The English Civil War of 1642-1651 can be considered as a feud between the King and the English Parliament. Long before the onset of the civil war, Parliament and king Charles I had distrusted each other. As a result, Parliament often refused to finance the king’s wars. Unable to gain enough support from Parliament, Charles I challenged local control of nobles and landowners, who composed of the majority of Parliament, by “levying new tariffs and duties, attempting to collect discontinued taxes, and subjecting English property owners to…forced loan and then imprisoning those who refused to pay…as well as quartering troops in private homes” (Craig et al. 560). Parliament attempted to control the king’s power when it presented to Charles the Petition of Right in 1628. This petition required that there would be no loans or taxation without the consent of Parliament, that Charles would not be able to imprison any free man without due cause, and that no troops would be quartered in private homes. Although Charles initially agreed to the petition, he dissolved Parliament in 1629 and did not recall it again until 1640. Parliament’s resentment of the king’s tyrannical actions combined with its resistance to control the king refused to grant Charles financial support for the war with Ireland in 1640. Charles retaliated and made inevitable a civil war when he dissolved Parliament once more and arrested five of its members (Taylor vii). The resulting tension between Charles and Parliament eventually erupted in a Civil War in 1642 and lasted until 1651. Many scholars have been associating the phenomenon of the English Civil War to a variety of causes and motives. Among Parliament’s support... ... middle of paper ... .... Furthermore, Charles I had attempted to make himself the first despot by reducing Parliament to a nullity (Macaulay 64). It should be noted that during the time of Charles I, the king had no standing army, and that the king could not legally raise money without the consent of Parliament (Taylor 3, 4). However, because Charles had always been in favor of the notion of absolute monarchy (Taylor viii), he had dared to make extraparliamentary actions without the consent of Parliament. These included the trespass onto the constitutional rights of the English people, levying taxes without the consent of Parliament, imprisoning civilians and court nobles alike without due cause, and quartering troops in private homes during times of war (Macaulay 63-64). All these actions challenged local control of nobles and landowners (Craig et al. 560).
Bush, Michael. ‘Up for the Commonwealth’: the significance of tax grievances in the English rebellions of 1536, English Historical Review 106 (1991).
The claim that Thomas Cromwell carried out a revolution in Tudor government was generated by the historian Elton, the success of Cromwell as minister in his aims of sovereignty, Parliament and bureaucracy under King Henry VIII. Elton’s claims are met with many sceptic opponents such as Starkey and Guy, criticising that Cromwell’s work up to 1540 was anything but revolution, it was a mere pragmatic approach to fulfilling the king’s wishes which led to his escalation of power and a lucky set of consequential changes in government. The criticisms seem plausible when taking into consideration that Cromwell’s reformations within the Tudor government were not permanent, his work was quickly undone after his death. The work of Cromwell in government was hardly a revolutionary movement as it failed to deeply imprint itself upon England but it is undeniable that he made significant changes to England at the peak of his professional career.
In the early years of the civil war, little difference existed between parliament and the king in respects of power and territorial advantage. It could be said that the war was being fought to a desultory standstill. From the commencement of the conflict, the primary objective of Parliament had been simply to avoid defeat by the king. As soon as the problems of the government had resorted to violence, the leaders of Parliament knew that they could not tolerate any less than complete victory over the royalist forces. This is symbolised by a quote from the Earl of Manchester, "we may beat the king ninety-nine times out of hundred, but if he beats us just once, then he is still the king". Parliament could not afford to lose. If the king was to gain the upper hand then parliamentary supporters knew that they would likely pay for their loyalty with their lives. The introduction of the New Model Army was designed to change this philosophy for the better. As a group of well-organised, highly trained soldiers, their purpose was no longer to avoid defeat, but to win the war -- as parliamentary leaders, most notably Cromwell, realised would be necessary if they were to succeed. This essay is aimed at examining just how important a factor the New Model Army was in deciding that the fate of the first civil war would reside with Parliament and not the king. There were indeed other reasons for this victory, some of which will be explained below, but it needs to be evaluated just how big an advantage the New Model Army was to Parliament, and whether parliamentary success was only made possible after its creation.
During the Stuarts, the only people who had the liquid cash to pay for the needs of the modern government were primarily the middle-class and gentry, which were represented by the parliament. The “awkward, hand-to-mouth expedients” (38) of the Stuarts agitated by the differences in expectations of governance, brought them into conflict with their primary tax base. The impatience of the eventual rebels was exacerbated by their Stuart’s disregard for the traditional balance between the crown and the parliament, as they were Scottish royals who had only dealt with a very weak
The 17th century was a chaotic time period in England. England saw a transition in their nation’s religion during the reign of different monarchs. Before the start of the 17th century, England was under a Roman Catholic monarch with Queen Mary. Mary attempted to turn the Church of England into a Catholic Church and in the process earned the name “Bloody Mary”. She earned this name through her executions of many Protestants in England. However once Mary was unsuccessful in creating a Catholic England and was no longer the monarch, the Church went back to a Protestant Church. With the church now being Protestant, the Catholic minority in England began to become upset with the church and even plotted to make the church Catholic again through violence.
This suggests that they had negative relations with the government and authorities because their voices were not being listened to and they weren’t equally represented in the government’s policy decisions. Riot was a tactic employed to get their voices heard but there was a fine line between being listened to and retribution for their actions. For example, before the Oxfordshire rising in 1596, the people of Oxfordshire appealed to Lord Norris and other members of authority to help resolve the issue of dearth in the area. However, Lord Norris did little to help improve the situation and further appeals took place until the rebels resulted to riot in the hope of change. However, the rising against enclosure largely failed due to the lack of support, as only a handful of men turned up to support the rebels cause. Additionally, what gave rebellions the scale and force they had, such as the Pilgrimage of Grace, was the combination of supressed local grievances which had built up over time as they had not been effectively dealt with. For example, if someone heard a rumour about a potential uprising they may have become involved to express their personal grievances which may have been repressed in the past but had not achieved the outcome the rebels wanted. The Pilgrimage of Grace was caused by a combination of factors,
The English Civil war was partially a religious conflict, which brought Church and State against Parliament. Under the reign of James I, England saw the rise in Protestants dissenters. Groups like Barrowists, Puritans, Fifth Monarchists, Quakers, and many more demanded for more religious reform. They felt that the Church of England’s liturgy was too Catholic for a Protestant church. James VI and I accepted the more moderated Puritans and other dissenters, and he was able to keep his kingdom in peace. However, his son Charles I did not believe that kings were answerable to Parliament, but to God. In fact, he ruled without Parliament for many years. He trusted the running of the Church of England to William Laud, who believed that the Church had already gone through too many reforms. Laud went wrong when he tried to make church services more about doctrine and sacraments, and sought to make freewill the official doctrine of the Church. He did not stop there. He ordered that alters should be re-sited from the central places in churches to the east end of churches across the country. This essay will discuss Laud’s Arminian doctrines and his misjudgement of England’s religious mood, which led to his downfall and to the civil war.
Focus on the slavery issue has been cyclical. It was considered the main cause in the 18601890 era. From 1900 to 1960, historians considered anti-slavery agitation to be less important than constitutional, economic, and cultural issues. Since the 1960s historians have returned to an emphasis on slavery as a major cause of the war. Specifically, they note that the South insisted on protecting it and the North insisted on weakening it.
Another source of opposition to Charles’ personal rule was that of the parliament and Charles’ financial expenditure. Charles’ personal rule lasted 11 long years in which he didn’t call parliament for any money or subsidies. To finance his problems, he used his position of power as king to call upon favours and rules that enabled him to gain money without calling parliament. One of these was selling titles. Distraint of Knighthood. This was where men who owned estates worth £40 per annum were in theory supposed to present them to be knighted at a new King’s coronation. Charles thus fined people for not doing so even though the practice had...
The civil war broke out in 1642, and was a war that is within a country, it has many reasons for happening. This essay will explain and categorise the main cause’s fop the civil war. I will start by listing the genres of events.
In 1642, King Charles raised his royal standard in Nottingham, marking the beginning of the English Civil War. The next ten years saw the Cavaliers (supporters of the King) and the Roundheads (supporters of the parliament) engaged in a vicious battle for their respective leaders with the Roundheads ultimately victorious. This essay will attempt to explain why civil war broke out in England while summarizing the story behind the antagonism of the two parties.
After our study of many accounts of the English Civil War and Charles I’s trial and execution, it is clear that discovering historical truth and writing a satisfying history are two very separate, difficult tasks, and that finding among many accounts a single “best” story is complex, if not impossible. In order to compare the job each historian did in explaining what’s important about this conflict, the following criteria can be helpful for identifying a satisfying history.
What is civil war? Many people have this question. Some are wrong, and some are right. Civil war is caused through one countries internal issue (Civil War Causes Fact Monster). Examples could be: political issue social issues, or even issues of equality between races in one country. Some of these events are the causes of the American civil war. Let’s start with some of the effects of the war.The American civil war was the most costly war ever fought on American soil. It took a long time for the American society to become stable after to the war. Along with that,out of the 2.4 million solders’ that fought in the war, 620,000 of them were killed during the war.Millions were injured (The History Channel Website). Millions of families were affected after this catastrophic event. Millions upon millions of families lost the man of the house to earn money for the family to survive. At this time period, most families depended on the men to provide for the family.
A major conflict in the United States’ history is the American Civil War. Many causes led to the Civil War. This all happened around the mid 1800s. It was a conflict between the Northern and Southern states.
Generally, the English people had a great celebration when Charles II returned to the throne in May of 1660.1 Many believed that restoring the monarchy was the only way to secure constitutional rights. In fact, there was an expectation that bringing back the king would return life to the way it was before 1642 and the rule of Cromwell. Charles II was responsible for improving the government for the people. However, despite some achievements, the king was not very successful in creating a stronger and more effective monarchy. He was dependent on his advisors and other parts of the government from the very beginning of his reign. There were constant conflicts between the king and Parliament over religious issues. When Charles II finally did gain some independence, he still did not accomplish much to improve the monarchy. Overall, the government was very inconsistent during the 1660s and 1670s, and the people became disillusioned with the monarchy. The king did not hold all of the responsibility for what happened to the government, though. The people should have taken charge and worked for a change in the system. The rule of Charles II helped show the English citizens that they could not rely on the government so much, but they needed to take more of the power into their own hands and become more autonomous.