Author: Nicholas Holmes, His Highness Prince Rupert, hys Regiment of Foot

Orders of the day, Volume 34, Issue 4, Aug/Sept 2002

Click here for Part 2

Introduction

As audiences for popular history continue to increase, the so-called English Civil Wars have been one of the principal beneficiaries. Following in the wake of Simon Schama’s popular series The History of Britain, over on BBC2 the controversial presenter, Dr Tristram Hunt promised to bring the gory drama of the period into the nation’s living rooms; meanwhile there is a new feature film entitled Cromwell and Fairfax in production.

All these enterprises are welcome, for the 17th Century was among the most extraordinary in our history - philosopher and historian David Hume even went so far to assert that British history should end in 1688!¹ Although subsequent historians have disregarded his precedent, the temptation to dissect one of the most fascinating, brutal and turbulent times in British and Irish history remains. It was rich with new ideas and the debates of those years still resonate today – the role of the monarchy, the ideal of parliamentary sovereignty and how to govern England, Scotland and Ireland as a united entity. The intellectual relevance of the Civil War years remains as strong now as it did 350 odd years ago, and that is one of the many reasons why this period deserves so keenly to be studied, discussed and disputed by the membership of the Sealed Knot.

Over these I propose to address the following broad areas:

1. Events leading to Civil War
2. Causes of Civil War
3. From War to Revolution
4. Second Civil War
5. Execution of Charles
6. Republic and Rump Parliament
7. From Lord Protector to Restoration

Civil War, rebellion, revolution, war in three kingdoms, war of religion? You decide!

PART 1 - EVENTS LEADING TO CIVIL WAR

In this first article, of which Part 1 appears below, I shall assess the conciliatory policies Charles pursued from 1640-42 and why these failed to pacify the opposition.

Introduction

Over 350 years ago the majority of English people were experiencing a tense summer as they witnessed the slow but inevitable approach of a civil war which relatively few of them viewed with anything but dread. The country’s political leadership remained locked in a desperate struggle for constitutional supremacy while at a local level sporadic fighting between opposing factions had broken out. How had these tumultuous events come to pass?

‘Evil Counsellors’

The acute political crisis which the country faced in the middle of 1642 had been building steadily during the previous 18 months. In 1640 Charles I had brought to an end eleven years of personal rule by recalling the MP’s of the Short and Long Parliaments. He had hoped that they would fund his war against the Scots, but the majority of them were more concerned to correct what they saw as a number of serious political and religious abuses perpetrated by the King. When the Long Parliament assembled, MPs were unanimous in wanting to destroy the potential for another Personal Rule. They did not intend to change the constitution, rather they sought to restore a lost balance between royal powers and popular rights by punishing those ‘evil counsellors’ who had led the King astray, by removing the institutional apparatus of the Personal Rule and by guaranteeing Parliament a permanent place in government.

During the first nine months of the Long Parliament (November 1640 – July 1641) this programme was systematically turned into legislation with the King’s consent. In practice however, these measures, though born of conservative motives, imposed new limits on royal discretionary powers, especially those of summoning and dissolving Parliament at will. Parliament dealt first with two of the King’s most hated ‘evil counsellors’, the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud. In December 1640 Laud was impeached and imprisoned in the Tower of London pending a fuller trial. Strafford meanwhile was unjustly accused of plotting to land an Irish Army in England to overthrow Parliament. A faithful servant of the King, Strafford was abandoned by Charles and went to his death on 12th May 1641, saying prophetically, “Put not your trust in princes”. Nor were Laud and Strafford the only victims. By mid-1641 over half of Charles’s Privy Councillors were either imprisoned, exiled or in disgrace.

From Individuals to Institutions

Parliament then turned from individuals to institutions. By far the most hated instruments of Charles were the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, which were abolished. Thus by mid-1641 Parliament had not only removed the ‘evil counsellors’ who advised unpopular policy, it had also destroyed the means by which those policies were implemented. But the most far-reaching step taken in 1640-41 was the guaranteeing of Parliament’s role in government. Hitherto Parliament had been an ‘event rather than an institution’. It had sat for short periods at irregular intervals and was summoned and dissolved entirely at the King’s discretion. But after the Personal Rule few MPs trusted Charles to work with Parliament voluntarily and they therefore sought legislation binding him to do so. This consisted of two Statutes: the Triennial Act (15th February 1641) which obliged Charles to call Parliament at least once every three years; and the ‘Act against the dissolving of the Long Parliament without its own consent’ (11th May 1641). These Acts limited the King’s prerogative to summon and dissolve Parliament at will and, like the attack on ‘evil counsellors’ and ‘evil courts’, Charles agreed to them.

Few objected when Archbishop Laud and thirteen like-minded bishops were impeached in December 1640. But when the Commons debated the future of episcopacy a fundamental disagreement emerged between those MPs who wished to preserve the office of bishop and those who thought it an inherently corrupt office which should be abolished ‘root and branch’. Events elsewhere in Britain deepened those divisions and heightened the sense of crisis. The ‘Incident’ of August 1641, when Charles attempted to arrest his leading Scottish critics, showed that he was still prepared to use force to silence opposition. Even more serious, in October Catholics in Ireland rebelled and massacred perhaps 3,000 (that is, 1 in 5) Protestants. They claimed, almost certainly falsely, to be following the King’s instructions.

In Part 2, A Question of Trust, The Grand Remonstrance, Taking Sides....

¹ David Hume, (1711-76), Scottish philosopher, diplomat and historian. Between diplomatic missions he wrote his famous History of Great Britain.