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This episode of Ten Minute History covers the late reign of Charles I and his problems with the Bishops' War and the conflict with parliament. It wasn't long before Charles' duplicity and method of rule saw the outbreak of war between Parliament and the king's forces. The civil wars spanned about a decade and eventually saw the execution of Charles I and the ascendancy of Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector of the English Commonwealth (a republic). His rule saw the conquest of Ireland and war with Spain and the Dutch Republic and after Cromwell's death in 1658, it wasn't long before Charles's son, Charles II, was restored to the throne.

Recommended reading:
Barry Coward and Peter Gaunt - The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714. Fantastic and very detailed work which I'd recommend for undergrads but a bit dense for those simply interested in the period.

John Miller - Early Modern Britain: 1450-1750. A phenomenal book. It's an overview of the entire period and really a must have if you are looking to study Britain during the era. Cannot recommend this book enough (or the others in the series).

1640 and King Charles I of England and Scotland has recalled Parliament.

Because his Scottish subjects were rebelling against his religious reforms and he needed men and money to fight them.

He was hoping that Parliament would forget the previous 11 years in which he had governed without them and simply give him the money.

Instead, Parliament wanted to right all of Charles' previous wrongs against them, and so he dissolved it after only 3 weeks, hence its name, the Short Parliament.

The rebelling Scots called covenanters soon after across the English border and occupied these lands.

Thomas Wentworth, the King's close ally, was to lead the English resistance, but instead the army opted for a different strategy of running away.

Charles then decided to cave in to most of the Scots demands and also he would pay them to leave the parts of the north that they'd seized.

Charles needed yet more money to pay them and so once more he had to recall Parliament.

He did so hoping that Yet again they'd simply give him the money but instead Parliament passed some Acts that Charles did not like but given his weak position could do nothing about.

Opposition to Charles was led by a man called John Pym, a fierce Puritan and believer in the rights of Parliament.

Parliament had passed the Triennial Act which meant that Parliament had to be called at least once every 3 years and that this specific Parliament had to give its consent to be dissolved.

There was also the Habeas Corpus Act which meant that the King couldn't arrest whomever he pleased anymore.

Furthermore, William Lord, the Archbishop of Canterbury was arrested and Parliament also had Thomas Wentworth executed for his previous conduct in Ireland.

Seeing that Charles was making concessions to the English and Scottish, many Irishmen were hoping for the same.

Some Irish nobles led by Philem O'Neill ceased forts and demanded that the Irish be afforded similar concessions.

The Irish populace rose up shortly afterwards but they were less interested in concessions and more interested in kicking the planted English Protestants out of Ireland for good.

Back in England, Parliament was still fighting over how much King Charles was awful, and in late 1641 by a very slim margin it passed the Grand Remonstrance.

This was basically a list of reasons why Charles was terrible, and that the previous church reforms of Lord in the Irish Rebellion were part of a Catholic plot.

By 1642 Charles had had enough of people opposing him and decided to put an end to it.

He gathered some soldiers and marched into Parliament with the intent of arresting 5 of its members, the most notable being John Pym.

These members had fled before Charles had arrived and he left Parliament empty handed.

Whilst he failed to arrest those who'd opposed him, he did manage to do 1 thing.

He convinced everyone that he was a tyrant.

As a result, Parliament created the Committee of Safety, which promptly took control of London as well as its militia and Charles quickly fled the city.

Both sides started to court allies and made preparations for conflict such as when Charles attempted to seize Hull and its armoury, but they politely yet firmly told him to jog on.

Parliament declared that Charles was a Papist and wanted to enslave England with the help of the Irish rebels, and Charles warned the aristocracy that Parliament would come for them next if the radicals had their way.

On the 22nd of August 1642, Charles raised his standard over the town of Nottingham.

This is considered by many to be the formal beginning of the English Civil War.

This pitted Charles' royalist forces known as Cavaliers against those of Parliament known as the Roundheads.

As a general rule Parliament had the support of the South and the east and Charles had the rest.

Parliament had much greater access to money from the larger cities in the south.

It also controlled the navy and with it, trade.

The king had some support in Ireland, the help of the Scottish Royalists and had access to much better commanders, the most notable being Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Charles' nephew from Bohemia.

Charles assembled his forces and made straight for London, where he was met by the Parliamentary army led by Robert Deverew, the Earl of Essex at the Battle of Edgehill.

It was essentially a tie and after regrouping Charles dithered on what to do next before resuming his march on London.

By this point the Earl of Essex had blocked the road there and Charles retreated, meaning that this wasn't going to be a short war.

Throughout 1643 the Royalist forces gained the upper hand.

The Parliamentarians did manage to procure the help of the Scottish Covenanter army though by promising them lots of cash.

The Scottish also wanted assurances that the Church of England would be modelled after the Church of Scotland.

Naturally Parliament was never going to agree to this, and so its leaders hatched a clever plan.

The Covenanters were vital to the Parliamentarian cause and proved their worth in 1644 at the Battle of Marston Moor.

It was here that the Royalist army was devastated, particularly by the Parliamentarian cavalry led by a certain Oliver Cromwell.

After this defeat, the Royalists basically lost the entire North and York fell shortly afterwards.

Despite their success, Parliament wanted more and so ordered that far-reaching reforms be implemented, which led to the creation of the professional, well-equipped new model army.

It's important to note here that not all of the country was happy to be involved in the civil war.

Many local lords and leaders wanted nothing to do with it and so assembled their own soldiers, known as clubmen, to dissuade either side from coming anywhere near them.

1645 saw the decisive battle of Naseby, which was yet again a crushing defeat for the Royalists and was followed up by many more over the next year.

Charles knowing that the war was lost handed himself over to a Scottish force in mid 1646 ending the Civil War.

Parliament negotiated with the Scottish to hand over Charles which they did in 1647.

Now that Parliament had Charles surely they could enact the change they wanted, right?

The issue was that Charles was completely untrustworthy and would always take the first opportunity to undo the concessions he'd made.

Furthermore, much of England was getting riotous due to the tax burden for funding the army.

Parliament tried to disband the army but the army, led by Sir Thomas Fairfax, said no, which was hard to argue with because guns.

This reflects the fact that political society in England was becoming increasingly radical during this period.

1 of the most extreme groups were the Levellers, who wanted the army to throw out Parliament and create a democratic, i.e.

Level society in which all freeborn men would be able to vote for accountable politicians.

During his captivity Charles had secretly made a compact with the Scottish called the Engagement which meant that they would invade England and restore him with his old powers intact.

Charles soon escaped, the Scottish invaded and royalist rebellions broke out across the country, beginning the Second English Civil War.

This war was a short 1 and within a year the New Model Army had crushed the rebels and defeated the Scottish Army at the Battle of Preston.

Charles decided to return to the negotiating table but the leadership of the New Model Army, known as the Grandees, weren't interested.

They saw Charles as a lying tyrant whose actions had killed thousands needlessly and that there would be no worthwhile settlement whilst he remained.

In late 1648 some soldiers commanded by Colonel Thomas Pride stormed Parliament and removed anyone who disagreed with the Grandees in what is known as Pride's purge.

The Parliament that was left, known as the Rump Parliament, opted to put Charles on trial for high treason.

He was found guilty, sentenced to death and on the 30th January 1649 was beheaded at Whitehall Palace.

Shortly afterwards a republic was declared called the Commonwealth of England which was governed by the Rump Parliament and the Council of State, chaired by Cromwell.

Parliament and the Council didn't really do much except sell off royal assets and lands in order to fund the army to send it to Ireland.

The Irish rebels, known as the Irish Confederates, were being supported by English and Scottish Royalists who had rallied behind Charles's son, also called Charles.

Cromwell was tasked with the reconquest of Ireland and with his army of well-equipped veterans made inroads very quickly.

He gave the Irish assurances that those who surrendered would not be harmed, but when he took the towns of Drogheda and Wexford he promptly slaughtered their garrisons and many of the civilians living there.

Cromwell returned to England in 1650 but the conquest was largely completed in his absence by 1652.

Ireland was completely ransacked during this invasion, and it's estimated that about 40% of its total population died between 1641 and 1652.

It was then ordered that the rebels were to lose their lands, and about 35, 000 of them were forced into indentured servitude and shipped off to the New World to work on the plantations there.

Speaking of the New World, most of the American colonies backed the Royalist side, but with greater support for Cromwell in the North.

So upon his return to England, Cromwell had to deal with the Scottish, who had received Charles and proclaimed him as Charles II of Scotland, beginning the Third English Civil War.

Cromwell marched his army north and crushed a larger force at the Battle of Dunbar and swiftly occupied Edinburgh.

The next year the 2 met again at Worcester and yet again Charles lost and promptly ran away to the continent, ending once and for all the English Civil Wars.

By 1653 Cromwell was getting a bit sick of the rump parliament and so dismissed most of its members.

He then created a parliament made up of a select few men who were considered to be deeply moral in what is known as the Parliament of the Saints or the Barebones Parliament.

This parliament failed to do anything and so Cromwell had a constitution crafted called the Instrument of Government which declared Cromwell to be the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

That is to say that all 3 were now part of the same state meaning Cromwell, with the help of the Scottish General George Monk, had achieved what all the previous kings of England had failed to.

Anyway, Cromwell's rule was marred with financial problems and it also saw the Commonwealth dragged into numerous wars.

The first was the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1652 which started because of the 1651 Navigation Act which prevented English colonies in North America from trading with foreign states.

Long story short, the Dutch lost but very little changed.

This wasn't to be Cromwell's last foreign war since in 1654 1 broke out with Spain.

In the end the Commonwealth seized Jamaica and the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean as well as Dunkirk in Europe.

Back in England, Cromwell was struggling with his new regime.

In 1657, after a failed period of direct military rule, a new constitution was passed and Cromwell was offered the crown, which he declined.

Resistance to his rule was starting to grow and so he had to resort to much fiercer tactics to get what he wanted.

This included taxing without the consent of parliament and throwing those who disagreed with him in prison without trial.

Of course he could do nothing about those who disagreed with him outside of England, such as Thomas Hobbes who, whilst living in France, wrote his magnum opus, Leviathan.

This was a defence of absolute monarchy like that in France and condemned the concept of a republic.

Cromwell's troubles came to an end in 1658, because he died.

The title of Lord Protector passed to his son, Richard Cromwell, because again, it was nothing like a monarchy.

Basically no 1 wanted Richard to rule and in 1659 he resigned and the Rump Parliament returned to run the country.

This all went to hell pretty quickly and it looked like another civil war was brewing so General Monck marched down south.

Once in London he reinstated all of the members of Parliament who had been ousted in Pride's Purge.

In 1660 Parliament, the same 1 that had been in session since 1642, dissolved itself, hence why it is known as the Long Parliament.

During this time Monck had been in contact with Charles, who issued what was called the Declaration of Breda, forgiving everything that had happened since 1649 so long as the people there accepted him as their king.

The exception to this forgiveness was of course those who signed his father's death warrant.

A new parliament was summoned called the Convention Parliament, which acknowledged Charles as Charles II of England and their rightful king.

In May of 1660 Charles returned, ending the Commonwealth and England's republican experiment.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching, and a special thanks to James Bissonnet, Solon Victus and Dante of Livonia for supporting the channel.

If you'd like to know more about the English Civil War and the Commonwealth period, then there are some book recommendations in the description below.


Speaker 0: 1640 and King Charles I of England and Scotland has recalled Parliament. Why? Because his Scottish subjects were rebelling against his religious reforms and he needed men and money to fight them. He was hoping that Parliament would forget the previous 11 years in which he had governed without them and simply give him the money. He was wrong.

Instead, Parliament wanted to right all of Charles' previous wrongs against them, and so he dissolved it after only 3 weeks, hence its name, the Short Parliament. The rebelling Scots called covenanters soon after across the English border and occupied these lands. Thomas Wentworth, the King's close ally, was to lead the English resistance, but instead the army opted for a different strategy of running away. Charles then decided to cave in to most of the Scots demands and also he would pay them to leave the parts of the north that they'd seized. Charles needed yet more money to pay them and so once more he had to recall Parliament.

He did so hoping that Yet again they'd simply give him the money but instead Parliament passed some Acts that Charles did not like but given his weak position could do nothing about. Opposition to Charles was led by a man called John Pym, a fierce Puritan and believer in the rights of Parliament. Parliament had passed the Triennial Act which meant that Parliament had to be called at least once every 3 years and that this specific Parliament had to give its consent to be dissolved. There was also the Habeas Corpus Act which meant that the King couldn't arrest whomever he pleased anymore. Furthermore, William Lord, the Archbishop of Canterbury was arrested and Parliament also had Thomas Wentworth executed for his previous conduct in Ireland.

Seeing that Charles was making concessions to the English and Scottish, many Irishmen were hoping for the same. Some Irish nobles led by Philem O'Neill ceased forts and demanded that the Irish be afforded similar concessions. The Irish populace rose up shortly afterwards but they were less interested in concessions and more interested in kicking the planted English Protestants out of Ireland for good. Back in England, Parliament was still fighting over how much King Charles was awful, and in late 1641 by a very slim margin it passed the Grand Remonstrance. This was basically a list of reasons why Charles was terrible, and that the previous church reforms of Lord in the Irish Rebellion were part of a Catholic plot.

By 1642 Charles had had enough of people opposing him and decided to put an end to it. He gathered some soldiers and marched into Parliament with the intent of arresting 5 of its members, the most notable being John Pym. These members had fled before Charles had arrived and he left Parliament empty handed. Whilst he failed to arrest those who'd opposed him, he did manage to do 1 thing. He convinced everyone that he was a tyrant.

As a result, Parliament created the Committee of Safety, which promptly took control of London as well as its militia and Charles quickly fled the city. Both sides started to court allies and made preparations for conflict such as when Charles attempted to seize Hull and its armoury, but they politely yet firmly told him to jog on. Parliament declared that Charles was a Papist and wanted to enslave England with the help of the Irish rebels, and Charles warned the aristocracy that Parliament would come for them next if the radicals had their way. On the 22nd of August 1642, Charles raised his standard over the town of Nottingham. This is considered by many to be the formal beginning of the English Civil War.

This pitted Charles' royalist forces known as Cavaliers against those of Parliament known as the Roundheads. As a general rule Parliament had the support of the South and the east and Charles had the rest. Parliament had much greater access to money from the larger cities in the south. It also controlled the navy and with it, trade. The king had some support in Ireland, the help of the Scottish Royalists and had access to much better commanders, the most notable being Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Charles' nephew from Bohemia.

Charles assembled his forces and made straight for London, where he was met by the Parliamentary army led by Robert Deverew, the Earl of Essex at the Battle of Edgehill. It was essentially a tie and after regrouping Charles dithered on what to do next before resuming his march on London. By this point the Earl of Essex had blocked the road there and Charles retreated, meaning that this wasn't going to be a short war. Throughout 1643 the Royalist forces gained the upper hand. The Parliamentarians did manage to procure the help of the Scottish Covenanter army though by promising them lots of cash.

The Scottish also wanted assurances that the Church of England would be modelled after the Church of Scotland. Naturally Parliament was never going to agree to this, and so its leaders hatched a clever plan. They lied. The Covenanters were vital to the Parliamentarian cause and proved their worth in 1644 at the Battle of Marston Moor. It was here that the Royalist army was devastated, particularly by the Parliamentarian cavalry led by a certain Oliver Cromwell.

After this defeat, the Royalists basically lost the entire North and York fell shortly afterwards. Despite their success, Parliament wanted more and so ordered that far-reaching reforms be implemented, which led to the creation of the professional, well-equipped new model army. It's important to note here that not all of the country was happy to be involved in the civil war. Many local lords and leaders wanted nothing to do with it and so assembled their own soldiers, known as clubmen, to dissuade either side from coming anywhere near them. 1645 saw the decisive battle of Naseby, which was yet again a crushing defeat for the Royalists and was followed up by many more over the next year.

Charles knowing that the war was lost handed himself over to a Scottish force in mid 1646 ending the Civil War. Parliament negotiated with the Scottish to hand over Charles which they did in 1647. Now that Parliament had Charles surely they could enact the change they wanted, right? But no. The issue was that Charles was completely untrustworthy and would always take the first opportunity to undo the concessions he'd made.

Furthermore, much of England was getting riotous due to the tax burden for funding the army. Parliament tried to disband the army but the army, led by Sir Thomas Fairfax, said no, which was hard to argue with because guns. This reflects the fact that political society in England was becoming increasingly radical during this period. 1 of the most extreme groups were the Levellers, who wanted the army to throw out Parliament and create a democratic, i.e. Level society in which all freeborn men would be able to vote for accountable politicians.

During his captivity Charles had secretly made a compact with the Scottish called the Engagement which meant that they would invade England and restore him with his old powers intact. Charles soon escaped, the Scottish invaded and royalist rebellions broke out across the country, beginning the Second English Civil War. This war was a short 1 and within a year the New Model Army had crushed the rebels and defeated the Scottish Army at the Battle of Preston. Charles decided to return to the negotiating table but the leadership of the New Model Army, known as the Grandees, weren't interested. They saw Charles as a lying tyrant whose actions had killed thousands needlessly and that there would be no worthwhile settlement whilst he remained.

In late 1648 some soldiers commanded by Colonel Thomas Pride stormed Parliament and removed anyone who disagreed with the Grandees in what is known as Pride's purge. The Parliament that was left, known as the Rump Parliament, opted to put Charles on trial for high treason. He was found guilty, sentenced to death and on the 30th January 1649 was beheaded at Whitehall Palace. Shortly afterwards a republic was declared called the Commonwealth of England which was governed by the Rump Parliament and the Council of State, chaired by Cromwell. Parliament and the Council didn't really do much except sell off royal assets and lands in order to fund the army to send it to Ireland.

The Irish rebels, known as the Irish Confederates, were being supported by English and Scottish Royalists who had rallied behind Charles's son, also called Charles. Cromwell was tasked with the reconquest of Ireland and with his army of well-equipped veterans made inroads very quickly. He gave the Irish assurances that those who surrendered would not be harmed, but when he took the towns of Drogheda and Wexford he promptly slaughtered their garrisons and many of the civilians living there. Cromwell returned to England in 1650 but the conquest was largely completed in his absence by 1652. Ireland was completely ransacked during this invasion, and it's estimated that about 40% of its total population died between 1641 and 1652.

It was then ordered that the rebels were to lose their lands, and about 35, 000 of them were forced into indentured servitude and shipped off to the New World to work on the plantations there. Speaking of the New World, most of the American colonies backed the Royalist side, but with greater support for Cromwell in the North. So upon his return to England, Cromwell had to deal with the Scottish, who had received Charles and proclaimed him as Charles II of Scotland, beginning the Third English Civil War. Cromwell marched his army north and crushed a larger force at the Battle of Dunbar and swiftly occupied Edinburgh. The next year the 2 met again at Worcester and yet again Charles lost and promptly ran away to the continent, ending once and for all the English Civil Wars.

By 1653 Cromwell was getting a bit sick of the rump parliament and so dismissed most of its members. He then created a parliament made up of a select few men who were considered to be deeply moral in what is known as the Parliament of the Saints or the Barebones Parliament. This parliament failed to do anything and so Cromwell had a constitution crafted called the Instrument of Government which declared Cromwell to be the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. That is to say that all 3 were now part of the same state meaning Cromwell, with the help of the Scottish General George Monk, had achieved what all the previous kings of England had failed to. Anyway, Cromwell's rule was marred with financial problems and it also saw the Commonwealth dragged into numerous wars.

The first was the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1652 which started because of the 1651 Navigation Act which prevented English colonies in North America from trading with foreign states. Long story short, the Dutch lost but very little changed. This wasn't to be Cromwell's last foreign war since in 1654 1 broke out with Spain. In the end the Commonwealth seized Jamaica and the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean as well as Dunkirk in Europe. Back in England, Cromwell was struggling with his new regime.

In 1657, after a failed period of direct military rule, a new constitution was passed and Cromwell was offered the crown, which he declined. Resistance to his rule was starting to grow and so he had to resort to much fiercer tactics to get what he wanted. This included taxing without the consent of parliament and throwing those who disagreed with him in prison without trial. Of course he could do nothing about those who disagreed with him outside of England, such as Thomas Hobbes who, whilst living in France, wrote his magnum opus, Leviathan. This was a defence of absolute monarchy like that in France and condemned the concept of a republic.

Cromwell's troubles came to an end in 1658, because he died. The title of Lord Protector passed to his son, Richard Cromwell, because again, it was nothing like a monarchy. Basically no 1 wanted Richard to rule and in 1659 he resigned and the Rump Parliament returned to run the country. This all went to hell pretty quickly and it looked like another civil war was brewing so General Monck marched down south. Once in London he reinstated all of the members of Parliament who had been ousted in Pride's Purge.

In 1660 Parliament, the same 1 that had been in session since 1642, dissolved itself, hence why it is known as the Long Parliament. During this time Monck had been in contact with Charles, who issued what was called the Declaration of Breda, forgiving everything that had happened since 1649 so long as the people there accepted him as their king. The exception to this forgiveness was of course those who signed his father's death warrant. A new parliament was summoned called the Convention Parliament, which acknowledged Charles as Charles II of England and their rightful king. In May of 1660 Charles returned, ending the Commonwealth and England's republican experiment.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching, and a special thanks to James Bissonnet, Solon Victus and Dante of Livonia for supporting the channel. If you'd like to know more about the English Civil War and the Commonwealth period, then there are some book recommendations in the description below.

See all History Matters transcripts on Youtube

Ten Minute English and British History #20 - The English Civil War