Why Did The Royalists Lose The First English Civil War

“By 1646 the royalists had lost the first English civil war as a result of their inherent weaknesses.”

The Royalists had lost the first English civil war as a result of their inherent weaknesses but also because of the new model army which had contained professionally trained soldiers and the strengths parliament had against the Royalists. With these factors there could be a chance that it could not have been entirely the Royalists fault with their inherent weaknesses.

When Charles decided to start a civil war against his own people, he had great difficulties to get an army together and fight. The royalists also found it difficult to raise funds and troops for the army because it was harder to persuade men to fight in the war rather than

London was particularly important as firearms were being imported from France and Holland which the Roundheads and Royalists used. This meant that the Roundheads (parliamentarians) had easy access to supplies they might need such as clothing and borrowed money because of this the navy had stopped bringing anyone in so Charles had to cobble together new administrative and fiscal mechanisms in Oxford. Charles also was denied access to the armoury in Hull in 1642 and was forced to rely on the ports which he occupied in the south west. The London armaments industry had expanded because of the war that London producers who had supplied the king’s regime before the war were now supplying the Roundheads since they were in full control. The cavaliers had made the mistake of launching only one successful charge and then leaving the battlefield to go looting and not participating further in action. The cavaliers were depicted as boorish, arrogant, drunk, conceited and womanising which was everything a soldier should not be so it was not a surprise when they decided to go looting instead of fighting in the battle of Nasebey. It also showed the major

Generals and officers were from the upper class despite them having no experience and skill this was called the self-denying ordinance. Cromwell, an MP for Cambridge, promoted Sir Thomas Fairfax as head of the army. Sir William Waller was the first to see the need to remodel the whole structure of the Roundheads. He had suffered great defeat by Charles at Cropredy Bridge in 1644 that when he recognised the inefficiency of the existing structure- roundhead armies were only recruited from within the regional associations because soldiers were often reluctant to campaign away from their local areas- Cromwell took up the idea of the formation of a national army with no regional affiliation. The new model army ordinance was passed on 19 February 1645. Fairfax being head of the army, quickly moulded the new model army into an efficient disciplined fighting force with an unusually high degree of motivation. The typical soldier of the new model army had to be honest, sober, morally principled, politically motivated and disciplined. It served a self-identity which contrasted itself against the cavaliers who were complete opposites. In return for the loyalty from the new model army they received regular pay. They consisted of 22,000 professional soldiers; 15,000 were infantrymen and 7,000 cavalry led by Cromwell and called the ‘ironsides’ by prince Rupert. The change