English Civil War – causes, road to war & the Devil’s Whore
English Civil War – causes, road to war & the Devil’s Whore is an article by author Charles Cordell addressing the underlying causes of the English Civil War. This includes: the constitutional crisis, class war, religious struggle and Climate Change.
This article also charts the political breakdown and path culminating in civil war across England, Scotland, Ireland and their colonies. It places the English Civil War in the wider context of the Thirty Years War, European Wars of Religion and The General Crisis of the 17th Century.
As with most wars, the English Civil War was the result of a number of underlying tensions. There was no single cause. However, over time, historians have focused on differing triggers. In some cases, these were used to support political ideas and parties.
Today, we need to revisit the mix of causes to better understand why Great Britain, Ireland and their colonies collapsed into civil war. More than ever, we are seeing echoes of the global crises of the 17th Century. We should never forget that the English Civil War was Britain’s most bloody conflict in history.
Causes of the English Civil War
In 1642, England collapsed into civil war. However, the underlying causes of unrest had been building for a number of years. The collapse into civil war was part of a wider pattern of political and religious upheaval across 17th Century Europe and beyond, now known as The General Crisis.
Great Rebellion – ideological clash & constitutional crisis
The English Civil War was the result of a crisis of government. The 1620s and 1630s witnessed a growing political divide. There was no consensus on how to govern England in the face of multiple challenges.
Some believed that it was essential to centralise power along the lines of Spain, France and the Holy Roman Empire. Others looked to a more mercantile model and the economic successes of the Dutch Republic and Venice. This clash of ideologies resulted in a constitutional crisis.
Whig historians presented this political clash and constitutional crisis as a struggle between absolutism and democracy. They described the Great Rebellion as a vital step towards constitutional reform, liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy.
English Revolution – class war & dawn of capitalism
The English Civil War established the sovereignty of Parliament, property and common law. It limited the arbitrary power of the monarch and church. And it paved the way for a capitalist economy. This included the enclosure of medieval open fields and the beginnings of an industrial revolution.
Had groups such as the Levellers, New Model Army agitators and the Diggers succeeded, it might have resulted in social revolution. These groups were ultimately suppressed. However, they are now recognised as early socialists pushing for democratic reform, a widening of the vote, and communal property.
Marxist historians have portrayed the English Civil War as a class struggle. They view this English Revolution as key to the destruction of feudalism and establishment of capitalism. Some see it as a precursor to the French and Russian revolutions.
The Devils’ Whore – British & Irish wars of religion
The English Civil War was fuelled by religious tension. The Reformation left deep divisions across Great Britain, Ireland and the colonies, as well as within Europe. These exploded in a storm of religious persecution and violence that included the brutal Thirty Years War and European Wars of Religion.
This was not simply a clash between Catholic and Protestant. In Britain, it was also a struggle for supremacy between Presbyterian and Independent, between Church and radical iconoclastic Puritanism.
Historians increasingly believe that religion was a far stronger driving force than political or social change in the 17th century. Some suggest that the English Civil War should be viewed as the British Wars of Religion.
Local Grievances – enclosure, piracy, slavery & revisionism
More recently, some historians have focused on the social, economic and cultural fractures across Britain in the run up to the English Civil War. This approach has suggested that local grievances played a vital role in pushing communities to violence.
These local flashpoints included acts of enclosure, of open field parishes and royal forests. They included the draining of fenland and clashes over ancient mining rights. In many cases, they were a struggle over access to resources such as grazing and fuel, issues that fuel violence in Africa and South Asia today.
Alongside these, English fleets, coastal waters and communities faced new maritime threats. Barbary corsair pirates and Catholic Flemish privateers attacked English shipping. The corsairs raided coastal villages and towns in South West England and Ireland. In both cases, those taken were forced into slavery.
Climate Change – the Little Ice Age & The General Crisis
Today, we are forced to recognise Climate Change as a key underlying cause of the English Civil War. The Little Ice Age devastated grain crops in the 1630s. Coupled with overpopulation, this climate change event resulted in a food crisis.
Famine and plague followed. As a result, life expectancy in England dropped. People lived significantly shorter lives than they had under Elizabeth I. Hunger and the collapse of the agrarian based economy, and living standards, were a key driver of the English Civil War.
We now know that the 1640s was the most violent decade in world history. It witnessed a wave of violence that swept the globe. Today, we know this as The General Crisis – the world crisis. Its underlying causes were rapid demographic growth and Climate Change.
Today, we must understand the English Civil War within this context. It was part of a wider, global catastrophe. Ultimately, Climate Change tipped an unstable world into violent struggle with itself.
English Civil War – the road to war 1625-1642
In March 1625, Charles I acceded to the thrones of the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. Almost immediately, his administration was faced with crisis. Already, the seething stew of overpopulation, religious and social tension, foreign wars and uncertainty was close to boiling.
At the heart of this crisis was a recognition of the need for change. The medieval world no longer provided adequate spiritual, moral or societal answers to maintain stability.
However, there was no agreement on the direction of change. Many at Court saw the need for a strong centralised state along Spanish, Hapsburg and French lines. Others in Parliament sought to emulate the freedoms of the Dutch Republic. Many looked to religion for answers. Some sought a religious state.
Tonnage & Poundage, War & the Petition of Right – 1625-1628
Charles I’s reign started with an unprecedented challenge to his rule. On his accession, Parliament voted only one year of Tonnage and Poundage (customs duties) revenue. This was unprecedented. It was a tax granted to all previous English monarchs for life. It was essential for maintaining the national administration, including defence. The King ignored the restriction and collected the tax as every other sovereign had.
Parliament also attempted to restrict the new King’s foreign policy. Their subsidies were inadequate to support his wars against Spain and France. A raid against Cadiz in 1625, led by the Duke of Buckingham, turned into a drunken disaster. An expedition to support the Huguenots of La Rochelle in France in 1627, also led by Buckingham, also ended in failure and withdrawal from the Île de Ré.
The King resorted to a forced loan to support war in 1627, without parliamentary consent. Summoned to return, Parliament presented a Petition of Right in May 1628. The King was forced to accept that he could not levy taxes without consent, imprison those who did not pay without trial, quarter troops on civilians or impose martial law.
On 23 August 1628, the Duke of Buckingham was assassinated in Portsmouth whilst preparing for a further expedition against France. The assassin was a passed-over and unpaid veteran of the Île de Ré expedition who was almost certainly suffering from PTSD. Lieutenant John Felton was lauded as a saviour, his hanged corpse venerated and a toast drunk annually in his honour.
The Île de Ré expedition and John Felton’s execution of the Duke of Buckingham are the subject of Alexandre Dumas’ famous novel, The Three Musketeers.
Personal Rule & the Providence Island Company – 1629-1640
The King prorogued Parliament in March 1629. Before the MPs left their chamber, they restrained the Speaker of the House of Commons in his chair while they passed resolutions against Catholicism, a return to high church Anglicanism and Tonnage and Poundage. The King imprisoned nine MPs and embarked on an eleven-year personal rule without Parliament.
The King’s Personal Rule saw the rise of England’s first organised opposition party. This ‘party’ coalesced around John Pym, Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke, Lord Warwick, Oliver St John and John Hampden. The first five were all shareholders in the Providence Island Company.
John Hampden was not a shareholder. However, he was closely associated with the Providence Island Company, acted on their behalf and owned land in the Saybrook Colony, Connecticut.
The Providence Island Company group met in London and at Broughton Castle, home of Lord Saye and Sele. At Broughton Castle, they met in the ‘room that hath no ears’.
This is an extraordinary room, constructed at the top of a tower, approached by a single staircase. In this room, the group met in secret – under the cover of conducting Providence Island Company business – to plot their political and constitutional challenge to Charles I.
Little Ice Age – dearth, grain riots & plague – 1630-1638
The first years of Charles I reign were marked by good harvests. But this changed in 1629. A poor harvest resulted in grain riots, most notably those led by Captain Ann Carter, a butcher’s wife of Maldon.
The next harvest, that of 1630, was even worse. Grain yields were little more than half their average. For many it was a year of dearth. There was not enough bread to feed a population that had grown by one third in half a century. (England’s population grew from 3 million on 1550 to over 4 million in 1600.)
Severe winter struck, freezing the River Thames in the winter of 1634-35. Poor harvests continued until 1638. By then, many of the population were in poor health. Plague followed.
We now know that these were the effects of the Little Ice Age. However, many saw God’s wrath and biblical parallels with the punishment of Pharaoh.
The old medieval system of communal farming was inefficient. However, the process of enclosure led to social tension and civil disorder in the years running up to the first Civil War. It was a contributory factor to the English Revolution. The disenfranchised rural poor had little legal recourse and swelled the numbers of vagrants on the streets of London, Bristol, Birmingham and other towns across England.
Monetary inflation and economic depression followed in what was an agrarian based economy. Debasing of the currency only increased the problem. Corruption, stockpiling and market exploitation added fuel to a volatile situation.
Ship Money – Barbary corsairs & Dunkirker frigates – 1634-1637
In the North Sea and Channel, ‘Dunkirker’ frigates attacked English fishing boats and coastal shipping. These were Catholic Flemish privateers in the employ of Spain, operating out of Nieuwpoort, Ostend and Dunkirk. Between 1621 and 1628, some 522 vessels were lost. Those unable to pay a ransom were consigned to row Spain’s infamous galleys.
However, a new menace threatened the seas and coastline of South West England, Wales and Ireland, in the form of Barbary corsairs. These were Islamic pirates in search of ‘white slaves’. In 1635 alone, some 87 ships, 1,160 seamen and £96,700 of cargo were lost to the corsairs.
The Barbary Corsairs were not frightened of raiding ashore to seize slaves at places like Marazion, Penryn and Looe. In 1636 alone (a plague year), over 1,000 Cornish men, women and children were taken and shipped to North Africa to be sold as slaves in the markets of Salé and Algiers.
These attacks prompted Charles I to instigate a standing naval fleet in 1628. This was done with Parliament – before his Personal Rule. However, funding was insufficient and the fleet ineffective. The raids continued and worsened.
In 1634, a Cornishman proposed the raising of funds for the navy by imposing Ship Money. William Noy was the MP for the Cornish port of St Ives. In October 1635, the tax was extended to include the inland counties of England. Not just the coastal counties. John Hampden famously challenged the collection of Ship Money as an illegal tax in 1637.
Ship Money has long been cited as an unconstitutional tax and cause of the English Civil War. However, none today would question the idea the navy should tackle maritime security threats during peace. None would question that all England should contribute to paying for its navy.
Bishops’ Wars & Catholic Rebellion in Ireland – 1639-1641
Religious tensions between Charles I and his Scottish subjects came to a head in 1639. The King made abortive attempts to impose religious uniformity. His new prayer book was seen as the “devil’s whore” by Calvinist Scots lowland congregations. Ultimately, the King and his English army were defeated by the Scots in the Bishops’ Wars of 1639 and 1640.
This was rapidly followed in 1641 by the rebellion of disenfranchised Catholics in Ireland. Reports of atrocities stoked political and religious division to the point of crisis. Both King and Parliament claimed the sole right to raise an army to protect England. It was the issue of control over an army for Ireland that finally brought about an irrevocable split between King and Parliament in the form of the Militia Ordinance.
Royal Coup, Commissions of Array & Committee of Safety – 1642
The final breakdown came when Charles I, encouraged by his queen, made an abortive coup attempt to seize five MPs from the House of Commons on 4 January 1642. However, the “birds” had flown. From their hiding place they mobilised the London apprentices to force the King to leave London for York.
The Queen left for Holland to purchase arms and munitions. The King issued Commissions of Array to his Lord Lieutenant in each county of England, granting them medieval powers to raise forces for his cause.
Parliament appointed a Committee of Safety and commissioned the Earl of Essex as Captain-General to raise an army. Critically, Parliament kept control of the Navy and of the great military arsenals at Hull and Portsmouth.
Desperately short of support, the King raised the Royal Standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642 in an appeal to loyalty. It was to mark the start of the first English Civil War.
A Divided Kingdom – parties, factions & extremists
King and Parliament both raised armies. At the centre of the divide were supporters of what were to become the Tory and liberal Whig parties, the basis of British politics to this day. However, each was forced to ally with political and religious extremists.
The King appealed to those who sought strong central patriarchal government, Catholics, reactionary and localist groups (including the Derbyshire free-miners). Political levellers, recognised today as early socialists by the British Labour party, and radical sectarians seeking Godly Rule sided with Parliament.
Culture War – fake news, disinformation & the Royal Collection
The period saw an explosion of printed media in broadsheets and pamphlets. Many of these stoked the fires of division with exaggeration and fake news. The war of words descended into a ‘culture war’ of ‘fake news’ by both the opposition and court parties.
In a number of cases, each party resorted to spreading deliberate disinformation. Any last efforts at censorship failed. The Thomason Tracts is a collection of over 22,000 pamphlets (1640-1661) that remains a key primary source of English Civil War research held in the British Library today.
Charles I was an avid collector of art. He had started adding to his collection whilst as a prince in Europe. His purchase reached a peak in 1636-1638 when he acquired over 500 paintings in just two years. Some have portrayed this as a selfish obsession. However, we should perhaps at least view the King’s portraits as part of a 17th Century media campaign and personal branding.
Lunar Eclipse & Blood Moon – 8 October 1642 & 17 October 2005
Finally, a lunar eclipse and blood moon occurred over England on 8 October 1642, shortly before the Battle of Edgehill (23 October 1642). It was seen as foretelling revolution and war.
The only other lunar eclipse with the same sky narrative in the last 500 years was that seen over the USA and Middle East on 17 October 2005. It was followed by sixteen years of terrorism and war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More English Civil War historical notes & maps
I hope you found this article on the English Revolution and Great Rebellion of 1642 useful. This website also includes notes on the global crisis facing Early Modern Britain in the 1640s, now known as The General Crisis.
You may want to read about Pike and Shot Warfare in the 17th Century and how the Dutch and Swedish military doctrines came to clash at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. More articles can be found on the Battle of Edgehill, the Battle of Lansdown Hill, the Battle of Roundway Down, and more.
You can also read about 17th Century Military Theory. This article explains the clash between Dutch and Swedish military doctrines at Edgehill in 1642. More articles on the Wars of Religion and The Thirty Years War are also at Notes and Maps.
Divided Kingdom – English Civil War historical fiction
These historical notes accompany the text of the English Civil War historical fiction series Divided Kingdom. The books take a fresh approach. They are not based on a single hero. They do not take sides. Their voices – ordinary men and women – face each other in the chaos of Britain in civil war. They are both relatable and sharply relevant today. They are also as historically accurate as is possible.
The novel God’s Vindictive Wrath opens at the Battle of Edgehill and ends with the Battle of Turnham Green in 1642. Desecration is a short story set during the Storming of Winchester and the desecration of Europe’s greatest medieval cathedral. The Keys of Hell and Death covers the war in the west, from the Battle of Lansdown Hill to the Storming of Bristol in 1643.
Please do check out some of the writing at Divided Kingdom Books, including book tasters and a FREE ebook short story.
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The English Revolution and Great Rebellion of 1642.