Historical Essay on the English Civil War

The English Civil War was a mid-seventeenth century military conflict within England that significantly realigned the political structures within the nation. The purpose of the present sample essay provided by Ultius is to develop a historical overview of the English Civil War. The essay will be organized into five main parts. The first part will describe the historical context of the time and place in question here. The second part will then delve into the causes of the English Civil War. The third part will consider some of the main events of the English Civil War. The fourth part will then reflect on the significance of the culminating execution of King Charles I. Finally, the fifth part will discuss some of the implications of the English Civil War for the nation of England as a whole. 

Historical Context

In order to understand the English Civil War, it is necessary to begin with reference to King Charles I, the Short Parliament, and the Long Parliament. The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica have written the following about these actors: "Charles I summoned both the Short and Long Parliaments in 1640 because only the Parliament could raise the money he needed to wage the second Bishops' War against the Scots, who were resisting his attempts to impose episcopacy on them" (paragraph 2). Charles I convened the Short Parliament but then dismissed it within a matter of month due to internal conflicts; and then he summoned the Long Parliament in its place. From Charles I's perspective, though, the situation went from bad to worse: the Long Parliament was far more antagonistic than the Short Parliament was, and remained convened throughout the course of the English Civil War. 

Under the monarchical political system of the time, the King had the power to convene and dissolve Parliament, on the basis of whether the Parliament was in congruence with his interests and agenda. However, the Parliament also established checks on the king himself, especially when it managed to achieve a kind of autonomous political power that enabled it to establish a kind of counterforce against the power of the king. It would seem that this is what happened with the Long Parliament. To quote the Editors again regarding the Long Parliament: "During its first nine months it brought down the king's advisers, swept away the machinery of conciliar government developed by the Tudors and early Stuarts, made frequent sessions of Parliament a statutory necessity, and passed an act forbidding its own dissolution without its members consent" (paragraph 2). Taken together, these measures amounted to full assault on the powers of the king. In particular, Charles I could not dissolve the Long Parliament as he had its \predecessor, because the Long Parliament had successfully made such an action illegal.  

Causes of the War

This rising tension between Charles I on the one hand and the Parliament on the other was one of the main causes that precipitated the English Civil War. As History has simply stated the matter: "The English Civil Wars (1642-1651) stemmed from a conflict between Charles I and Parliament over an Irish insurrection" (paragraph 1). Charles I summoned the Parliament because he needed them to raise money for the pursuit of his policies in this regard; but the Parliament essentially refused to cooperate with the king, instead adopting policies that would enhance its own power and diminish the king's power, including his very power to get rid of Parliament. This situation created a rising spiral of tension that eventually broke out into overt military conflict. And that conflict is what has come to be known as the English Civil War. 

Another major cause of the English Civil War consisted of the internal tensions within the kingdoms of Great Britain itself, especially with respect to the political and religious hegemony of England over the other kingdoms. As Sharpe has suggested, for example: "the argument that the Scots and the Irish triggered and exacerbated the English troubles is in general compelling. The questions remain how far these were essentially religious problems and how far Charles I was himself responsible for the crisis in all his kingdoms" (paragraph 7). On the one hand, there were inherent religious conflicts between the kingdoms of Great Britain that led to revolt and rebellion in the kingdoms outside of England itself. On the other, though, Charles I would seem to have consciously pursued policies that would have exacerbated these internal tensions. Moreover, such policies were the source of Charles I's conflict with the Parliament, since the reason he needed them in the first place was to pursue his policies vis-a-vis the other kingdoms. 

Main Events 

Historians tend to see the English Civil War as not a singular event but rather a set of two or three wars in rapid succession. This is because given the nature of the conflict, the English Civil War oscillated between periods of overt conflict on the one hand, and periods of potential but failed reconciliation on the other. Militarily speaking, "the civil war which broke out in 1642 saw a broadly Royalist north and west ranged against a broadly Parliamentary south and east. Charles derived particular advantage from the support of the Welsh and Cornish, who supplied him with many of his foot soldiers, while Parliament derived still more advantage from its possession of London" (Stoyle, paragraph 14). The primary split in the English Civil War was thus between those who supported Charles I and his authority on the one hand, and those who supported Parliament and its power on the other. 

Most of the major military battles that have garnered scholarly attention over the years were won by the Parliamentarians. At one point, Charles I actually surrendered; but he was still volatile enough to set off a second phase in the English Civil War. Then, "after the New Model Army defeated Charles a second time in 1648 calls for his execution grew louder. At first the regicide seemed an aberration from the essentially moderate parliamentarian cause. But, with the discovery of greater tension in the early Stuart period, this has changed" (Mortimer, paragraph 8). It would seem that the call for the execution of Charles I was based more on pragmatic than on ideological grounds. It was not the case that the Parliamentarians had set out to kill the king per se. Rather, the evolving situation simply indicated that as long as Charles I, as a politician, remained alive, it would be almost impossible to secure a meaningful peace, due to the king's self-evident contempt for any kind of compromise solution. 

Execution of Charles I

King Charles I was in fact executed; and this was a somewhat traumatic event for all of England. As Worden has written: "The beheading of Charles I on January 30th, 1649 left an indelible mark on the history of England and on the way that the English think about themselves. It was the climactic moment of the Puritan Revolution and it also changed the whole character of the conflict. Most of the people who had taken up arms against Charles I seven years earlier were opposed to his killing, if not outraged by it" (paragraph 1). In other words, the conflict had gotten out of hand, exceeding the limits that even the most serious enemies of Charles I had envisioned for it. The idea of the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War was not to kill the king but rather just to recalibrate the balance of powers of within the English political structure. As the situation developed, however, it became clear that the only way to achieve this would in fact be to kill Charles I, due to his stubborn and unrelenting insistence on his own royal power and prerogatives. 

Charles I was formally executed on the charge of high treason. And this is quite compelling at a strictly ideological level. Historically, within monarchical societies, kings were seen as having a divine right to rule: that is, it was believed that the king was in charge because God himself wanted the king to be in charge (see Pelerin). Within such a context, it would be utterly impossible to charge the king of high treason, since the king himself would be the law, in his actual living person, which would make it impossible for him to violate the law. Within England, though, the idea that even the king is answerable to the law found formulation in early foundational legal documents such as the Magna Carta. The execution of Charles I could be understood as a radical reaffirmation of this basic democratic principle—even if this is not exactly how the Parliamentarians had intended the action. Again, the call for execution came about more for pragmatic than ideological reasons, even as the ideological implications proved to be quite profound. 

Implications of the War

The English Civil War was one phase in the broader convoluted history of England as a whole. It is difficult to say that the conflict achieved anything truly decisive, insofar the restoration of monarchy would occur just a few decades later, with the Glorious Revolution. However, the conflict did, among other things, cast a serious light on the inherently precarious nature of the balance of powers between the kingdoms of Great Britain as a whole, especially as this pertained to the hegemony of England over the other kingdoms and religious conflicts between the kingdoms. Echoes of this basic problem can still be seen even within present day Great Britain. 

For example, there has been a long-standing violent conflict underway between Great Britain and Ireland, based primarily on the fact that Great Britain still controls Northern Ireland, whereas the rest of Ireland is now an independent nation. The event known as Bloody Sunday, which occurred on the 30th of January 1972, is one of the more infamous events of this conflict: this consisted of the British Army shooting and killing several Irish protestors who were demonstrating against the poor treatment of Irishmen in Northern Ireland (see Melaugh). This event gained a high level of international response and escalated tensions between Great Britain and Northern Ireland; and it was also perhaps brought to the awareness of a broader public by a song that the rock band U2 eventually wrote about the event. In any case, it is clear that the conflicts between the kingdoms of Great Britain—in this case, between Northern Ireland and the hegemony of England—continues to be an ongoing source of political tension within Great Britain as a whole. This could be seen as a natural result of the highly complex governmental structure of Great Britain, which still makes it difficult to know whether to call it one nation or an amalgam of four different nations. 

Conclusion

In summary, the present essay has consisted of a historical overview of the English Civil War. The essay has provided a historical context for the conflict, considered the main causes and events of the conflict, discussed the significance of the execution of the king, and finally reflected on implications of the conflict. An important conclusion that has been reached here is that Charles I was actually executed more for pragmatic than ideological reasons, and that this event represented an acute exacerbation of the conflict that was repugnant to even most of the enemies of the king himself. At the ideological level, though, it was a radical reaffirmation of the notion that even the king is subject to the law.

Works Cited

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Long Parliament." Encyclopedia Britannica. 25 Jul. 2014. Web. 15 Jun. 2016. <http://www.britannica.com/topic/Long-Parliament>. 

History. "English Civil Wars." Author, n.d. Web. 15 Jun. 2016. <http://www.history.com/topics/british-history/english-civil-wars>. 

Melaugh, Martin. "Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972—Summary of Main Event." CAIN, 17 Jun. 2010. Web. 15 Jun. 2016. <http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/bsunday/sum.htm>.

Mortimer, Sarah. "The Civil Wars." History Today. Oct. 2012. Web. 15 Jun. 2016. <http://www.historytoday.com/sarah-mortimer/civil-wars>. 

Pelerin, Monty. "The Divine Right of Government." American Thinker. 18 Aug. 2010. Web. 26 May 2016. <http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/08/the_divine_right_of_government.html>.

Sharpe, Kevin. "Unrevolutionary England, 1603-1642; The Cause of the English Civil War; & The Fall of the British Monarchies 1637-1642." History Today. n.d. Web. 15 Jun. 2016. <http://www.historytoday.com/kevin-sharpe/unrevolutionary-england-1603-1642-causes-english-civil-war-fall-british-monarchies-1637>. 

Stoyle, Mark. "Overview: Civil War and Revolution, 1603-1714." History. BBC, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 15 Jun. 2016. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/overview_civil_war_revolution_01.shtml>. 

Worden, Blair. "The Execution of Charles I: The King Is Dead, Long Live the Crown." History Today. Feb. 2009. Web 15 Jun. 2016. <http://www.historytoday.com/blair-worden/execution-charles-i-king-dead-long-live-crown>.