History in Gaming -- The English Civil War, Part One

Posted by Ranillon on 24. September 2009 23:14

The English Civil War took place between 1641 and 1651, although as a historical event it really did not end until 1660.  During that time there were actually three wars – the First (1642-46), Second (1648-49), and Third (1649-51) Civil Wars – the execution of the King (1649), a short-lived republic (1649-53, 1659-60), the Protectorate (1653-59), and finally the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660.  The society of the British Isles was thrown into chaos, governments came and went, and a lot of people suffered.  The effects of the conflict were far reaching and are still being felt today.  For instance, 15-25% percent of the population of Ireland died and the war led directly to the centuries of conflict and religious strife that has plagued the Emerald Isle ever since.

Causes of the War

At its heart the English Civil War was about the respective roles of the King and Parliament, the relationship between English, Scotland, and Ireland, and finally social strife between Protestants and Catholics.

The king at the time was Charles I (1600-49), the second monarch of the Stuart dynasty.  The Stuarts had ruled Scotland for generations, but England only from 1603 when Charles’ father James took the throne after the Tudor Elizabeth I died childless.  Physically small and suffering from a lifelong stutter, he grew up to be a prickly, haughty, and fully aristocratic personality who believed deeply in the Divine Right of Kings.  He was a man better suited to be a ruler than politician, but had the misfortune to be king of a country with a comparatively strong parliament.  His autocratic rule and disinterest in compromise slowly poisoned relations between the king and his parliament, but it was two major issues that primarily led to a break between the two.

The first was that for many years Charles ruled without parliament meeting at all.  At that time it only met whenever the king called it into session, but after disputes in the early part of his reign he simply dismissed parliament and wouldn’t reconvene it.  That left him in something of a bind as it was parliament that traditionally controlled the purse strings to pay for the workings of government.  To get around this Charles came up with a number of different strategies mostly utilizing old, all-but-forgotten laws which allowed him to collect some of the money he needed.  These measures were widely unpopular and fed the growing feeling that Charles was in fact a tyrant ruling without the consent of the people (well, at least the important people).

Yet, it was the other great issue that ultimately triggered the war – Charles interest in moving the churches of England and Scotland toward a more traditional direction that returned some of the pomp and circumstance lost since the reformation.  In a Protestant land rife with what by modern standards would be called religious bigotry these changes were commonly seen as the first step in moving the British Isles back toward hated Catholic control.  The fact that Charles had married a French princess with the stated aim of bringing back Catholicism didn’t help things.  Nor did Charles’ typically heavy handed approach to the matter.

Things came to a head in 1639 when in reaction to the attempted imposition of a new prayer book on the Scottish church the region rose in revolt.  The cash strapped Charles found it hard to respond forcefully to this threat and so finally, after eleven years of personal rule, recalled parliament.  However, instead of a compliant political body ready to help defend English honor this “Short” parliament instead spent its time attempting to air the numerous grievances it had collected over the previous decade.  Exasperated, Charles once more dismissed parliament and attempted to deal with the Scots alone.  The result was a humiliating defeat that forced him to yet again recall Parliament to gain the funds he had promised the Scots in return for peace. 

This “Long” parliament (named so because it would stay in session throughout the wars) picked up exactly where it had left off.  At first Charles acceded to its wishes, forgoing many of the sources of revenue he had used during the years of personal rule and accepting changes to his religious policies (in particular, he ended up gaining support from the Scots by giving them most everything they had originally gone to war to secure).  Yet, this did not mollify parliament.  When in 1641 the Irish rose in rebellion the parliament refuse to give the king control over the army in large part because they feared he might just turn around and use it against them.  There were also rumors that Charles had helped engineer the uprising for just such a purpose.

The king had had enough – when a rumor spread that the parliament was on the verge of impeaching his Catholic wife Charles sent his men to arrest a key five of its members.  Entering the meeting chamber itself Charles asked where the men might be (they had skipped out right ahead of his troops) only for the speaker of the house to famously reply, ”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.” 

The king had gone too far – his action seemed to confirm the parliament’s fears that he was a tyrant, while its failure signaled that he was weak enough to be challenged.  Feeble attempts at rapprochement failed and the two sides – the Royalists and Parliament – organized for war.

The Course of the Civil War(s)

Technically speaking there were three English Civil Wars (their dates are listed above), but they tend to be lumped together into a single larger conflict.  By far it is the First Civil War that is seen as the primary struggle, in large part due to the fact that just which side might win was truly undecided.  However, once losing the first go around the Royalists were at a serious disadvantage in the following two struggles when compared to the victorious parliamentary forces.  

The first great battle of the Civil War was at Edgehill in October 1642.  It should have been a Royalist victory, but instead turned into a draw when Charles’ superior cavalry went charging off after their defeated Parliamentary equivalents rather than regrouping to inflict a coup de grace on the enemy army as a whole.  This failure turned the war into more of a slogging match that would go on for four long years.

There were plenty of victories and defeats for each side, but generally speaking the war started off well for Charles only to go sour over time.  At his height the king controlled perhaps half of England, but started to lose territory toward the end of 1642.  A decisive defeat came at the Battle of Marston Moor where the Royalists lost to a combined force of Parliamentarians and Scots.  The result was that Charles forfeited the north of England.  However, the inability of his enemies to take proper advantage of their victory allowed the king to continue to resist into 1645.

It was during this time that the other man most associated with the period of the Civil War came to prominence:  Oliver Cromwell.  Born in 1599 he seems to have been something of a ne’er-do-well in early life until undergoing a religious conversion in his mid thirties.  Now a devout Puritan he was a member of both the Short and Long Parliaments and when war broke out turned himself into a cavalry commander.  He raised his own troop of men – the “Ironsides” – and gained a reputation for success over the course of the first few years of the war. However, it was leading the attack that won the day at Marston Moor that truly made him famous.  Because of this, when Parliament decided to try a different approach to fighting the war after the frustrations of 1644, Cromwell was in position to influence and then command the force that would ultimately lead him to become Lord Protector – The New Model Army.

More to come…