,830 killed in England and Wales and another 27,895 in Scotland; another source states that a total of 50,500 died in battle. White uses more sources for the Irish conflict, where warfare continued for longer than in England and Wales. The total number of people who died because of warfare in Ireland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms ranges from less than 300,000 up to 618,000. Only one source gives battle-losses, and these total 5,500 between 1649 and 1652.<ref>
	Matthew White
	</ref>

	== Aftermath==
	The wars left England, Scotland and Ireland amongst the few countries in Europe without a monarch. In the wake of victory, many of the ideals (and many of the idealists) became sidelined. The republican government of the ] ruled England (and later all of Scotland and Ireland) from 1649 to 1653 and from 1659 to 1660. Between the two periods, and due to in-fighting amongst various factions in Parliament, ] ruled over ] as ] (effectively a military ]) until his death in 1658.

	Upon his death, Oliver Cromwell's son ] 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. However, since the Rump Parliament acted as though nothing had changed since 1653 and as if it could treat the Army as it liked, military force shortly afterwards dissolved this too. After the second dissolution of the Rump, in October 1659, the prospect of a total descent into anarchy loomed as the Army's pretence of unity finally dissolved into factions.

	Into this atmosphere General ], Governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched south with his army from Scotland. On ] ], in the ], ] made known the conditions of his acceptance of the Crown of England. Monck organised the ], which met for the first time on ]. On ] 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 ]. On ], the populace in London acclaimed him as king. His coronation took place at ] on ] ]. These events became known as the '']''.

	As they resulted in the restoration of the monarchy with the consent of Parliament, the civil wars effectively set England and Scotland on course to adopt a ] form of government. This system would result in the outcome that the future ], formed in 1707 under the ], would avoid participation in the European republican movements that followed the ] revolution in ] France and the later success of ]. Specifically, future monarchs became wary of pushing Parliament too hard, and Parliament effectively chose the line of royal succession in 1688 with the ] and in the ] ]. After the ], Parliament's factions became ] (later becoming the ] and ]) with competing views and varying abilities to influence the decisions of their monarchs.

	==Theories relating to the English Civil War ==
	Throughout the greater part of the ], two schools of thought dominated theoretical explanations of the Civil War: the "Whigs" and the ]s. Both of them explained the English seventeenth century in terms of long-term trends.

	Whigs explained the Civil War as the result of a centuries-long struggle between Parliament (especially the House of Commons) and the monarchy. According to this school of thought, Parliament fought to defend the traditional rights of Englishmen, while the monarchy attempted on every occasion to expand its right to dictate law arbitrarily. The most important Whig historian, ], popularized the idea of describing the civil war as a 'Puritan Revolution' which challenged the repressive nature of the Stuart church and paved the way for the ] of the Restoration. Puritanism, in this view, became the natural ally of a people seeking to preserve their traditional rights against the arbitrary power of the monarchy.

	The Marxist school of thought, which became popular in the 1940s, interpreted the Civil War as a ] ]. In the words of ], "the Civil War was a class war". On the side of reaction stood the ] and its ally, the ]. On the other side stood (again according to Hill) "the trading and industrial classes in town and countryside. . . the yeomen and progressive gentry, and. . . wider masses of the population whenever they were able by free discussion to understand what the struggle was really about". The Civil War occurred at the point in English history at which the wealthy ]es, already a powerful force in society, liquidated the outmoded medieval system of English government. Like the Whigs, the Marxists found a place for the role of religion in their account. Puritanism as a moral system ideally suited the bourgeois class, and so the Marxists identified Puritans as inherently bourgeois.

	Beginning in the 1970s, a new generation of historians began mounting challenges to the Marxist and Whig theories. This began with the publication in 1973 of the anthology '']'' (edited by ]). These historians disliked the way that Marxists and Whigs explained the Civil War in terms of long-term trends in English society. The new historians called for (and began producing) studies which focussed on the minute particulars of the years immediately preceding the war, thus returning in some ways to the sort of contingency-based historiography of ]'s famous contemporary history of the Civil War. As a result, they have demonstrated that the pattern of allegiances in the war did not fit the theories of Whig or Marxist historians. Puritans, for example, did not necessarily ally themselves with Parliamentarians, and many of them did not identify as bourgeois; many bourgeois fought on the side of the King; many landed aristocrats supported Parliament.

	The new generation of historians (commonly called 'Revisionists') have discredited large sections of the Whig and Marxist interpretations of the war. Many of these historians (such as ]) have discarded the title "English Civil War" and replaced it with the "Wars of the Three Kingdoms" or even the geographically arguable but politically incorrect "British Civil Wars". This forms part of a wider trend in British history towards the study of the whole of the ] (]). This trend reacts against what its proponents perceive as 'Anglocentric' history, which concentrates on England and ignores or marginalizes other parts of the British Isles. These revisionist historians argue that one cannot fully understand the English Civil War in isolation; it needs to stand as just one conflict in a series of interlocking conflicts throughout the British Isles. They see the causes of the war as a consequence arising from one king, Charles I, ruling over multiple kingdoms. For example, the wars unfolded when Charles I tried to impose an Anglican prayer book on Scotland; when the Scots resisted he declared war on them, but had to raise heavy taxes in England to pay for campaigning, which triggered the Civil War in England.

	==Re-enactments ==
	Two large historical societies exist, ] and ], which regularly ] events and battles of the Civil War in full period costume.

	== See also==
	* ]
	* ], ], ], ] and ]
	* ] for a defining event in European history during the reign of Charles I.
	<!-- * ] --Needs a source that the Tyne-Wear rivalry is partially based on the Civil War and not just on FTM -->

	==References ==
	* Royal, Trevor; "Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660"; Pub Abacus 2006; (first published 2004); ISBN 978-0-349-11564-1

	==Further reading==
	*
	* {{PDFlink\|\|103 ]<!-- application/pdf, 105574 bytes -->}} by Brandon W Duke
	*
	*
	*

	==Footnotes ==
	<references/>

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Revision as of 00:33, 10 September 2007

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