History UsefulNotes / EnglishCivilWar

Furthermore, 'a lot'' of it was about religion, in particular the British variants on the controversies and struggles that embroiled Europe in the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, which means that it has also been considered an appendage of the continental Wars of Religion. However, unlike the continental wars, this conflict was primarily a struggle within Protestantism rather than being between Catholics and Protestants. While there were a few overtly Catholic factions (particularly in Ireland), they never stood a chance for cultural and historical/path-dependency reasons, so the axis of religious conflict was between Catholicising Protestants who wanted more ritual in the liturgy and a Catholic-like episcopal church polity and more committed Reformed Protestants who advocated a more stripped-down liturgy and a presbyterian or even congregationalist polity. There was also a further dispute between those who believed that the power of the state should be used to ensure religious uniformity and those who called for freedom of (Protestant Christian) worship; while this disagreement was theoretically orthogonal to the Catholiciser-versus-Reformer axis of debate, the supporters of freedom of worship tended in practice to be on the far Reforming end of the other one.

But the Scottish Covenanters were now occupying most of Northern England and still needed paying. Twice. So Charles reluctantly called Parliament again, and ''this'' time it was a doozy. Parliament held him to ransom, forcing him to sign all sorts of legislation guaranteeing that England would remain Protestant, making it illegal for the King to levy taxes himself, giving Parliament control over who advised the King, and finally, forbidding the King from summarily dissolving Parliament while specifying that it would meet at regular intervals whether called or not. This ''Long Parliament'' had one of the King's favourites put to death for treason, which caused chaos in Ireland as Catholics there feared there was about to be a Puritan purge of Catholics, thus triggering the '''Irish Rebellion''', by which Irish Catholics tried to seize control of the English-run administration of Ireland; althouhg they professed loyalty to the king, Charles himself condemned the rebellion -- which quickly led to brutal fighting between Irish Catholics and Protestant settlers from England and Scotland, marked by atrocities committed by both sides.

It wasn't, however, until Charles tried to get the English church system -- and in particular impose episcopal church governance -- on Scotland (which he was also king of) that it all kicked off. The Church of Scotland was (and remains to this day) Reformed (i.e. thoroughly Protestant--and specifically Calvinist--in doctrine) and Presbyterian (i.e. run as a kind of federal republic, with elected boards running individual parishes and sending delegates to assemblies that ran the regional and national Church on a quasi-democratic basis), thanks in part to the influence of one John Knox, who had been a disciple of Calvin in Geneva. The Scots rose up against him in a conflict known as the ''Bishops' Wars'' and captured Newcastle. Charles was in the unique position of paying both sets of troops: he was king of Scotland and England and they appeared to be at war with each other. He called Parliament to get them to vote him some money. Parliament took the opportunity to give him a good ticking-off, so he promptly dissolved it again a few weeks later - hence why it's called ''The Short Parliament''.

But the Scots were now occupying most of Northern England and still needed paying. Twice. So Charles reluctantly called Parliament again, and ''this'' time it was a doozy. Parliament held him to ransom, forcing him to sign all sorts of legislation guaranteeing England would remain Protestant, making it illegal for the King to levy taxes himself, giving Parliament control over who advised the King, and finally, forbidding the King from summarily dissolving Parliament while specifying that it would meet at regular intervals whether called or not. This ''Long Parliament'' had one of the King's favourites put to death for treason, which caused chaos in Ireland as Catholics there feared there was about to be a Puritan purge of Catholics.

The King reacted by having his men storm Parliament and try to arrest five [=MPs=] for treason. When the Speaker of the House refused to co-operate, he realised that he'd lost the loyalty of the House of Commons and fled London.[[note]]As a result of this, the monarch is ''still'' banned from entering the Commons chamber, and the monarch's representative is only allowed to enter to invite the [=MPs=] to the King's[=/=]Queen's Speech (which is always held in the Lords' chamber) after having the door slammed in his face, after which he must knock on the door and be granted permission to come in. It's become one of those odd traditions Brits seem so fond of. The monarch's representative is titled as the Gentleman (or Lady) Usher of the Black Rod, and the position has generally been given to a retired senior military officer since the 1830s. Aside from these ceremonial roles, Black Rod essentially serves as the senior facilities manager for Westminster and the House of Lords.[[/note]]

The New Model Army soundly thrashed the Royalist forces at Naseby on 14 June and Langport on 10 July and the game was up. Charles tried to set up a new power base but eventually sought refuge with some "friendly" Scots in May 1646, who promptly handed him over to the Parliamentary forces, and he was imprisoned.

Well, calling it the ''English'' Civil War isn't exactly accurate for a start. At this point, Scotland was still a separate kingdom (remaining so until the Act of Union of 1707), as was Ireland (remaining so until the Act of Union of 1801) — they just happened to share the same monarch as England, King Charles I having inherited all three crowns from his father [[note]] who had started out as James VI of Scotland but became James I of England after the death of his cousin, UsefulNotes/ElizabethI; from her he also inherited the Irish crown, as the English monarch had also been the Irish monarch since the days of her father, UsefulNotes/HenryVIII [[/note]]. For this reason it has more recently been called the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, or even (albeit much more rarely) the Wars of the Five Kingdoms, factoring in Wales and Cornwall [[note]]a principality and a duchy respectively, both held by the heir to the English throne. While both had been to all intents and purposes politically integrated into England by Charles I's time, Wales still had a very strong national identity, sufficiently strong that [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor the Tudors]] had felt it worth emphasising their Welsh ancestry. Cornwall also had a strong identity in those days; Italian historian Polydore Vergil remarked a hundred years before that the Cornish were effectively a people, if not a nation, apart, and numerous diplomats in the 16th and 17th centuries concurred with, placing them equivalent to the Welsh and the English in terms of ethnic groups. While they'd taken a hit after an unwise rebellion against the Crown during the Reformation (the Cornish language was restricted to the far west of Cornwall), they still retained a significant sense of identity.[[/note]] On the other ''other'' hand, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland were definitely under the political control or at least domination of the English, and England was by far the wealthiest and most populous of the British lands, and thus the biggest, most well-equipped armies (and consequently the heaviest fighting and most decisive battles) were in England. In short, the English Civil War was the largest part, like England was the largest part of Britain, but it was by no means the only part. As a result, more recently the wars have been dubbed the British Civil Wars.

It wasn't, however, until Charles tried to get the English church system -- and in particular impose episcopal church governance -- on Scotland (which he was also king of) that it all kicked off. The Church of Scotland was (and remains to this day) Reformed (i.e. thoroughly Protestant--and specifically Calvinist--in doctrine) and Presbyterian (i.e. run as a kind of federal republic, with elected boards running individual parishes and sending delegates to assemblies that ran the regional and national Church on a quasi-democratic basis), thanks in part to the influence of one John Knox, who had been a disciple of Calvin in Geneva. The Scots rose up against him and captured Newcastle. Charles was in the unique position of paying both sets of troops: he was king of Scotland and England and they appeared to be at war with each other. He called Parliament to get them to vote him some money. Parliament took the opportunity to give him a good ticking-off, so he promptly dissolved it again a few weeks later - hence why it's called ''The Short Parliament''.

The King reacted by having his men storm Parliament and try to arrest five [=MPs=] for treason. When the Speaker of the House refused to co-operate, he realised that he'd lost the loyalty of the House of Commons and fled London.[[note]]As a result of this, the monarch is ''still'' banned from entering the Commons chamber, and the monarch's representative is only allowed to enter to invite the [=MPs=] to the King's[=/=]Queen's Speech (which is always held in the Lords' chamber) after having the door slammed in his face, after which he must knock on the door and be granted permission to come in. It's become one of those odd traditions Brits seem so fond of. The monarch's representative is titled as the Gentleman (or Lady) Usher of the Black Rod, and the position has generally been given to a retired senior military officer since the 1830s. Aside from these ceremonial roles the Black Rod essentially serves as the senior facilities manager for Westminster and the House of Lords.[[/note]]

During 1642, cities and towns began declaring their allegiance either to King or to Parliament. Charles headed for the northern port of Hull to secure supplies of arms left over from the war with Scotland, but Hull declared for Parliament and locked the gates. Charles retreated to Nottingham and raised his Royal Standard - a symbolic act calling men to fight for their King and effectively declaring war on his own Parliament. He started to move through the countryside, again using archaic laws to recruit men, and promised to uphold the liberties of Parliament and the Protestant religion.

The English Civil War, also known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.[[note]]No, ''[[NamesTheSame not]]'' the war retold by ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. The three "kingdoms" in question are England, Scotland and Ireland ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Wales always gets shafted]]).[[/note]] Cromwell and Puritans, Roundheads and Cavaliers. Families divided against themselves. The King beheaded. Witchfinders-General.

Well, calling it the English Civil War isn't exactly accurate for a start. At this point, Scotland was still an independent kingdom (remaining so until the Act of Union of 1707) — as was Ireland (remaining so until the Act of Union of 1801) — they just happened to share the same monarch as England. For this reason it has more recently been called the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, or even (albeit much more rarely) the Wars of the Five Kingdoms, factoring in Wales and Cornwall.[[note]]While both had been politically integrated into England, Wales still had a very strong national identity, sufficiently strong that Henry VII had felt that it was worth emphasising his Welsh ancestry to raise support for his successful bid for the throne. Cornwall also had a strong identity in those days; Italian historian Polydore Vergil remarked a hundred years before that the Cornish were effectively a people, if not a nation, apart, and numerous diplomats in the 16th and 17th centuries concurred with, placing them equivalent to the Welsh and the English in terms of ethnic groups. While they'd taken a hit after an unwise rebellion against the Crown during the Reformation (the Cornish language was restricted to the far west of Cornwall), they still retained a significant sense of identity.[[/note]] On the other ''other'' hand, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland were definitely under the political control or at least domination of the English, and England was by far the wealthiest and most populous of the British lands, and thus biggest, most well-equipped armies (and consequently the heaviest fighting and most decisive battles) were in England. In short, the English Civil War was the largest part, like England was the largest part of Britain, but it was by no means the only part. As a result, more recently the wars have been dubbed the British Civil Wars.

Moreover, some commentators have noted that calling the conflict a "civil war" rather undersells the vast social and political changes it wrought across the kingdoms. Even though it did [[FullCircleRevolution end up with a Stuart monarch sitting on the throne of all three kingdoms]] with few ''official'' changes to the structure of government, the way the British peoples viewed themselves, their relationship with their governments, and their relationship with each other were indelibly changed. Thus while the principle of parliamentary supremacy was not formally established until 1688--fully 37 years after the end of the fighting and 28 years after the Restoration--astute observers suspected from the very day in 1661 that Charles II was crowned at Westminster that the power of the monarchy had been fatally weakened, and that the (Protestant) British peoples had gained the confidence to assert civil, political, and social rights against the power of the Crown and the state. Moreover, the interrelated nature of the conflicts and causes of conflict increasingly led the (again, Protestant) inhabitants of the British Isles to the suspicion that the fates of their peoples were thoroughly entwined with each other--or perhaps more to the point, that everyone's fate was thoroughly entangled with the fate of England. As a result, some have argued the events are more accurately described as the English or British Revolution.

Furthermore, a lot of it was about religion, British variants on the controversies and struggles that embroiled Europe in the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, which means that it has also been considered an appendage of the continental Wars of Religion. However, unlike the continental wars, this conflict was primarily a struggle within Protestantism rather than being between Catholics and Protestants. While there were a few overtly Catholic factions (particularly in Ireland), they never stood a chance for cultural and historical/path-dependency reasons, so the axis of religious conflict was between Catholicising Protestants who wanted more ritual in the liturgy and a Catholic-like episcopal church polity and more committed Reformed Protestants who advocated a more stripped-down liturgy and a presbyterian or even congregationalist polity. There was also a further dispute between those who believed that the power of the state should be used to ensure religious uniformity and those who called for freedom of (Protestant Christian) worship; while this disagreement was theoretically orthogonal to the Catholiciser-versus-Reformer axis of debate, the supporters of freedom of worship tended in practice to be on the far Reforming end of the other one.

As for England, for centuries there had been tensions in England between the Monarchy and Parliament, both of whom saw themselves as being the rightful rulers of the country. Kings and Queens had the right to call and dismiss Parliament, but couldn't govern without it as it was Parliament that granted them the money they needed to do things--the English nobles and rich commoners having gotten it into their heads that taxes are a gift from the people to the king in gratitude for doing his job right,[[note]]Of course, this didn't keep the nobles and rich commoners from voting to "gift" other people's money rather than their own.[[/note]] rather than money taken by the king because he could--and kept the nobles happy and stopped them overthrowing the Monarch.[[note]]Yes, this sounds like the liberal social contract theory that wouldn't really pop up until about halfway through the Civil War, but the idea that taxes are the people's gift to the state is documented to have been well established by the Tudor period, and are arguably the historical origin of the very English contractual view of government, rather than the other way 'round.[[/note]] Well, mostly, anyway.

He also tried to impose his own idea of what the Church of England should look like. The Church of England was in effect a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism: its structure and ceremonies were essentially Catholic, with priests reporting to bishops and so on, just with the monarch in place of the Pope, but to the extent it had solid doctrines (a lot was left rather vague), they were Protestant. Protestant mind, Catholic body and clothing, basically. Charles had turned the ritual up to eleven, and a lot of ordinary people (like Members of Parliament or [=MP=]s) were afraid that he was winding up for a full re-Catholicisation of the church.

It wasn't, however, until Charles tried to get the English church system--and in particular impose episcopal church governance--on Scotland (which he was also king of) that it all kicked off. The Church of Scotland was (and remains to this day) Reformed (i.e. thoroughly Protestant--and specifically Calvinist--in doctrine) and Presbyterian (i.e. run as a kind of federal republic, with elected boards running individual parishes and sending delegates to assemblies that ran the regional and national Church on a quasi-democratic basis), thanks in part to the influence of one John Knox, who had been a disciple of Calvin in Geneva. The Scots rose up against him and captured Newcastle. Charles was in the unique position of paying both sets of troops: he was king of Scotland and England and they appeared to be at war with each other. He called Parliament to get them to vote him some money. Parliament took the opportunity to give him a good ticking-off, so he promptly dissolved it again a few weeks later - hence why it's called ''The Short Parliament''.

Heading into 1644, the kingdom's second city of York, a Royalist stronghold, came under siege for most of the year and a Royalist army sent to relieve the city was intercepted and defeated at the Battle of Marston Moor, in which a junior cavalry commander called UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell distinguished himself for the Parliament side. However, the Battle of Lostwitheil in Cornwall and the Second Battle of Newbury were both Parliamentarian defeats, and it was clear that something had to be done.

In 1645, Parliament came up with a radical idea. It passed a law called the ''Self-Denying Ordinance'', forcing all its generals to resign and drastically reorganising the army. Instead of a series of semi-private militias trained and equipped by local bigwigs, the ''New Model Army'' would be centrally-organised, issued with uniforms and given officers with genuine experience and ability rather than merely the means to buy a commission. The commander of this new army would be Sir Thomas Fairfax, and his second-in-command was that man UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell. The New Model Army is the direct ancestor of the modern British Army, which is why it's not called the Royal Army (as opposed to the Royal Navy, Marines, and Air Force).

Parliament was now divided on what to do next. Some supported the idea of trying the King for treason as he had made war on his own people. Others were horrified at this idea. Eventually, the New Model Army settled matters by marching on Parliament and taking over, arresting 45 [=MPs=] and keeping another 145 out of the chamber in what is called Pride's Purge (after the Colonel who oversaw the operation). Those who were left - the ''Rump Parliament'' - were ordered to set up a court to try King Charles. He was found guilty and executed on 30 January 1649 by beheading. The monarchy was then abolished and a Republic was set up, called the Commonwealth Of England, with a governing council leading the Rump Parliament. It also introduced England's first written constitution - the 'Instrument of Government'.

Oliver Cromwell paused briefly in his conquest of Ireland to nip over and beat the Scots at Dunbar and Inverkeithing. Leaving the army with General Monck to finish conquering Scotland, he headed South to engage the King's army which had slipped into England and was heading for the old Royalist strongholds in the Southwest. Cromwell finally engaged Charles II's army at Worcester in September 1651 and defeated him. The king escaped, famously hiding in an oak tree to escape his pursuers at one point, and fled to France.

Cromwell then returned to England, declared that the Rump Parliament wasn't doing any good at all, made a famous speech declaring "You have been sitting too long for all the good you are doing. In the name of God, go!"[[note]]Famously quoted by Leo Amery in 1940 during the debate over the British debacle in Norway that led to the fall of UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain[[/note]]. Parliament, anxious for a new powerful figure to fill the vacuum left by the monarchy, offered Cromwell the crown. He agonised over whether to accept for around two weeks before deciding that God had judged monarchy and so compromised by accepting the position of Head of State as "Lord Protector" of the Commonwealth in 1653 - an early form of "President for Life". This office had all the powers of the former King but was officially appointed by Parliament, the Protector also had the right to nominate a successor. As if that wasn't enough, he was also "enthroned" in a lavish ceremony, given the monarchical style of address "His Highness" and the abolished House of Lords was restored, in fact if not in name, as a second house of Parliament. Many republicans regarded this as far too similar to the old government of "King, Lords and Commons" and turned against Cromwell, but others believed the new regime was essential to fill the power vacuum left by the removal of the King and continued the English revolution in spirit, since Parliamentary support was officially required by the Lord Protector rather than divine right, and the state remained constitutionally republican.

Under the "Protectorate", England (including Wales), Scotland and Ireland were politically united for the first time in Britain's history.

James II was exiled to France. His supporters, who disagreed with the idea of Parliamentary supremacy and what they saw a a blatant breaking of the legitimate line to the throne, became "Jacobites" and made two serious attempts to restore the Stuarts in the 18th century. James II's descendants died out in exile in the early 19th century and the "claim" passed to a Sardinian King who did not acknowledge it, essentially extinguishing Jacobitism as a political force.[[note]]The current generally-recognised Stuart-descended claimant to the British throne is Franz, Duke of Bavaria, who according to a spokesman does not take any public position on his relationship to the House of Stuart.[[/note]]

He also tried to impose his own idea of what the Church of England should look like. The Church of England was in effect a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism: its structure and ceremonies were essentially Catholic, with priests reporting to bishops and so on, just with the monarch in place of the Pope, but to the extent it had solid doctrines (a lot was left rather vague), they were Protestant. Protestant mind, Catholic body and clothing, basically. Charles had turned the ritual UpToEleven, and a lot of ordinary people (like Members of Parliament or [=MP=]s) were afraid that he was winding up for a full re-Catholicisation of the church.

In the Spring of 1660, General Monck who had been the Cromwellian governor of Scotland, marched south with his troops to sort things out. He called a new Parliament, the ''Convention Parliament'', which agreed to invite Charles II to come and take up the throne. The monarchy was officially restored in May 1660 and, although assuring people that he would respect the will of Parliament, Charles II was a believer in the "divine right" of Kings, like his father. Charles was something of a playboy and seems to have been popular with ordinary people; despite this, the restored Royalist regime was unable to pacify the politically troubled country and there was considerable friction between the new King and his Parliament. This came to a head over the question of the succession of his openly Catholic brother, James, and came close to igniting another civil war. Charles II used his powers as monarch to frustrate Parliament's attempts to pass a bill which would outlaw his brothers succession and eventually dismissed the body, ruling as an absolute monarch.

The English Civil War, also known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms[[note]]No, ''[[NamesTheSame not]]'' the war retold by ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. The three "kingdoms" in question are England, Scotland and Ireland ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Wales always gets shafted]]).[[/note]] Cromwell and Puritans, Roundheads and Cavaliers. Families divided against themselves. The King beheaded. Witchfinders-General.

* ''Podcast/{{Revolutions}}'': The very first season of this podcast by Creator/MikeDuncan is about this conflict, which he is quite explicit about regarding as an "English Revolution" or "British Revolution". On the whole, Season 1 of ''Revolutions'' is a good primer on this revolution, and Duncan (as is his wont) has made it easy to find his sources for listeners eager to read more.

[[caption-width-right:350:The Poodles of War--excuse us, [[YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe Pudels of Warre]]--are about to be unleashed.]]

Furthermore, a lot of it was about religion, British variants on the controversies and struggles that embroiled Europe in the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, which means that it has also been considered an appendage of the continental Wars of Religion. However, unlike the continental wars, this conflict was primarily a struggle within Protestantism rather than being between Catholics and Protestants. While there were a few overtly Catholic factions (particularly in Ireland), they never stood a chance for cultural and historical/path-dependency reasons, so the axis of religious conflict was between Catholicising Protestants who wanted more ritual in the liturgy and a Catholic-like episcopal church polity and more committed Reformed Protestants who advocated a more stripped-down liturgy and a presbyterian or even congregationalist polity. There was also a further dispute between those who believed that the power of the state should be used to ensure religious uniformity and those who called for freedom of (Protestant Christian) worship; while this disagreement was essentially orthogonal to the Catholiciser-versus-Reformer axis of debate, the supporters of freedom of worship tended in practice to be on the far Reforming end of the other one.

Furthermore, a lot of it was about religion, British variants on the controversies and struggles that embroiled Europe in the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, which means that it has also been considered an appendage of the continental Wars of Religion. However, unlike the continental wars, this conflict was primarily a struggle within Protestantism rather than being between Catholics and Protestants. While there were a few overtly Catholic factions (particularly in Ireland), they never stood a chance for cultural and historical/path-dependency reasons, so the axis of religious conflict was between Catholicising Protestants who wanted more ritual in the liturgy and a Catholic-like episcopal church polity and more committed Reformed Protestants who advocated a more stripped-down liturgy and a presbyterian or even congregationalist polity.

Moreover, some commentators have noted that calling the conflict a "civil war" rather undersells the vast social and political changes it wrought across the kingdoms. Even though it did [[FullCircleRevolution end up with a Stuart monarch sitting on the throne of all three kingdoms]] with few ''official'' changes to the structure of government, the way the British peoples viewed themselves, their relationship with their governments, and their relationship with each other were indelibly changed. Thus while the principle of parliamentary supremacy was not formally established until 1688--fully 37 years after the end of the fighting and 28 years after the Restoration--astute observers suspected from the very day in 1661 that Charles II was crowned at Westminster that the power of the monarchy had been fatally weakened, and that the (Protestant) British peoples had gained the confidence to assert civil, political, and social rights against the power of the state. Moreover, the interrelated nature of the conflicts and causes of conflict increasingly led the (again, Protestant) inhabitants of the British Isles to the suspicion that the fates of their peoples were thoroughly entwined with each other--or perhaps more to the point, that everyone's fate was thoroughly entangled with the fate of England. As a result, some have argued the events are more accurately described as the English or British Revolution.

Furthermore, a lot of it was about religion, British variants on the controversies and struggles that embroiled Europe in the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, which means that it has also been considered an appendage of the continental Wars of Religion. However, unlike the continental wars, this conflict was primarily a conflict within Protestantism rather than being between Catholics and Protestants. While there were a few overtly Catholic factions (particularly in Ireland), they never stood a chance for cultural and historical/path-dependency reasons, so the axis of religious conflict was between Catholicising Protestants who wanted more ritual in the liturgy and a Catholic-like episcopal church polity and more committed Reformed Protestants who advocated a more stripped-down liturgy and a presbyterian or even congregationalist polity.

Furthermore, a lot of it was about religion, British variants on the controversies and struggles that embroiled Europe in the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, which means that it has also been considered an appendage of the continental Wars of Religion. However, unlike the continental wars, this conflict was primarily a conflict within Protestantism. The overtly Catholic factions never stood a chance for cultural and historical/path-dependency reasons, so the axis of religious conflict was between Catholicising Protestants who wanted more ritual in the liturgy and a Catholic-like episcopal church polity and more committed Reformed Protestants who advocated a more stripped-down liturgy and a presbyterian or even congregationalist polity.

Furthermore, a lot of it was about religion, British variants on the controversies and struggles that embroiled Europe in the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, which means that it has also been considered an appendage of the continental Wars of Religion.

!!Depictions in fiction

* ''Literature/TwentyYearsAfter'': The musketeers see the tail end of the second war, attempting to rescue the king at the request of his wife.

Moreover, some commentators have noted that calling the conflict a "civil war" rather undersells the vast social and political changes it wrought across the kingdoms. Even though it did [[FullCircleRevolution end up with a Stuart monarch sitting on the throne of all three kingdoms]] with few ''official'' changes to the structure of government, the way the British peoples viewed themselves, their relationship with their governments, and their relationship with each other were indelibly changed. Thus while the principle of parliamentary supremacy was not formally established until 1688--fully 37 years after the end of the fighting and 28 years after the Restoration--astute observers suspected from the very day Charles II was crowned at Westminster that the power of the monarchy had been fatally weakened, and that the (Protestant) British peoples had gained the confidence to assert civil, political, and social rights against the power of the state. Moreover, the interrelated nature of the conflicts and causes of conflict increasingly led the (again, Protestant) inhabitants of the British Isles to the suspicion that the fates of their peoples were thoroughly entwined with each other--or perhaps more to the point, that everyone's fate was thoroughly entangled with the fate of England. As a result, some have argued the events are more accurately described as the English or British Revolution.

Moreover, some commentators have noted that calling the conflict a "civil war" rather undersells the vast social and political changes it wrought across the kingdoms. Even though it did [[FullCircleRevolution end up with a Stuart monarch sitting on the throne of all three kingdoms]] with few ''official'' changes to the structure of government, the way the British peoples viewed themselves, their relationship with their governments, and their relationship with each other were indelibly changed. Thus while the principle of parliamentary supremacy was not formally established until 1688--fully 37 years after the end of the fighting and 28 years after the Restoration--astute observers suspected that the power of the monarchy had been fatally weakened, and that the (Protestant) British peoples had gained the confidence to assert civil, political, and social rights against the power of the state. Moreover, the interrelated nature of the conflicts and causes of conflict increasingly led the (again, Protestant) inhabitants of the British Isles to the suspicion that the fates of their peoples were thoroughly entwined with each other--or perhaps more to the point, that everyone's fate was thoroughly entangled with the fate of England. As a result, some have argued the events are more accurately described as the English or British Revolution.

Moreover, some commentators have noted that calling the conflict a "civil war" rather undersells the vast social and political changes it wrought across the kingdoms. Even though it did [[FullCircleRevolution end up with a Stuart monarch sitting on the throne of all three kingdoms]] with few ''official'' changes to the structure of government, the way the British peoples viewed themselves, their relationship with their governments, and their relationship with each other were indelibly changed. Thus while the principle of parliamentary supremacy was not formally established until 1688--fully 37 years after the end of the fighting and 28 years after the Restoration--astute observers suspected that the power of the monarchy had been fatally weakened, and that the (Protestant) British peoples had gained the confidence to assert civil, political, and social rights against the power of the state. Moreover, the interrelated nature of the conflicts and causes of conflict increasingly led the (again, Protestant) inhabitants of the British Isles to the suspicion that the fates of their peoples were thoroughly entwined with each other. As a result, some have argued the events are more accurately described as the English or British Revolution.

Moreover, some commentators have noted that calling the conflict a "civil war" rather undersells the vast social and political changes it wrought across the kingdoms. Even though it did [[FullCircleRevolution end up with a Stuart monarch sitting on the throne of all three kingdoms]] with few ''official'' changes to the structure of government, the way the British peoples viewed themselves, their relationship with their governments, and their relationship with each other were indelibly changed. Thus while the principle of parliamentary supremacy was not formally established until 1688--fully 37 years after the end of the fighting and 28 years after the Restoration--astute observers suspected that the power of the monarchy had been fatally weakened, and that the (Protestant) British peoples had gained the confidence to assert civil, political, and social rights against the power of the state. As a result, some have argued the events are more accurately described as the English or British Revolution.

Moreover, some commentators have noted that calling the conflict a "civil war" rather undersells the vast social and political changes it wrought across the kingdoms. Even though it did [[FullCircleRevolution end up with a Stuart monarch sitting on the throne of all three kingdoms]] with few ''official'' changes to the structure of government, the way the British peoples viewed themselves, their relationship with their governments, and their relationship with each other were indelibly changed. Thus while the principle of parliamentary supremacy was not formally established until 1688--fully 37 years after the end of the fighting and 28 years after the Restoration--astute observers suspected that the power of the monarchy had been fatally weakened, and that the (Protestant) British peoples had gained the confidence to assert civil, political, and social rights. As a result, some have argued the events are more accurately described as the English or British Revolution.

* ''Literature/TwentyYearsAfter'': The musketeers see the tail end of the second war, attempting to rescue the king at the request of his wife.

!!Tropes

* AgentPeacock: Prince Rupert of the Rhine, famously.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: Prince Rupert of the Rhine
* BadassArmy: The New Model Army tore the cavaliers to pieces.
* BadassBandolier: Musketeers on all sides wore a "Collar of Bandoliers" from which hung boxes of ammunition- the leather strap was known as a collar, and the individual powder boxes were known as bandoliers. "Bandolier" is nowadays the word for the collar, making this a particularly unique case. They're also known as Apostles, stemming from the fact that ammunition was issued by weight, and the twelve rounds most musketeers were given required twelve "bandoliers".
* BigFancyCastle: Many of England's medieval castles were slighted to prevent them from being used as a fortress by the opposing side, or future rebellions. In the case of Pontefract Castle, the demolition was welcomed by the townspeople, as its status as ''the'' military strongpoint in Northern England meant that the town had to endure three separate sieges during the war.
* CanineCompanion: Prince Rupert's standard poodle [[ADogNamedDog Pudel]], (see page illustration), who was so inseparable from his master that some religiously-extreme Parliamentarians alleged that he was a demonic {{Familiar}}.
* CavalryOfficer: UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell and Prince Rupert.
* ConflictingLoyalty
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Royalists imprisoned in Coventry were totally ignored by the townspeople. This lives on in Britain that when a person is shunned and given the silent treatment from co-workers or peers it's said he's been "sent to Coventry".
* CurbstompBattle: The Battle of Worcester. UsefulNotes/CharlesII ended up having to hide in a tree to escape Cromwell's men.
* DemotedToExtra: Fairfax became less important and politically powerful as the wars went on. This actually served him pretty well. He was alive and well, and his reputation unmarred, during the Restoration, and did not suffer reprisals.
* EnemyMine: The war in Ireland- which was one of the direct causes of all this- saw different invocations of this. For the first stretch the Civil War was practically put on hold as the Parliamentarians- including the Scots Covenanters, Parliamentarians, Royalists at each others' throats- all formed an uneasy common front against the Catholic Irish Confederacy. This climaxed with the senior English Royalist commander in Ireland turning over Dublin to Cromwell with the logic that he [[MyCountryRightOrWrong "preferred English rebels to Irish Ones."]] Only for the arrival of [[BadassArmy the New Model Army]] to cause the Royalists and Irish Confederates to ally.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: Charles was apparently delighted to be reunited with his beloved Jesus.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Oliver Cromwell went from being a cavalry officer to being military dictator of England all in the span of about six years.
* HighlyConspicuousUniform: The New Model Army wore red, which became a standard for the British army. This was a JustifiedTrope in the 1640s; having a standardized and visible uniform meant an army could stay organized better on the field. The Royalists preferred BlingOfWar, in contrast.
** Actually, the idea that Royalists fought in fancy clothes and feathered hats while Parliamentarians wore buff-coats and helmets is a misconception based on Victorian illustrations. Both sides would have worn practical kit in combat.
* LeeroyJenkins: Prince Rupert of the Rhine. The Parliamentarians took advantage of this at Marston Moor and Naseby.
* NobleFugitive: Charles' sons
* OfficerAndAGentleman: Lord Fairfax, whose conduct and demeanor were so gentlemanly that there are few accounts that portray him as anything, but positively. It helps that under his leadership was subject to something of a NostalgiaFilter once Cromwell and Ireton came to greater prominence.
* OffWithHisHead: Strafford, Archbishop William Laud and Charles I.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Fairfax resigned his position as Army head after Pride's Purge. Actually killing the King was way beyond what he wanted.
* TakeAThirdOption: Charles was losing the Bishop wars so he either had to consent to the Scot's demands or reopen Parliament. His Lord Deputy in Ireland, Strafford, suggested crushing the rebels with an Irish Catholic army. Parliament thought he was inviting a Catholic invasion so they impeached Strafford and forced the king to execute him. This caused an Irish uprising.
* WarriorPrince - Charles' nephew Rupert.
* WeHaveReserves: The main strategy of the Scottish Covenanters throughout the war. In spite of being led by several competent leaders (at first) their armies were generally poorly trained and ripped by political dissension, but their numbers meant they tried to overawe their enemies. In practice they occupied Northern England by throwing more men at the even worse off and demoralized Royalist troops then they knew what to do against, spent most of the rest of the war being terrorized by the outnumbered Royalists under Montrose and overcoming him by [[CannonFodder feeding him one army after another until he couldn't eat any more]], and then [[CurbStompBattle were utterly flattened by Parliament's New Model Army.]]

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* FourStarBadass: Tons of these. Cromwell stands out, though. He's been called one of the finest soldiers Britain ''ever had''.
** UsefulNotes/JamesGrahamMarquisOfMontrose, a Scottish Royalist commander who waged a war against the Scottish government with vastly outnumbered forces and nearly won. To this day all one needs to do to single him apart from the umpteen other Grahams and Montroses is to say [[TheMagnificent The Great Montrose.]]

* {{Spinoff}}: The UsefulNotes/HanoverStuartWars draw from this to the point of being an obvious sequel. Ethnic and religious [[FeudingFamilies quarrels]] related to this [[ForeverWar lasted so long]] that at least one author claimed to trace the lineup in UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar all the way back to the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar.

* WeHaveReserves: The main strategy of the Scottish Covenanters throughout the war. In spite of being led by several competent leaders (at first) their armies were generally poorly trained and ripped by political dissension, but their numbers meant they tried to overawe their enemies. In practice they occupied Northern England by throwing more men at the even worse off and demoralized Royalist troops then they knew what to do against, spent most of the rest of the war being terrorized by the outnumbered Royalists under [[FourStarBadass Montrose]] and overcoming him by [[CannonFodder feeding him one army after another until he couldn't eat any more]], and then [[CurbStompBattle were utterly flattened by Parliament's New Model Army.]]

* EqualOpportunityEvil: Not exactly, but close to it. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Stafford was- even given the general moral ambiguity of the conflict- widely agreed to be both the most intelligent and most amoral and authoritarian of the King's advisors, and was infamous for his brutal treatment of Ireland. However, he also proposed that the King recruit an army of Irish mercenaries to defeat the Scots and- if need be- subdue Parliament, even though they were Irish and overwhelmingly Catholic. [[OffWithHisHead This did not end well for him.]]

He also tried to impose his own idea of what the Church of England should look like. The Church of England was fundamentally Protestant in doctrinal issues, but because it had been conceived as a way of not annoying the Catholics ''too'' much there was provision for ''a lot'' of fanciness and ritual and ceremony, and (most significantly) running the Church under an episcopal structure--i.e. through a hierarchy of bishops and archbishops, along Catholic lines (except with the King at the top instead of the Pope). Protestant mind, Catholic body and clothing, basically. Charles had turned the ritual UpToEleven, and a lot of ordinary people (like Members of Parliament or [=MP=]s) were afraid that he was winding up for a full re-Catholicisation of the church.

After his death in 1685, Charles' brother became King James II and after a few troubled years in power was overthrown in 1688 in the so-called "Glorious Revolution" which established Parliamentary supremacy and the right of Parliament to effectively determine who became monarch - the beginnings of Britain's modern Constitutional Monarchy. William of Orange was invited to become King, and it's hard to imagine a better choice: he had links to the old regime since he was married to James II's daughter Mary (who held the Crown jointly with her husband for a variety of reasons), he was Protestant, and he was stadtholder (elected head of state)[[note]]After a fashion; William was the hereditary Prince of Orange, which had some land attached to it; but each constituent province of the Dutch Republic had an elected magistrate called the ''stadtholder'', who commanded the province's troops in battle. By unwritten custom, almost every province usually elected whoever happened to be Prince of Orange ''stadtholder''. So very technically, he was not ''stadholder'' of the Netherlands, but rather of several provinces of the Netherlands. Very non-technically, everyone just called him "Stadtholder of the Netherlands".[[/note]] of the Dutch Republic, meaning he had experience with constitutional rule and had the military of a great power backing him up, which would lead to peace and improved trade between the two countries. Following several attempts by forces loyal to James to defeat the "usurpation", the new Williamite regime was solidly in power.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Cromwell and the Parliamentarians fought the war because Charles attempted to dissolve Parliament when they wouldn't play ball, making him a tyrannical absolute monarch. Cue the war won, Cromwell appointed to the position of Lord Protector...and then he dissolved Parliament because they wouldn't play ball, making him a tyrannical absolute monarch. [[SubvertedTrope Except unlike Charles Cromwell called for a new representative body to be elected]] - twice. Problem was, whichever constitutional arrangement he tried to find, it all kept blowing up in his face with people either insisting he get crowned king already or staying in a stance of fundamental opposition to everything.

* MyMasterRightOrWrong

* TakeAThirdOption: Charles was losing the Bishop wars so he either had to consent to the Scot's demands or reopen Parliament. His Lord Deputy in Ireland, Strafford, suggested crushing the rebels with an Irish Catholic army. Parliament thought he was inviting a Catholic invasion so they impeached Strafford and forced the king to execute him. This caused [[NiceJobBreakingItHero an Irish uprising]].
* WarIsHell

* BigGood: In the First Civil War, Lord Thomas Fairfax was this for the Parliamentarians and King Charles was this for the Royalists.