The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Royalists and Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the struggle consisted of the First English Civil War and the Second English Civil War. The Anglo-Scottish war of 1650 to 1652 is sometimes referred to as the Third English Civil War.
While the conflicts in the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland had similarities, each had its own specific issues and objectives. The First English Civil War was fought primarily over the correct balance of power between Parliament and Charles I. It ended in June 1646 with Royalist defeat and the king in custody.
However, victory exposed Parliamentarian divisions over the nature of the political settlement. The vast majority had gone to war in 1642 to assert Parliament's right to participate in government, not abolish the monarchy, which meant Charles' refusal to make concessions led to a stalemate. Concern over the political influence of radicals within the New Model Army like Oliver Cromwell led to an alliance between moderate Parliamentarians and Royalists, supported by the Covenanter Scots. Royalist defeat in the 1648 Second English Civil War resulted in the execution of Charles I in January 1649, and the establishment of the Commonwealth of England.
In 1650, Charles II was crowned King of Scotland, in return for agreeing to create a Presbyterian church in both England and Scotland. The subsequent Anglo-Scottish war ended with Parliamentarian victory at Worcester on 3 September 1651. Both Ireland and Scotland were incorporated into the Commonwealth, and the British Isles became a unitary state. This arrangement ultimately proved both unpopular and unviable in the long term, and was dissolved upon the Stuart Restoration in 1660. The outcome of the civil wars effectively set England and Scotland on course towards a parliamentary monarchy form of government.
The term English Civil War appears most often in the singular, but historians often divide the conflict into two or three separate wars. These were not restricted to England alone, as Wales (having been annexed into the Kingdom of England) was affected by the same political instabilities. The conflicts also involved wars with Scotland and Ireland and civil wars within them. Some historians have favoured the term The British Civil Wars. From the Restoration to the 19th century, the common phrase for the civil wars was "the rebellion" or "the great rebellion".
The wars spanning all four countries are known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In the early 19th century, Walter Scott referred to it as "The Great Civil War". The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica called the series of conflicts the "Great Rebellion". Some historians, notably Marxists such as Christopher Hill, favoured the term "English Revolution".
The common nicknames of Cavaliers and Roundheads, respectively for the Royalists and Parliamentarians, both originated as pejoratives. Cavalier comes from the same Latin root as the Spanish word caballero ("knight, horseman") and had been used in the court of Elizabeth I as an insult implying pro-Spanish sympathies. Roundhead refers to how some Puritans and London apprentices wore their hair closely cropped around the head or flat, though generals of both sides wore their hair at similar lengths.
Each side had a geographical stronghold, such that minority elements were silenced or fled. The Royalist areas included the countryside, the Shires, the cathedral cities of York, Chester, Worcester and Oxford, and the less economically developed areas of northern and western England and Wales. Parliament's strengths spanned the industrial centres, ports, and economically advanced regions of southern and eastern England, including the remaining cathedral cities. Historian Lacey Baldwin Smith wrote: "the words populous, rich, and rebellious seemed to go hand in hand".
Many officers and veteran soldiers had fought in European wars, notably the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish and the Dutch, which began in 1568, as well as earlier phases of the Thirty Years' War which began in 1618 and concluded in 1648.
The war was of unprecedented scale for the English. During the campaign seasons, 120,000 to 150,000 soldiers would be in the field, a higher proportion of the population than were fighting in Germany in the Thirty Years' War.
The main battle tactic came to be known as pike and shot infantry. The two sides would line up opposite one another, with infantry brigades of musketeers in the centre. These carried matchlock muskets, an inaccurate weapon which nevertheless could be lethal at a range of up to 300 yards. Musketeers would assemble three rows deep, the first kneeling, second crouching, and third standing. At times, troops divided into two groups, allowing one to reload while the other fired. Among the musketeers were pike men, carrying pikes of 12 feet (4 m) to 18 feet (5.5 m) long, whose main purpose was to protect the musketeers from cavalry charges. Positioned on each side of the infantry were cavalry, with a right wing led by the lieutenant-general and the left by the commissary general. Its main aim was to rout the opponents' cavalry, then turn and overpower their infantry.
The Royalist cavaliers' skill and speed on horseback led to many early victories. Prince Rupert, commanding the king's cavalry, used a tactic learned while fighting in the Dutch army, where cavalry would charge at full speed into the opponent's infantry, firing their pistols just before impact.However, with Oliver Cromwell and the introduction of the more disciplined New Model Army, a group of disciplined pike men would stand its ground, which could have a devastating effect. The Royalist cavalry had a tendency to chase down individual targets after the initial charge, leaving their forces scattered and tired, whereas Cromwell's cavalry was slower but better disciplined. Trained to operate as a single unit, it went on to win many decisive victories.
The English Civil War broke out in 1642, less than 40 years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth had been succeeded by her first cousin twice-removed, King James VI of Scotland, as James I of England, creating the first personal union of the Scottish and English kingdoms. As King of Scots, James had become accustomed to Scotland's weak parliamentary tradition since assuming control of the Scottish government in 1583, so that upon assuming power south of the border, the new King of England was affronted by the constraints the English Parliament attempted to place on him in exchange for money. Consequently, James's personal extravagance, which resulted in him being perennially short of money, meant that he had to resort to extra-parliamentary sources of income. Moreover, increasing inflation during this period meant that even though Parliament was granting the King the same nominal value of subsidy, the income was actually worth less.
This extravagance was tempered by James's peaceful disposition, so that by the succession of his son Charles I in 1625 the two kingdoms had both experienced relative peace, internally and in their relations with each other. Charles followed his father's dream in hoping to unite the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland into a single kingdom. Many English Parliamentarians were suspicious of such a move, fearing that such a new kingdom might destroy old English traditions that had bound the English monarchy. Because James had described kings as "little gods on Earth", chosen by God to rule in accordance with the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, and Charles shared his father's position, the suspicions of the Parliamentarians had some justification.
Parliament in an English constitutional framework
At the time, the Parliament of England did not have a large permanent role in the English system of government. Instead, it functioned as a temporary advisory committee and was summoned only if and when the monarch saw fit. Once summoned, a Parliament's continued existence was at the King's pleasure since it was subject to dissolution by him at any time.