essay on the english civil war

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English Civil Wars

By: History.com Editors

Updated: September 10, 2021 | Original: December 2, 2009

Between 1642 and 1651, armies loyal to King Charles I and Parliament faced off in three civil wars over longstanding disputes about religious freedom and how the “three kingdoms” of England, Scotland and Ireland should be governed. Notable outcomes of the wars included the execution of King Charles I in 1649, 11 years of republican rule in England and the establishment of Britain’s first standing national army.

Background: The Rise of the Stuarts and King Charles I

England’s last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I , died in 1603, and was succeeded by her cousin, James Stuart . Already King James VI of Scotland, he became King James I of England and Ireland as well, uniting the three kingdoms under a single ruler for the first time. Though at first the Catholic minority in England welcomed James’ ascension to the throne, they later turned against his regime, even attempting to blow up the king and Parliament in the Gunpowder Plot .

James’ son, Charles I, succeeded him on the throne in 1625. His marriage to a Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria of France fueled suspicions (especially among more radical Protestants, known as Puritans ) that the king would introduce Catholic traditions back into the Church of England. Charles also believed strongly in his divine right to rule, and in 1629 he dismissed Parliament altogether; he would not recall it for the next 11 years.

War in Scotland

Beginning in the late 1630s, Charles made efforts to establish a more English-like religious practice in Scotland, generating fierce resistance among that country’s Presbyterian majority. A Scottish army defeated Charles’ forces and invaded England, forcing Charles to recall Parliament in 1640 to generate the money to pay his own troops and settle the conflict. Instead, Parliament acted quickly to restrict the king’s powers, even ordering the trial and execution of one of his chief ministers, Lord Strafford.

Amid the political upheaval in London, the Catholic majority in Ireland rebelled, massacring hundreds of Protestants there in October 1641. Tales of the violence inflamed tensions in England, as Charles and Parliament disagreed on how to respond. In January 1642, the king tried and failed to arrest five members of Parliament who opposed him. Fearing for his own safety, Charles fled London for northern England, where he called on his supporters to prepare for war. 

Did you know? In May 1660, nearly 20 years after the start of the English Civil Wars, Charles II finally returned to England as king, ushering in a period known as the Restoration.

First English Civil War (1642-46)

When civil war broke out in earnest in August 1642, Royalist forces (known as Cavaliers) controlled northern and western England, while Parliamentarians (or Roundheads) dominated in the southern and eastern regions of the country. The king’s forces appeared to be gaining the upper hand by early 1643, especially after concluding an alliance with Irish Catholics to end the Irish Rebellion. But a key alliance between the Parliamentarians and Scotland that year led to a large Scottish army joining the fray on Parliament’s side in January 1644.

On July 2, 1644, Royalist and Parliamentarian forces met at Marston Moor, west of York, in the largest battle of the First English Civil War. A Parliamentarian force of 28,000 routed the smaller Royalist army of 18,000 , ending the king’s control of northern England. In 1645, Parliament created a permanent, professional, trained army of 22,000 men. This New Model Army, commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell , scored a decisive victory in June 1645 in the Battle of Naseby, effectively dooming the Royalist cause.

Second English Civil War (1648-49) and execution of King Charles I

Even in defeat, Charles refused to give in, but sought to capitalize on the religious and political divisions among his enemies. While on the Isle of Wight in 1647-48, the king managed to conclude a peace treaty with the Scots and marshal Royalist sentiment and discontent with Parliament into a series of armed uprisings across England in the spring and summer of 1648.

After Fairfax, Cromwell and the New Model Army easily crushed the Royalist uprisings, hard-line opponents of the king took charge of a smaller Parliament. Concluding that peace could not be reached while Charles was still alive, they set up a high court and put the king on trial for treason. Charles was found guilty and executed by beheading on January 30, 1649 at Whitehall.

Third English Civil War (1649-51)

With Charles dead, a republican regime was established in England, backed by the military might of the New Model Army. Beginning late in 1649, Cromwell led his army in a successful reconquest of Ireland, including the notorious massacre of thousands of Irish and Royalist troops and civilians at Drogheda. Meanwhile, Scotland came to an agreement with the executed king’s eldest son, also named Charles, who was crowned King Charles II of Scotland in early 1651.

Even before he was officially crowned, Charles II had formed an army of English and Scottish Royalists, prompting Cromwell to invade Scotland in 1650. After losing the Battle of Dunbar to Cromwell’s forces in September 1650, Charles led an invasion of England the following year, only to suffer another defeat against a huge Parliamentarian army at Worcester. The young king narrowly escaped capture, but the decisive victory ended the Third English Civil War, along with the larger War of the Three Kingdoms (England, Scotland and Ireland).

Impact of the Civil Wars

An estimated 200,000 English soldiers and civilians were killed during the three civil wars, by fighting and the disease spread by armies; the loss was proportionate, population-wise, to that of World War I.

In 1653, Oliver Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and tried (largely unsuccessfully) to consolidate broad support behind the new republican regime amid the continued growth of radical religious sects and widespread uneasiness about the new standing army.

After Cromwell’s death in 1658, he was succeeded as protector by his son Richard, who abdicated just eight months later. With the continued disintegration of the republic, the larger Parliament was reassembled, and began negotiations with Charles II to resume the throne. The triumphant king arrived in London in May 1660, beginning the English Restoration .

British Civil Wars. National Army Museum .

Mark Stoyle. Overview: Civil War and Revolution, 1603-1714. BBC .

The English Civil Wars: Origins, events and legacy. English Heritage .

Simon Jenkins. A Short History of England: The Glorious Story of a Rowdy Nation . (PublicAffairs, 2011) 

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Religion in the British Civil Wars

Introduction, general overviews.

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Religion in the British Civil Wars by Rachel N. Schnepper LAST REVIEWED: 08 February 2023 LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0186

Religion and the British Civil Wars, also known as the War of the Three Kingdoms or the English Revolution, are inextricably interconnected: it is impossible to understand the causes and course of the English Revolution and exclude religion. Once the Long Parliament committed itself to the reformation of the Church of England, the question remained of what shape this reform should take. Competing visions of church-government or ecclesiologies, such as Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, and Erastianism, dominated debate within the halls of Parliament. However, the breakdown of state-controlled religious conformity released an explosion of new and often radical sects. These radical denominations, which included Ranters, Baptists, Diggers, Levellers, and Quakers, played a prominent role in both political and religious considerations of the Revolution. Furthermore, debates on national religious settlement favoring one church government over another were also complicated by the appearance of an initially minor, but sustained and increasingly important, transatlantic conversation over liberty of conscience. The centrality of religion was recognized, to a degree, in the 19th century, with Samuel Rawson Gardiner terming the English Revolution as the Puritan Revolution. Until comparatively recently, however, the religious factors in the Revolution tended to be downplayed or explained away in nonreligious terms. Recent historiography has renewed interest in the religious dimensions of the English Revolution, an interest that has been shaped by a reconceptualization and redefinition of the meanings of religious belief for ordinary men and women in the 17th century. It is now almost universally agreed upon by historians of the English Revolution that the civil wars between the three kingdoms of the British monarchy—England, Scotland, and Ireland—erupted principally over differing visions of national church-government. Despite being a relatively recent intervention in the scholarship, the literature on religion in the English Revolution is vast, and it continues to provide fertile ground for research and debate. With such breadth of scholarship, the focus of this bibliography must necessarily be truncated and selective. Nevertheless, many of the works included in this article are intended to give the researcher an overview not only of religious history in England in the 1640s and 1650s, but also of the other components of the British monarchy, including not just Scotland and Ireland but also the Atlantic colonies of the nascent British Empire.

The almost annual appearance of general overviews of the English Revolution or the British Civil Wars points to the continued vitality of this historiographical field. Researchers new to the field will probably gain the most by starting with Woolrych 2002 , which addresses the “multiple kingdoms” with multiple religions problem of the British state, integrating the Scottish and Irish histories into what until recently was mostly focused on England. This recent shift to focusing on the problem of multiple kingdoms with multiple religions within the British state owes its origins to Russell 1990 , but Gardiner 2011 , a multivolume series on the outbreak and course of the Revolution, engages with similar ideas and themes. Recent broad narrative accounts of 1640–1660, such as Scott 2000 , push this trend in the scholarship even further, locating the British Isles’ century of revolution within a pan-European context. Morrill 1993 builds upon the historiographical intervention of Russell 1990 but places more emphasis on the centrality of religious belief in the outbreak and course of the English Revolution. Morrill 1993 continues to be relevant, as evidenced by Prior and Burgess 2011 , which takes the author’s claim that the British Civil Wars were “the last of the Wars of Religion” (p. 68) as its point of departure. Just when exactly the Revolution radicalized continues to be a fiercely debated topic, but Cressy 2006 , looking at the first two years of the Revolution from a wider, more popular point of view, challenges prevailing notions that the Revolution radicalized in the mid- to late 1640s, locating the seeds of popular radicalism from its outset. Adamson 2007 looks at the same period as Cressy 2006 but from a wholly different perspective, at the godly elites in the House of Lords.

Adamson, John. The Noble Revolt: The Overthrow of Charles I . London: Orion, 2007.

Exhaustive reconstruction of events from 1640 to 1642 that focuses exclusively on the peers who, Adamson argues, were responsible for the revolt against Charles I. In his provocative analysis of these peers, Adamson maintains that their religious and political frustrations at the policies of the monarchy incited them to revolt.

Cressy, David. England on Edge: Crisis and Revolution, 1640–1642 . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Cressy argues that England was in the midst of revolutionary turmoil and upheaval before the outbreak of civil war in 1642. The bulk of the book, Part 2, focuses exclusively on English religious culture prior to 1642, tracing the rise and collapse of Laudianism and the factionalism that emerged in its wake.

Gardiner, Samuel Rawson. History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603–1642 . 10 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

First published in 1883–1884; continued in History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649 (5 vols., London: Longmans, Green, 1893) and History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649–1660 (4 vols., London: Longmans, Green, 1903). Exhaustive treatment of constitutional, religious, and legal thought from the early Stuart period and Revolution. Useful mostly for scholars interested in historiographical evolution.

Morrill, John. The Nature of the English Revolution: Essays . New York: Longman, 1993.

A collection of essays by Morrill subdivided into three thematic sections: the importance of localism during the Civil Wars, the centrality of religion to the conflict, and a push to see the English Revolution from a British point of view. His essay titled “The Religious Context of the English Civil War” famously claimed that the English Civil War was “the last of Europe’s wars of religion” (pp. 45–68).

Prior, Charles W. A., and Glenn Burgess, eds. England’s Wars of Religion, Revisited . Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 2011.

Introduction argues that, until recently, historians understood the English Revolution as a struggle to preserve civil liberty, but one in which participants used a religious idiom to express a politically revolutionary ideology. Each essay rejects this view, maintaining that historians must take seriously the religious language of the time.

Russell, Conrad. The Causes of the English Civil War . Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.

Russell’s seminal breakdown of the causes of the English Civil Wars, attributing them to the constitutional problem of multiple kingdoms, the religious problem of competing theologies, and the financial and personal poverty of Charles I.

Scott, Jonathan. England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511605741

Scott situates England’s century of “troubles” within the wider contexts of European confessionalization, state formation, and militarization of the 17th century.

Woolrych, Austin. Britain in Revolution: 1625–1660 . New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Massive narrative account of the English Revolution with particular focus on Irish and Scottish roles.

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The English Revolution as a civil war *

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John Morrill, The English Revolution as a civil war, Historical Research , Volume 90, Issue 250, November 2017, Pages 726–741, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.12200

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The 2017 Historical Research /Wiley lecture was designed to raise some general issues about the nature of ‘civil wars’ as a prelude to a conference that looked at many examples across time and space. It takes the events of the sixteen-forties across Britain and Ireland and notes that very few participants accepted (at least publicly) that they were engaged in one or more civil wars. There was widespread seventeenth-century understanding that the term ‘civil war’ ( bellum civile ) had been developed in late republican and early imperial Rome but as just one of several terms used to analyse and describe internal wars and conflicts. This article explores the implications of this for our understanding of the first great crisis of the Stuart kingdoms.

I was delighted to accept the invitation to give the Historical Research /Wiley Lecture for 2017 but I was startled and challenged to be provided with my title. As the prelude to a conference which was to consider civil wars in many times and places, it made sense for me to be given a specific task. But ‘The English Revolution as a civil war’ turns out to consist of seven words, six of which are treacherous.

The word ‘English’ is perhaps the most treacherous word of all, since whatever else the blood-letting of the sixteen-forties and early sixteen-fifties was about it was not localized to ‘England’. The word ‘Revolution’ carries so much baggage and is weighed down by so much anachronism that I have avoided it for much of my career. 1 ‘As’ is a curious preposition assuming that the Revolution (if there was one) happened in parallel with a civil war (if there was one). English civil wars (if there were any) ended in 1648. The Revolution, in so far as it is a term still deployed, focuses on the events of 1649 and after. The word ‘a’ presumes a single civil war rather than an interlocking series of wars across two decades and three kingdoms. The word ‘civil’ nowadays does not evoke the Latin word ‘civis’ (citizen) as once it did, and its resonances are more of a civil rather than an uncivil conflict, a civilized rather than an uncivilized war, an idea that goes back to Augustine's City of God where he speaks of ‘discordiae civiles vel potius inciviles’. 2 As we will see, some of the civil wars of the sixteen-forties were a lot more civilized than others. And finally ‘war’. When does a rebellion morph into a war?

If the title index of Early English Books Online is anything to go by, those living through the violence of the sixteen-forties and sixteen-fifties were seven times more likely to call what they were living through rebellion than civil war. Indeed the Long Parliament entirely avoided calling it either a rebellion or a civil war and preferred ‘troubles’. It seems that I had been told to traverse quicksand.

At least we know what those living through what they did indeed sometimes call ‘civil war’ meant when they used the term. 3 Most educated Britons in the mid seventeenth century knew their Cicero and most of them also knew their Tacitus, their Lucan and their Plutarch. Cicero indeed seems to have been the one to invent the term bellum civile in de Officiis and in the form pestifera bella civilia (accursed wars amongst citizens) and Roman historians came to identify five periods of intense bella civilia between the Sullan wars of the eighties B.C. and the Severan wars of the one-nineties A.D. 4 So when seventeenth-century Englishmen came to conceptualize their own history, there is no doubt that Roman accounts of Roman civil wars were very much in their minds. They were also acutely aware that theirs was not the first civil war in English history, or in the history of their own times. So an anonymous eight-page pamphlet in 1643 gave itself the title, A briefe declaration of all the civill wars that have happened in England, first in the raigne of King John; secondly in the Barrons wars; thirdly in Yorke and Lancaster Warrs , and the author then itemized civil wars in the reigns of Henry VIII and each of his three children. 5 In contrast, H.P. (perhaps Henry Parker) had already described and analysed The manifold miseries of civill warre and discord in a kingdome by the example of Germany, France, Ireland and other places . 6 The first time the term was applied to England seems to have been by Humphrey Crouch, in a broadsheet ballad received by Thomason on 9 November 1642, entitled A godly exhortation to this distressed nation shewing the true cause of this unnatural civill war amongst us . 7 And by 1645 the notion of an English civil war was well established as in John Corbet's An historicall narration of the military government of Gloucester, from the beginning of the Civill Warre between Kinge and Parliament, to the removal of Colonell Massie from that government . 8 However, by not later than 1644 the term was also being applied to much more complex interacting conflicts in the three kingdoms of the house of Stuart. Thus one anonymous author wrote A discourse concerning the grounds & causes of this miserable civill war wherein Ireland is exhausted, England wasted and Scotland likely to be embroiled and wherein not only liberty but religion is endangered . 9 Now this is an author who creates an agenda for us.

And what were the characteristics of a civil war identified by and remembered from the Roman historians and poets? Trumpets were sounded, standards were the visible sign, conventional forms of warfare were the means, and control of the City of Rome was the aim. Civil wars were not spasmodic expressions of political violence. Civil wars were sequential and cumulative across all or most of the territories of the Republic or Empire. 10 And the violence was always more terrible than in foreign war and the wounds took much longer to heal. Those evils were more infernal because internal, wrote Augustine. 11

And yet the Romans did not describe every internal war as a bellum civile . They also had concepts of bella servilia (slave revolts) and most interestingly bella socialia . How much Roman blood was shed and how much of Italy was destroyed and devastated, lamented Augustine, in ‘bella socialia, bella servilia et bella civilia’. 12 But here, as John Pocock pointed out, bellum sociale does not translate as a ‘social war’, an insurrection to overturn the social order, but a bellum inter socios : ‘a war amongst socii , polities associated in a system comprising a multiplicity of states. [Each] great bellum sociale of antiquity turned on the eligibility of Italian socii to be treated as cives Romani ’. 13 The immediate relevance to events in Scotland and Ireland should be apparent, and indeed he spelt it out:

If there were Irish who resorted to war to make Ireland a sovereign kingdom under the Stuart or any other crown, and the Irish or English or Scots who fought to keep it subject, still this would be bellum sociale as the term is being used here. 14 At the centre of my argument there remains the War of the Three Kingdoms as a great bellum sociale . 15

I will return to this in due course. And I shall point out that there was at least one kind of internal war within the Roman system which is not covered by the accounts offered by David Armitage or Pocock. This is the war of secession, where those fully incorporated as Roman socii but only in individual cases as cives Romani fought to disown identifies to which they were bound by conquest and experience and to cease to be socii and in some cases cives . The most obvious and bloody such war of independence was the Jewish Revolt of 66–70 A.D. 16 Were the wars in Ireland in the sixteen-forties more wars of independence than wars to redefine the Irish relationship to the British and Irish Crown, and indeed more too than a classic civil war? 17

There is one more preliminary problem of definition to be addressed before I get stuck into a more empirical discussion of what actually happened in the English Revolution. It is characteristic of civil wars across medieval and modern history that foreign governments intervene and interfere. The Wars of the Roses only lasted as long as they did, and the outcomes were only what they were, because the rulers of France, Brittany and Burgundy were willing to provide men, munitions and other forms of protection and succour to those most recently driven into exile. 18 The Wars of Religion in the second half of the sixteenth century were viewed by some, not least by Queen Elizabeth I herself, as a series of discreet civil wars, and she was reluctant to set precedents by, as she put it, setting fires in other men's houses. But for many, including her own leading counsellors, it was one big war, part of a global struggle of Christ and Antichrist, a struggle of good and evil, with the pope, to coin a phrase, as the axis of evil. 19 Thus Spain, France and England all interfered militarily in one another's internal wars. 20 We all speak readily enough, guided by experts on television, of the current Syrian civil war. It is hard to believe things would be as they are if outside powers had kept out of it. How helpful is to speak of the Vietnamese civil war of the nineteen-sixties? Now in that sobering context at least we can say that the English Revolution of the sixteen-forties contained within it a civil war or series of civil wars that were not particularly complicated by foreign intervention. Mercenaries from the Continent had a small part to play, but as independent operators, not as agents of foreign powers. 21 Charles II may have granted extraordinary powers to Charles Duke of Lorraine as Protector Royal of Ireland to bring a large army to ‘liberate’ Ireland from the Cromwellians, but that large army never materialized. 22 The Atlantic seaboard powers may have given support to exiles, made grants or loans to the Crown or to its opponents and interfered diplomatically, most obviously the French in Scotland and the hugely unhelpful papal nunciature in Ireland of GionBattista Rinuccini, 23 but none of this can be said to have determined any of the outcomes to any significant extent. False hope of foreign aid was probably more important than feet on the ground or cash in the pocket but the results were strictly secondary. So the conflicts in England in the sixteen-forties can be firmly called internal wars, with trumpets, standards, seven of the ten biggest recorded battles in English history, advanced siegecraft, massacre and retribution by due process. What we now need to disentangle is the extent to which the conflict was straightforwardly bellum civile , a civil war.

Using the Roman definitions there was a civil war in England in the sixteen-forties. Trumpets sounded, banners were unfurled, there were armies with fully recognized command structures on both sides and there were combatants on both sides from each of the forty English and twelve Welsh counties. It is perhaps worth stressing that there were just two sides. Although over forty years ago I drew attention to the Clubmen movements, that is, to those who organized to drive both royalist and parliamentarian sides out of their county or region, I never claimed that they were a third movement. They simply wanted the civil war to be fought elsewhere in England and the many studies of the Clubmen since then have established that in practice almost all the movements made deals with one or both sides and in due course became irregular royalists or irregular parliamentarians. And they melted away like spring snow after a short time. 24 More generally, what I would now say is that within royalist and parliamentarian parties in most counties there were many who saw their civil war as a war for control of their own boundaries and who saw little commitment to assisting in a national struggle. But equally there were those who were only too happy to share local resources to secure a national victory.

Cheshire, which I studied in the nineteen-sixties, remains an excellent case in point, but Suffolk, Glamorgan and Kent would be equally good examples. Both sides introduced conscription, and combined organized tax collection. Both sides implemented highly controlled and widespread confiscation of the lands and moveable goods of those of their opponents deemed to be free political agents. Both sides had national ‘marching’ armies as well as regional armies expected not only to secure anything up to eight counties but to contribute to campaigns elsewhere. The core of the royalist infantry at Naseby had been raised in south Wales for example. 25 Not all counties contributed equally to national campaigns. For example, very few parliamentarian troops raised in south Wales ever fought outside south Wales, but in practice men and money were mobilized in a way that allows us to speak of a national war and not of a series of regional conflicts. 26

Did that mean that Charles I or the leaders in parliament thought they were fighting a civil war? I have already noted that they resisted using the term in their official pronouncements. The formal papers exchanged between them and gathered together in a 900-page collection does not use the word once, the king always opting for ‘rebellion’ and parliament for endless circumlocutions and evasions. 27 Just as striking, the king only used the term civil war once in the whole of the 248-page Eikon Basilike and in a rather constrained sense:

No necessity shall ever, I hope, drive Me or Mine to invade or sell the Priests Lands, which both Pharaoh's divinity, and Ioseph's true piety abhorred to doe: So unjust I think it both in the eye of Reason and Religion, to deprive the most sacred employment of all due incouragements; and like that other hardhearted Pharaoh, to withdraw the Straw, and encrease the Taske; so pursuing the oppressed Church, as some have done, to the red sea of a Civill Warre , where nothing but a miracle can save either It, or Him, who esteems it His greatest Title to be called, and His chiefest glory to be The Defender of the Church. 28

This is a very oblique application of the term.

I suggested thirty years ago that parliament stopped publicly accusing Charles I of acts of tyranny for much of the autumn of 1641 onwards because of the difficulties it would get them into – they had been arguing against papal monarchomach theory for two generations and knew all the arguments. 29 From their private papers, it is clear that privately they still thought of him as tyrant but it suited them to avoid saying so in the House or in print. So it may well have suited the purposes of both sides to avoid using the term ‘civil war’. In preparing this article I focused on printed material and can only offer a generalized opinion on what would be found in the diaries and private letters of principal actors in the conflict. That said, my impression is that the term was used in private but, importantly, usually in the form of a lamentation. A civil war was what we have, they said, and it is a disaster, as Augustine and Lucan and Cicero have taught us. It was never seen as a means to an end but as a catastrophic failure of policy and entirely the fault, each would say, of the other side. Moderates on both sides saw it as a scourge from God for their failure of duty.

There is a sharp difference, however, between the king himself and parliament institutionally in how they instead conceptualized the conflict in which they were engaged. Charles always saw it as a series of interlocking conflicts across his dominions, across his dynastic agglomerate. 30 In 1638, the Scottish National Covenant was not a call to arms. It was an act of defiance, a general strike by the Scottish nation against the king's attempts to impose a prayer book and much else on them, an enforced anglicanization of their religious life and practice. Charles did not have the resources, legal, political or military, within Scotland to enforce his will. But what the Scots had not anticipated was that he would use the resources of all three of his kingdoms to crush their passive defiance. He planned risings by supporters in the north of Scotland, and the despatch of armies from England and Ireland, to break the will of the Covenanters. It all went pear-shaped, of course, both in the summer of 1639 and in the summer of 1640. But he was not deterred. 31 Throughout the period of the first civil war in England, 1642–6, he was negotiating with the Irish Confederates first to free up the English army in Ireland to return to the English theatre and then to bring over a large Irish Catholic army to rescue his evaporating fortunes. In order to get this army, he was willing to create an effectively free-standing Irish Catholic monarchy. 32 And when his English enemies made an alliance with the Scots, he found enough supporters in Scotland who resisted and resented the Calvinist theocracy that was being set up there to begin a civil war in Scotland to weaken Scottish participation in the war in England. 33 And those Scottish loyalists came to rely very heavily on Irish Catholic allies crossing the narrow seas from Ulster. 34 The king may well have thought that in England he faced a rebellion that could only be put down with loyal support from across his kingdoms. Civil war was not necessary to his understanding of his predicament.

Charles's English opponents gathered in and around parliament were, unsurprisingly, more divided in their views of the nature of the conflict. Once armed conflict broke out in England, they effectively abandoned committing any resources to the defence of the English and Protestant interest in Ireland, and at no point before 1648 did they consider involving themselves in the internal wars in Scotland. And at no point did a majority of them want to do more than pay a minimum religious and constitutional bounty to gain Scottish military assistance to secure victory in England. 35 If this meant signing up to a common religious settlement across the three kingdoms, it was for most of them a price worth paying. In 1641, 1643–6, 1648 and, indeed, 1652 they only conceded in the vaguest of terms the federal structure that the Scots were determined to achieve. 36 When in early January 1649 the English parliament decided to put King Charles on trial for treason against his English subjects, they did not consult with or even inform the Scottish parliament, and when the London-based Scottish commissioners of that parliament wrote three times to the Rump demanding an explanation, the latter voted not to open the commissioners' letters. And when on 2 February 1649 the English parliament declared that monarchy was to be abolished in England and Ireland, they passed over Scotland in silence. In their unanimous view the Anglo-Scottish union of 1603–4 had been dissolved and it was assumed that the Scots would resume an independent existence. It is important that the Scots' immediate response, on 5 February, was to proclaim Charles II not as king of Scotland but as king of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Scots fought in the sixteen-fifties not for independence but for federal integration with England. Which all goes to show that the king certainly believed he was engaged in a war in and between the three kingdoms while the English parliament tried to focus on fighting an English civil war conscious that events in Scotland and Ireland had to be recognized and their impact minimized. 37

To what extent did Englishmen who lived away from the centre of power believe that they were engaged in a purely English civil war? The vast majority of those supporting parliament, as well as many of those trying to avoid being drawn into the conflict and most royalists who sought to get their sequestered property back after the fighting was over, took the Solemn League and Covenant in or after the winter of 1643/4. And they would have been in no doubt that this not only required them to sign up to a new federated monarchy and a new pan-Britannic evangelical Protestant Church, but also to a joint Anglo-Scottish conquest of Catholic Ireland. 38 But the lived reality of a three-kingdom conflict varied enormously from region to region. In essence, it meant a great deal more to those living north of the line of the Severn and the Trent than those living south of it. Anyone within 100 miles of the English/Scottish border experienced a Scottish presence for three years, and large numbers of Scottish troops were engaged in the sieges of Newark – 214 miles south of the Tweed, closer to Brighton than to Berwick – as well as in Lancashire (and briefly as far south as the siege of Hereford). The Scots were the biggest component of the army that faced the king at the largest battle of the wars, at Marston Moor in July 1644 outside York. The only Scots men and soldiers who would have been seen in southern England were a few officers returning from wars on the Continent and offering their services mainly but not exclusively to the parliamentarian armies. 39 They were not welcome. To take an early and over-the-top example from a private letter from a royalist captain: his men kept themselves warm in inclement weather, he said, ‘with the hopes of rubbing, fubbing and scrubbing those scurvy, filthy, nasty, lousy, itchy, scabby, shitten, stinking, slovenly, snotty-nosed, logger-headed and [fifteen insults later] long-eared, short-haired, damnable, atheistical, puritanical crew of the Scottish covenant’. 40

Similarly, those living in the counties of Lancashire, Cheshire and Shropshire, the north Wales coastal counties and those living on either side of the Bristol Channel lived in constant royalist hope or deep parliamentarian anxiety that an Irish Catholic army would arrive any day. For such was Charles I's plan and such was parliament's worst fear, much touted in its propaganda. Indeed, several thousand troops did arrive from Ireland in and after the late winter of 1643/4. These were for the most part English soldiers sent over in 1642 to protect those Protestants who had survived the massacres of the previous winter. 41 They were presented as Irish Catholics, not only in a series of deliberately misleading pamphlets (Trump-like tweets we might call them nowadays), but also in the Long Parliament's ‘Ordinance forbidding the giving of quarter to any Irishman or Papist born in Ireland who shall be taken in Hostility against the Parliament either upon the Sea or in England and Wales’. 42 Many returning English troops died under the terms of this ordinance. To give just two examples: a Cornish major called Connock was misrepresented as an Irishman called Major Connaught and was later executed for alleged atrocities committed by him in Cheshire. 43 And the summary execution of a supposed Irishman and the display of his hanged body outside the walls of Bolton helped to provoke Prince Rupert's massacre there. 44

None of this applied in the counties across southern England. The edited letter books of Sir William Brereton, parliamentarian general in Cheshire and the north midlands, are full of index entries to Ireland and some to Scotland; 45 those of Sir Samuel Luke in Bedfordshire have no references to either. 46 The political and religious histories of Newcastle and Sunderland were determined by the presence of the Scots in one but not the other. 47 One can write a civil war history of Essex or Dorset or Devon without mentioning Ireland or Scotland. Is it a coincidence that there are no Clubmen movements north of the Severn-Trent line? And is it a coincidence that the Levellers, with their insistent rhetoric of the rights of Englishmen , a settlement for Englishmen , and a squeamishness about speaking of an Irish conquest, were confined to the area south of the Severn and the Trent? None of the Leveller tracts that can be word-searched on Early English Books Online , by the way, contain the phrase ‘civil war’ except for a single reference in A plea at large, for John Lilburn gentleman, now a prisoner in Newgate. Penned for his use and benefit, by a faithful and true well-wisher to the fundamental laws, liberties, and freedoms of the antient free people of England (August 1653), which refers to those slain ‘in the late civil wars’. 48

So it mattered a great deal on where you lived in England as to how far you saw the civil war as an English as against a British war. And in so far as the aim of the Scots who did come, and the Catholic Confederates of Ireland who constantly threatened to come, was to change the constitutional relationships of the three kingdoms and to transform the relationship between the peoples of the two islands, it follows that many recognized that this was a bellum sociale as well as a bellum civile . The distinction probably mattered little to the men and women of Kent or Essex. But it mattered a lot to the men of Newark and Newcastle-upon-Tyne or of Cheshire or Devon.

Of course, there were civil wars in Scotland in the sixteen-forties, first in 1644 and 1645, and then, less certainly in 1649–50. Trumpets sounded, banners unfurled, men and monies were raised across Scotland and there was sustained fighting. Montrose's campaign would never have got off the ground without the Macdonnell/Maccolla forces from Ireland, but whatever else it was, it was a civil war. 49 The war between the Resolutioners and the Remonstrants or Protesters in and after 1649 was more spasmodic and regionally limited, but it was more than a baronial war. The defining difference between the Resolutioners (who were willing to accept Charles II's claims to contrition for past sins at face value), and the Remonstrants (who were not willing to do so), was on the terms and conditions on which they would not only admit him as their king but also commit themselves to fighting to restore him to all his kingdoms. So this was a Scottish bellum civile as a war but it was a British bellum sociale in its objectives. 50 But within the narrow Roman definitions with which we started, it was a civil war.

Before we move on from the Anglo-Scots dimension of the English Revolution, there is one more matter to be addressed. Scottish armies crossed the Tweed on five occasions and entered England in 1639, 1640–1, 1643–7 and 1648, and, for twelve months on the second occasion and for four years on the third occasion, they occupied large parts of northern England. Newcastle was under Scottish occupation for a total of sixty-one months. And English armies entered Scotland for three months in 1648 and constituted an army of occupation from 1650 to 1660. Which of these movements was different in kind from a crossing of the Severn or the Trent? Which of them constituted in the minds of actors or observers at the time ‘invasions’? 51 Can one part of ‘the Kingdom of Great Britain’ invade another part? If not, then is an ‘invasion’ an act of civil war as we have come to understand it.

I have been through all the formal statements made by the king and by the parliaments of England and Scotland and by their executive bodies. As far as I can see, none of them ever acknowledged that they were ‘invading’ their neighbour. From the king's point of view, he and his father had long promoted the idea that the union of the Crowns created a common identity of his subjects with free movement across his realms. Both parliaments were formally committed, the Scots more than the English, but still both were committed, to a new federal Britain and talk of ‘invasion’ would create all kinds of problems. Great Britain was a legal entity, and while few thought of themselves as only ‘British’ many thought of themselves as British and Scottish or and Welsh or and English. Thus I can find only one reference to ‘invasion’ in official pronouncements until 1648, and sparse ones even after that. The pre-1648 exception is in a single-sheet proclamation of Charles I in December 1643 headed By the King, a Proclamation for the assembling the members of both Houses at Oxford, upon occasion of the invasion by the Scots . And within the proclamation comes an especially startling statement, a call for a ‘union of English hearts to prevent the lasting miseries which this foreign invasion must bring upon this kingdom’. 52 I doubt Charles drafted or ever actually saw this proclamation.

A whole-work word search on Early English Books Online for ‘invasion’ finds only one other instance of ‘invasion’ in relation to the Scottish military actions before 1648, and it is almost certainly an echo of the king's proclamation. It comes in a printed letter from Sir Thomas Glemham, the royalist colonel general of Northumberland to the marquess of Argyle. It is dated 20 January 1644 just a month after the royal proclamation. Glemham wrote that ‘without the sight of [your] letter, we could not have bin induced to believe that the Scottish Nation or the prevailing party for the present of that Nation, would have attempted an invasion of England’. 53 The letter from Argyle to which Glemham was replying had carefully spoken of ‘the entrance’ of the Scots army and such circumlocutions were regularly used by all sides until 1648. So there was great coyness of language to that point. 54

During the campaign of the Scots into England in 1648 the term is more frequently used, eight times in all. One anonymous tract, entitled The Scots apostacy, displayed, in a treacherous invasion of the English against the law of nations , even helpfully offered a definition: ‘Invasion is the comming in of forraign forces into a Country, without the invitation or consent of the said Country: and of this clearly the Scots are guilty’. 55 For this unknown author, Scots are foreigners. So much for Calvin's case. In the ensuing months, and during the English occupation of Scotland in and after 1650, usage of the term ‘invasion’ is sparing. Nothing printed with a royal or parliamentary imprimatur uses the word, just eight pamphlet titles albeit including two declarations by Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell and one by Lord General Thomas Fairfax. The earlier of Cromwell's is entitled: The declaration of Lieutenant Generall Crumwell concerning the kingdom of Scotland, and their invading the realme of England. And his resolution to march into the said kingdom with his army, for restitution of goods and cattell to all His Majesties subjects of England, who have suffered since their first invasion . 56 They had invaded, it seems; he had simply ‘march[ed] into the said kingdom’. 57 Thus these are separate kingdoms and therefore invasion is possible. The independent press were less restrained. A letter from Lord Grey of Groby to Philip Skippon was published under the title Old English blood boyling afresh in Leicestershire men occasioned by the Late barbarous invasion of the Scots . 58 The polemicist Marchamont Nedham, during his brief royalist phase, spoke of ‘ Reverend Alderman Atkins (the shit-breech) his speech … concerning the Scots invasion ’. 59

Perhaps less surprisingly, there is only one pamphlet from the period of Cromwell's campaigns in Scotland in and after 1650 in which the English or the Scots use the word invasion. That exception is when the Presbyterian minister Christopher Love, on the eve of his execution for treason in 1652, published, as an appendix to a protestation of innocence, ‘a declaration of my judgement concerning Cromwells unlawfull invasion of the kingdom of Scotland’. Love claimed that the invasion had been planned in Rome and at ‘the instigation of Jesuites, and the Papists Party to root out the Protestant Party in Scotland . He used the word thirteen times in all, five of them in one paragraph:

I shall … lay down some Arguments to prove the unlawfulnesse of the English Army's invading Scotland. Yet I intend not to handle the case of Invasion, to shew in what cases only an Invasion of another Nation in a Hostile manner is lawfull: I am from all my books, that I cannot consult with Casuists in that point; all that I shall doe at present, is to give some Scripture instances, that may hint unto us the unwarrantablenesse of the War with that Nation of the same Religion, and in Covenant with us; and then give reasons and considerations, drawn from interest of State, against the unlawfull Invasion of Scotland. Had God given me life, I intended a large Treatise concerning the Usurpation of the Government of England, and the unlawfulnesse of the Invasion of Scotland; but my collections being lost and taken away, they must dye with me; I hope more able hands will write against the Invasion, though they cannot fight against the Invaders. 60

Neighbouring nations who are also, clearly, neighbouring states, cannot engage in a civil war with one another. But the Covenanters who would not accept Charles II as a king of Scotland only, but as the king of Great Britain, did not accept that they had invaded England or that they had been invaded by the England. Theirs was a bellum sociale not a bellum civile .

Finally to Ireland. In the 8,000 and more ‘depositions’ taken from survivors of the ‘massacres’ in and after the winter of 1641/2 and discussing the violence across all thirty-two counties of Ireland, 61 the term ‘civil war’ does not appear once. In contrast, the term ‘rebellion’ occurs 3,472 times. That seems pretty emphatic. The depositions were, after all, taken over the years 1642–4 with stragglers from later years. Both king and parliament relentlessly speak of ‘the Irish Rebellion’, while those Catholics who took the oath of allegiance to God, King and Patria call themselves ‘your Majesty's loyal Catholic subjects’. 62

And yet, and yet. The Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny established a popularly-elected general assembly with representatives from every county in Ireland. It ordered elections to provincial and county councils. It organized the collection of taxes and the formation of regional armies co-ordinated by a supreme council drawn from the general assembly. It developed competing sets of war aims directed at securing military, political and ecclesiastical control of the whole of Ireland. 63 Its opponents included fellow Old English Catholics who had been settled in Ireland for more than 400 years, their leader after all being the twelfth Anglo-Irish Butler Earl of Ormond in the Irish peerage. They also included many Old English Protestants as well as many more in their second or third generation of domicile in Ireland. So this was a civil war as Cicero, Livy or Tacitus would have called it, and in the sixteen-forties it was a civil war that never owned its name.

Some of the battles across the sixteen-forties involved men sent from Britain, and especially from Scotland, to protect what they invariably called ‘British Protestant’ interests in Ireland. 64 More than half of all those battles and skirmishes, in which thousands rather than hundreds of regimented soldiers fought, were contested by men permanently settled in Ireland. 65 It is hard in these circumstances not to impose the term bellum civile as a distinct element in the wars in Ireland. But we do have to impose it. I can find little evidence of the use of the phrase within the island of Ireland at the time. Looking at the Irish conflict, the king consistently referred to the rebellion of 1641 but equally consistently sought to make a settlement with the ‘rebels’ that would result in their participation – on his side – in the wars in England. He was willing in ways resisted by his own lord lieutenant (hence his reliance on the extraordinary – in two senses – mission of the earl of Glamorgan) to grant to the Confederates the prospect of an effectively autonomous kingdom under Catholic control if only they would send their fighting men across the Irish Sea. 66 And from the Irish Catholic point of view, only a royalist victory in England could create the conditions for a Catholic government in Ireland. Despite the huge case for mutual assistance, there were, however, two stumbling blocks. The first was the not-so-small demand of the papal nuncio for the creation of a Catholic confessional state. And the second was that while Charles would give Catholics full religious freedom and full political equality, he would not agree to the return of confiscated lands to the Catholic Church, and this delayed agreement until it was too late, and both parties suffered catastrophe. 67

The Irish wars might look like wars of religion in the purest sense, but of course nothing is ever as simple as that. It is true that the vast majority of Catholics joined the Confederation of Kilkenny, and indeed no-one could join the Confederation of Kilkenny unless he or she took a solemn and very Catholic oath after making confession, attending Mass and receiving Holy Communion. And there was no ethnic test: all Catholics, be they Irish, Scottish or English (the Welsh being subsumed into the English), were welcomed as Confederates. 68 But some leading Catholics, not least the marquess of Clanricarde, never joined the Confederation and supported instead the king's lord lieutenant, the Protestant marquess of Ormonde. 69 And, of course, there was a three-way split within the Protestant community: those English of Ireland, including many descendants of the medieval settlers, who supported the king; the English of Ireland drawn mainly from those who had settled since 1580 and especially with the Ulster plantations that began in 1609, who supported the English parliament; and the Scots of Ulster. At various points in the sixteen-forties, Protestant groups were fighting one another rather than the Catholic Confederation. All that being said, the fundamental divide was Protestant versus Catholic, at least until 1649.

Nothing illustrates this more than the history of atrocity. The civil war in England was not so very uncivilized. The number of civilians killed in cold blood was very small (certainly in comparison with the Thirty Years War on the Continent), and the number of men in arms killed in cold blood very limited. Prince Rupert's so-called massacre of parliamentarians in Bolton on 28 May 1644 and his even more notorious sack of Leicester shortly before the battle of Naseby in June 1645, together with Cromwell's assault on, and denial of quarter at, Basing House in November 1645, are the only examples that stand out. 70 In each case killings in cold blood are now agreed to have been in scores not hundreds, and each was followed by orders protecting the lives of numerous prisoners. In contrast, in Ireland there were many massacres in which no quarter was given. In battles on English soil, it was usual for there to be four prisoners for every man killed; in Ireland precisely the reverse. At the battle of Dungan's Hill in County Meath (August 1647) all those Irish Confederates who surrendered were massacred (at least 1,000 of them). Similarly, the many hundreds of Catholics who took refuge in a church at the end of the siege of Cashel in county Tipperary the following month were massacred after surrendering, some of the Catholic clergy being tortured to death. It was a different kind of war in Ireland and those differences can be attributed to religious hatred grounded in fear. 71 In Ireland, after all, there had been a century of native Catholic resistance leading to English military suppression, land confiscation and the planting of Protestant colonists. In the winter of 1641–2 an attempted elite coup had been overtaken by a popular insurgency and the deaths of thousands of settlers, the minority by acts of violence, the majority from the effects of being driven stark naked into the countryside during one of the coldest winters on record. 72 To protect the survivors of these massacres, the English parliament had set out to borrow £1 million from venture capitalists and zealous puritans to pay for an army that would re-establish Protestant and English government. That money was secured against 25 per cent of the productive land of Ireland. 73

This is the background to the politics behind the bitter fighting of the sixteen-forties. Of course, the Protestant minority all wanted a confessional Protestant state and the exclusion of Catholics from all positions of trust and power, but differed about what form of Protestantism should prevail and also about how much authority should be devolved from Whitehall and Westminster to Dublin. What created the fragile unity of the Catholic side was fear; fear of religious repression far beyond what had gone before, and fear that their lands would be taken from them and leaving them destitute and quite possibly dead.

If there was civil war in Ireland in the sixteen-forties, it lay concealed by a war of religion and a bellum sociale , a redefinition of the relation of the kingdoms of England and Ireland and of the peoples of England and the several peoples of Ireland (including Scots). And perhaps it was buried within one more kind of internal war. The Irish rebellion of 1641 has many of the characteristics of the Jewish revolt of 66 A.D. There is evidence from the 1641 depositions of some popular support for a war of independence, a casting-off of allegiance to the house of Stuart and for an Irish king or Ireland governed by a local leader under a Spanish protectorate. But the leadership of the Confederation stamped on this, and burnt in public the only publication advocating it. 74 All those who joined the Confederation swore an oath containing an unequivocal promise of obedience to Charles I and his heirs. This is the royalism that allowed, in 1646 and 1649, most Catholics to make common cause with the Protestant Ormondists in the final showdown with Cromwell that resulted in the greatest of all massacres, those at Drogheda and Wexford in the autumn of 1649. 75 So I will not repeat my well-known views on these except to remind us that the scale of the English military operations in Ireland in the period 1649–53 resulted in thousands of deaths and executions and tens of thousands of men, for the most part, given free passage to Europe or enforced passage to indentured servitude in Barbados and Virginia. 76 But it also resulted in the confiscation and redistribution of more than 40 per cent of the land of Ireland, from Catholics born in Ireland to Protestants who saw themselves as British. If we are looking for a revolution in the mid seventeenth century, there was an irreversible redistribution of land, wealth and power, not in England but in Ireland. In 1641, Catholics born in Ireland owned more than 60 per cent of the land; by 1660 they owned about 15 per cent and by 1710 less than 10 per cent. 77

The title I was given was ‘Was the English Revolution a civil war?’ Well yes, but much more than a civil war. We cannot explain why civil war happened, why it ended as it did and what its significance was by seeing it as essentially a war within England. There were civil wars within and between all three of Charles I's kingdoms, not forgetting the principality of Wales. There was certainly not a British civil war but a whole series of internal wars of different kinds within a state system that was not a state, amongst a group of peoples who defined themselves against one another, an unstable British identity secondary to identities linked to their sense of themselves as the ‘gentes’, the peoples, of an archipelago. For much of the twentieth century it was assumed that the Revolution in seventeenth century England was driven by social conflict. A mountain of scholarship failed to sustain the Whig and Marxist thesis. New social historians and post-revisionist historians of political culture have demonstrated deep processes of social change within England that help to explain the nature of the conflict, why it was so utterly unlike the baronial wars of the past. 78 Men and, to an extent, women across society now had economic freedom, a freedom that came from education and the free circulation of news and information which bred a confidence that permitted them freer political choices. Of course, many chose to remain deferent to their social superiors. Many others exercised their independence. But was tension within and between social groups sufficient to generate the greatest and most sustained period of organized violence in English history?

What this article suggests is that alongside, and perhaps instead of, social tensions within England, it is profitable to see ethnic tensions within and between the peoples of Scotland and Ireland and England as the principal driver of the interconnected wars and any revolutions of the mid seventeenth century. The dynastic agglomerate of the house of Stuart, like other dynastic agglomerates all over Europe, was in a period of transition and crisis as congeries of territories historically separate were brought together. The English civil wars used to be seen as a point of transition from feudalism to capitalism. But the British civil wars can be more appropriately seen as a point of transition, paralleled across western, northern and southern Europe, from Reformation to Enlightenment, from the confessional state to the secularized pluralistic state, from loose state systems to nation states. And if there was a revolution in the seventeenth century, an unreversed transfer of wealth and power, it was driven by that process. In the sixteen-fifties monarchy was abolished and a Commonwealth established. That Commonwealth reduced three parliaments to one, three legal systems to one, three economic systems to one, and in the process effected in Ireland an irreversible redistribution of land, wealth and power along ethnic and religious lines, in Scotland a later reversed redistribution of wealth and power, and in England very limited redistributions. In the end, English hegemony within a transformed state system was the legacy. Claims of an English Revolution remain shaky; claims for a British Revolution look more interesting. 79

Was the English Revolution a civil war? Better to say: was the British Revolution a series of internal wars of which some can be helpfully designated civil wars? More of a mouthful but more to the point.

A search on the Bibliography of British and Irish History (< http://www.brepolis.net/ > [accessed 31 July 2017 ]), with ‘Revolution’ as a title word and 1640–60 as time delimiters produces (in July 2017) 1,137 hits, so it is still used vicariously by historians. One recent important reflection that covers the key historiography is D. Como, ‘God's revolutions: England, Europe and the concept in the mid seventeenth century’, in Scripting Revolution: a Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions , ed. K. M. Baker and D. Edelstein ( Stanford, Calif. , 2015 ).

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I owe this quotation to D. Armitage, ‘Every great revolution is a civil war’ , in Baker and Edelstein , pp. 57 – 68 , 269 – 71 , at p. 64 (the source is St. Augustine, City of God, bk. 19, para. 7).

What follows is based on an online full-title search of the English Short Title Catalogue < http://estc.bl.uk > and a search of the scanned and searchable full text (now very considerable) of Early English Books Online < https://eebo.chadwyck.com/home > [both accessed 1 Aug. 2017 ].

Based on Armitage, ‘Every great revolution’ and J. Osgood, ‘Ending civil war at Rome: rhetoric and reality, 88 B.C.E.−197 C.E.’, American Hist. Rev. cxx (2015), 1683–95. Since this lecture was delivered, there has appeared D. Armitage, Civil Wars: a History in Ideas (2017). I have added some references from that book but I would obviously have made greater use of it if I had read it before writing the lecture of which this is a fairly faithful record.

A briefe declaration of all the civill wars that have happened in England (1643) (E.S.T.C., no. R20216 (E.S.T.C. numbers will be used for all 17th-century printings cited in this article)). For a discussion of English 17th-century histories of civil wars in ancient Rome and medieval England, see Armitage, Civil Wars, pp. 101–3.

H.P., The manifold miseries of civill warre (1642) (E.S.T.C., no. R233495). H.P. has usually been assumed to be Henry Parker, but Michael Mendle has given good reasons for being sceptical about this attribution and suggests instead Henry Peachum (see M. Mendle, Henry Parker and the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1995), p. 195).

Humphrey Crouch, A godly exhortation to this distressed nation shewing the true cause of this unnatural civill war amongst us (1642) (E.S.T.C., no. R212540).

John Corbet, An historicall narration of the military government of Gloucester (1645) (E.S.T.C., no. R23152).

Anon. , A discourse concerning the grounds and causes of this miserable civill war (n.d. but 1644) (E.S.T.C., no. R15277).

Armitage. ‘Every great revolution’, p. 64.

Armitage . ‘Every great revolution’ , pp. 64 – 6 , citing St. Augustine, City of God , bk. 3, para. 23.

St. Augustine, City of God, bk. 3, para. 23 (and see also bk. 9, para. 4). Augustine uses the terms bellum civile/bella civilia 34 times in The City of God. The concept of bellum sociale is discussed by Armitage, Civil Wars (e.g., pp. 34, 130–8) but he at no time relates to the events in Britain in the 1640s, repeatedly referring to the English civil wars and making no reference to Scotland and Ireland (although note the telling comment on p.101: ‘after the British constitutional crisis of 1640–1 broke out into armed arrays across England …’ (author's emphasis)).

J. Pocock , ‘The Atlantic archipelago and the War of the Three Kingdoms’, in The British Problem c.1534–1707: State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago , ed. B. Bradshaw and J. Morrill ( Basingstoke , 1996 ), pp. 172 – 91 , at p. 186 .

Pocock, ‘Atlantic Archipelago’, p. 189.

Pocock, ‘Atlantic Archipelago’, p. 190.

Many of those engaged in the wars would have known about the Jewish war of independence: an English translation of Josephus's Wars of the Jews had been published in seven separate printings between 1602 and 1640 (two of them in 1640 itself (E.S.T.C., nos. S106535 and S112706)), as part of the Famous and Memorable Works of Josephus. There is a modern edition with an exemplary introduction that covers the points relevant here ( Josephus Flavius , Wars of the Jews ( Oxford , 2017 )). For a full account,

see S. Mason , A History of the Jewish War: AD 66–74 ( Cambridge , 2016 ).

For the most recent scholarship on this, see M. Hicks . The Wars of the Roses ( 2012 ).

The classic account is C. Wilson , Elizabeth I and the Netherlands ( 1970 ).

The interactions are economically and effectively chronicled in J. Elliott , Europe Divided 1559–98 ( 1968 ).

M. Stoyle, Soldiers and Strangers: an Ethnic History of the English Civil War (2005), esp. ch. 5, and the list of all known Continental officers in the appendix at pp. 213–23. Note his comment (at p. 95), ‘no one will ever be able to say precisely how many foreign professional soldiers there were in England between 1642 and 1646’. For another aspect, see P. Edwards , Dealing in Death: the Arms Trade and the British Civil Wars ( Stroud , 2000 ).

M. Ó Siochrú , ‘The duke of Lorraine and the international struggle for Ireland, 1649–52’ , Historical Jour. , xlviii ( 2005 ), 905 – 32 .

For our purposes, the following is an excellent summary of a great body of scholarship by the following author: T. Ó hAnnracháin , ‘Rinuccini, Giovanni Battista (1592–1653)’, O.D.N.B. ( Oxford , 2004 ) < http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23660 > [accessed 27 July 2017 ].

See more broadly, J. Ohlmeyer , ‘Ireland independent: Confederate foreign policy and international relations during the mid 17th century’, in Ireland: from Independence to Occupation , ed. J. Ohlmeyer ( Cambridge , 1995 ), pp. 89 – 111 .

J. S. Morrill , The Revolt of the Provinces 1630–50 ( Harlow , 1976 ) (rev. edn. Revolt in the Provinces 1634–48 (Harlow, 2000)), ch. 3;

cf. D. Underdown , ‘The chalk and the cheese: contrasts among the English Clubmen’ , Past & Present , lxxxv ( 1979 ), 25 – 48 .

For a review of all the literature and a penetrating account of the ‘peaceable movements’ in south Wales, see T. Gray, ‘Clubmen and peaceable armies, the political culture of south Wales, c.1642–54’ (unpublished University of Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 2017).

Stoyle, pp. 138–42, 163–5.

J. Morrill , ‘The British Revolution in the English provinces, 1640–9’ , forthcoming (originally delivered as the March Fitch Lecture at the I.H.R. in 2009 ).

An exact collection of all remonstrances … printed for Edward Husbands (1642 [1643]) (E.S.T.C., no. R8395)

[Charles I ventriloquized by John Gauden], Eikon Basilike (1648 [1649]), pp. 106–7 (E.S.T.C., no. R505040) (author's emphasis).

J. Morrill , ‘Rhetoric and action: Charles I, tyranny, and the English Revolution’, repr. and most accessible in J. Morrill , The Nature of the English Revolution ( Harlow , 1990 ), pp. 285 – 306 .

This is a point I have made on perhaps too many occasions, most fully in ‘Three kingdoms and one commonwealth? The enigma of mid-17th-century Britain and Ireland’, in Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History , ed. A. Grant and K. Stringer ( 1995 ), pp. 170 – 92 .

For the emergence of ‘dynastic agglomerates’ in early modern Europe and specifically in Britain, see J. Morrill and R. von Friedeburg , Monarchy Transformed: Princes and their Elites in Early Modern Europe ( Cambridge , 2017 ), esp. chs. 1–2.

J. Morrill , ‘The national Covenant in its British context’, in The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context , 1638 – 51 , ed. J. Morrill ( Edinburgh , 1990 ), pp. 1 – 30 ;

P. Donald , An Uncounselled King: Charles I and the Scottish Troubles, 1637–41 ( Cambridge , 1990 ), chs. 3–5. The most powerful recent re-presentation of the Scottish crisis, with a most important emphasis on how ‘interactions between print, manuscripts and political performance created spaces in which open and relatively free debate could take place’, is L. Stewart's Rethinking the Scottish Revolution: Covenanted Scotland, 1637–51 ( Oxford , 2016 ), chs. 1–3, quote at p. 30.

J. Lowe , ‘Charles I and the confederation of Kilkenny 1643–9’ , Irish Hist. Studies , xiv ( 1964 –5), 1 – 19 ;

J. Lowe . ‘The Glamorgan mission of 1645–6’ , Studia Hibernica , iv ( 1964 ), 155 – 96 .

E. Cowan, Montrose: for Covenant and King (1977).

D. Stevenson , Alisdair Maccolla and the Highland Problem in the 17th Century ( Edinburgh , 1980 ) (new edn. as Highland Warrior: Alasdair MacColla and the Civil Wars ( Edinburgh , 2014 )), esp. ch. 1.

Morrill , ‘Three kingdoms’ , pp. 179 – 85 .

J. Morrill , ‘The rule of saints and soldiers: the wars of religion in Britain and Ireland, 1638–60’, in A Short History of the British Isles: the 17th Century , ed. J. Wormald ( Oxford , 2008 ), ch. 3 (see esp. pp. 84 – 9 , 92 – 103 ).

J. Morrill , ‘The English Revolution in British and Irish Context’, in The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution, ed. M. J. Braddick ( Oxford , 2015 ), pp. 555 – 7 .

See S. R. Gardiner , Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625–60 ( Oxford , 3rd edn., 1904 ); the Solemn League and Covenant available online at The Constitution Society < http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur058.htm > [accessed 3 Aug. 2017 ]: ‘We noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the Gospel, and commons of all sorts in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, by the providence of God living under one King … do swear that … we shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship and catechising, that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love’.

Stoyle, ch. 4.

Stoyle, pp. 74–5.

Stoyle suggests that about 1,970 Irishmen crossed over to fight in England during the war of 1642–6, all led by Protestant officers, mainly from Munster.

‘October 1644: An Ordinance Commanding that no Officer or Soldier either by Sea or Land, shall give any Quarter to any Irishman, or to any papist born in Ireland, which shall be taken in Arms against the Parliament in England’ , in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–60 , ed. C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait ( 1911 ), pp. 554 – 5 (British History Online < http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp554-555 > [accessed 12 Jan. 2017 ]).

Morrill , ‘The English Revolution in British and Irish context’ , pp. 568 – 72 .

Stoyle, p. 68 (for a wider discussion of the treatment of the Irish, see pp. 65–71).

The Letter Books of Sir William Brereton , ed. R. N. Dore (2 vols., Gloucester , 1984 –90);

The Civil War in Staffordshire in the Spring of 1646: Sir William Brereton's Letter Book, Apr.–May 1646 , ed. I. Carr and I. Atherton ( Stafford , 2007 ).

The Letter Books of Sir Samuel Luke, 1644–5, Parliamentary Governor of Newport Pagnell , ed. H. G. Tibbutt ( Bedfordshire Hist. Rec. Soc. , lxii , 1963 ).

R. Howell , Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Puritan Revolution ( Oxford , 1967 );

W. Dumble , ‘The Durham Lilburnes and the English Revolution’, in The Last Principality: Politics, Religion and Society in the Bishopric of Durham, 1494–1650 , ed. D. Marcombe ( Nottingham , 1987 ), pp. 227 – 52 .

[by ‘a Faithful and true well-wisher to the fundamental laws, liberties, and freedoms of the antient free people of England’], A plea at large, for John Lilburn gentleman, now a prisoner in Newgate (1653), p. 4 (E.S.T.C., no. R207176).

For which see works cited above, nn. 34 and 35.

D. Stevenson , Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Scotland 1644–51 ( 1977 ).

The first person to quiz me on this, in characteristically buoyant fashion, was Mark Kishlanky, much missed by me and all who care about the integrity of the discipline of history.

By the King, a Proclamation … upon occasion of the invasion by the Scots ( Oxford , 1643 ) (E.S.T.C., no. R35096), a single-page broadsheet.

A letter from the Marqves of Argile and Sir William Armyn in the name of themselves and their confederates, to Sir Thomas Glemham, dated at Barwicke, January 20: with the answer of Sir Thomas Glemham and the commanders and gentry of Northumberland, dated at Newcastle, January 23 (1644) (E.S.T.C., no. R20037), p. 5. This is at head of his letter, a very pointed statement ahead of the common courtesies of correspondence at the time.

A letter from the Marqves of Argile and Sir William Armyn, p. 2.

The Scots apostacy, displayed, in a treacherous invasion of the English against the law of nations (1648) (E.S.T.C., no. R205041), p. 1.

The declaration of Lieutenant Generall Crumwell concerning the kingdom of Scotland, and their invading the realme of England (1648) (E.S.T.C., no. R205140).

The other two that I referred to are Lieut: General Cromwels letter to the honorable William Lenthal Esq; speaker of the honorable House of Commons … representing the great damage the kingdom of England hath received from that kingdom by the late invasion (E.S.T.C., no. R205338); and The demands of His Excellency Tho. Lord Fairfax and the Generall Councell of the Army, in prosecution of the late remonstrance to the two houses of Parliament as also against those persons who were the inviters of the late invasion from Scotland (E.S.T.C., no. R5115).

Old English blood boyling afresh in Leicestershire men occasioned by the Late barbarous invasion of the Scots (1648) (E.S.T.C., no. R40522).

Reverend Alderman Atkins (the shit-breech) his speech, to Mr. Warner the venerable Mayor of London, the wise aldermen, and most judicious Common-Councell men, in relation to the present affaires in Kent, Essex, and Surrey, concerning the Scots invasion, and His Majesties interest (1648) (E.S.T.C., no. R204921).

C. Love, A cleare and necessary vindication of the principles and practices of me Christopher Love, since my tryall before, and condemnation by, the High Court of Iustice (1651) (E.S.T.C., no. R202748). The word invasion occurs 13 times in the pamphlet, including at the end of the title page.

All available free and online, in transcription and digitally imaged, and fully searchable, at Trinity College Library Dublin, 1641 Depositions < http://1641.tcd.ie > [accessed 3 Aug. 2017 ].

See J. Morrill , ‘An Irish Protestation? Oaths and the Confederation of Kilkenny’, in Popular Culture and Political Agency in Early Modern England and Ireland: Essays in Honour of John Walter , ed. M. J. Braddick and P. Withington ( Woodbridge , 2017 ), pp. 243 – 66 .

M. Ó Siochrú , Confederate Ireland, 1642–49: a Constitutional and Political Analysis ( Dublin , 1998 ).

R. Armstrong , ‘Ormond, the Confederate peace talks and Protestant royalism’, in Kingdoms in Crisis: Ireland in the 1640s: Essays in Honour of Donal Crógan , ed. M. Ó Siochrú ( Dublin , 2001 ), pp. 122 – 40 .

P. Lenihan , Confederate Catholics at War, 1642–9 ( Cork , 2001 ).

The foundational study remains Lowe, ‘The Glamorgan mission’.

T. Ó hAnnracháin , ‘Conflicting loyalties, conflicted rebels: political and religious allegiance among the Confederate Catholics of Ireland’ , English Hist. Rev. , cxix ( 2004 ), 851 – 72 .

Morrill , ‘An Irish Protestation?’ , pp. 248 – 50 , 256 – 9 .

J. Ohlmeyer , ‘Burke, Ulick, marquess of Clanricarde (1604–1658)’, O.D.N.B. ( Oxford , 2004 ; online edn., Jan. 2008 ) < http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3996 > [accessed 28 July 2017 ].

The best overviews are by B. Donagan , ‘Atrocity, war crime, and treason in the English civil war’ , American Hist. Rev. , xcix ( 1994 ), 1137 – 66 ;

and I. Jones [née Volmer], ‘A sea of blood? Massacres during the wars of the three kingdoms, 1641–53’, in Theatres of Violence: Massacre, Mass Killing, and Atrocity throughout History , ed. P. G. Dwyer and L. Ryan ( New York , 2012 ), pp. 63 – 80 .

But for detailed case studies, including Leicester, Bolton and Basing House, see I. Volmer, ‘A comparative study of massacres during the wars of the three kingdoms, 1641–53’ (unpublished University of Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (2007)), pp. 91–103, 151–67.

M. Ó Siochrú , ‘Atrocity, codes of conduct and the Irish in the British civil wars 1641–53’ , Past & Present , xcv ( 2007 ), 55 – 86 ;

Lenihan , pp. 209 – 14 , and for case studies, Volmer, ‘A comparative study of massacres’ , pp. 169 – 79 (sack of Cashel) and passim.

There has been an explosion of material on the background to the 1641 rebellion, especially since the publication online of the depositions of survivors in 1641. A good summary of the current state of scholarship is J. Cope , ‘The Irish Rising’ , in Braddick , pp. 77 – 95 .

Fundamental are A. Clarke , ‘The “1641” massacres’, in Ireland, 1641: Contexts and Reactions , ed. M. Ó Siochrú and J. Ohlmeyer ( Manchester , 2013 ),

E. Darcy , The Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms ( 2013 ), and

N. Canny , Making Ireland British, 1580–1650 ( Oxford , 2001 ), ch. 8.

K. Bottigheimer , English Money and Irish Land: the ‘Adventurers’ and the Cromwellian Settlement in Ireland ( Oxford , 1970 ), chs. 1–2.

The classic statement is by T. Ó Fiaich , ‘Republicanism and separatism in the 17th century’ , Leachtai Choluim Cille , ii ( 1971 ), 25 – 37 and available online at < http://theirelandinstitute.com/republic/02/pdf/ofiaich002.pdf > [accessed 9 Aug. 2017 ].

The most passionate statement of the case has been translated and edited by J. Minahane , Conor O'Mahony : an Argument Defending the Right of the Kingdom of Ireland, 1645 ( Cork , 2010 ).

And see also I. W. S. Campbell , ‘John Punch, Scotist Holy War, and the Irish Catholic revolutionary tradition in the 17th century’ , Jour. History of Ideas , lxxvii ( 2016 ), 401 – 21 .

For the most recent discussions, see M. Ó Siochrú, ‘Propaganda, rumour and myth: Oliver Cromwell and the massacre at Drogheda’ and J. Morrill, ‘The Drogheda massacre in Cromwellian context’, both in Age of Atrocity: Violence and Political Conflict in Early Modern Ireland , ed. D. Edwards , P. Lenihan and C. Tait ( Dublin , 2007 ), pp. 266 – 82 , 242 – 65 .

S. O'Callaghan , To Hell or Barbados ( Co. Kerry , 2000 ).

For a major revision of the traditional view on the scale of transportation, see H. Carlson, ‘Irish emigration an involuntary migration to Barbados: 1649–60’ (unpublished University of Cambridge M.Phil. thesis, 2013), available in the Seeley History Library, Cambridge.

The most recent and best account is J. Cunningham, Conquest and Land in Ireland: the Transplantation to Connacht, 1649–80 (2011), esp. chs. 2, 3, 5, 6.

All this is fully explored in a special issue of the Huntington Libr. Quart., lxxviii (2015) entitled Revisiting Revisionism: Personalities and the Profession. See esp. the chapters by J. Morrill, D. Hirst and J. Walter.

This was the theme of my Ford Lectures in Oxford in 2006 entitled ‘Living with Revolution’ and hopefully soon to be published under the title ‘The Peoples' Revolution: the wars of three kingdoms and the transformation of Britain and Ireland 1647–62’.

This article is a revised version of the text of the Historical Research /Wiley lecture delivered on 17 Jan. 2017 to launch the Institute of Historical Research's Winter Conference on civil wars. I am grateful to all those who asked such good questions in the discussion that followed, several of whom made me rethink what I said on that occasion; and to my friends Colin David and David Sacks for their encouragement and admirably clear and firm advice about some slackness in my thinking.

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Before the English Civil War

Essays on Early Stuart Politics and Government

• © 1983
• Howard Tomlinson

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

Front matter, introduction, the causes of war: a historiographical survey, the jacobean religious settlement: the hampton court conference.

• Patrick Collinson

The Personal Rule of Charles I

• Kevin Sharpe

Spain or the Netherlands? The Dilemmas of Early Stuart Foreign Policy

• Simon Adams

Financial and Administrative Developments

• David Thomas

The Nature of a Parliament in Early Stuart England

• Conrad Russell

National and Local Awareness in the County Communities

• Anthony Fletcher

Back Matter

• historiography
• reformation
• Renaissance

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Before the English Civil War

Book Subtitle : Essays on Early Stuart Politics and Government

Editors : Howard Tomlinson

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17308-2

Publisher : Red Globe Press London

eBook Packages : Palgrave History Collection , History (R0)

Copyright Information : Simon Adams, Patrick Collinson, Anthony Fletcher, Conrad Russell, Kevin Sharpe, David Thomas, Howard Tomlinson 1983

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : X, 222

Additional Information : Previously published under the imprint Palgrave

Topics : History of Britain and Ireland , History of Early Modern Europe

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Impacts of English Civil War Essay

Introduction, the british civil war and its effects on colonists, charles ii policies and their effects on colonists, review of the period between 1606 and 1763, works cited.

The American Revolution spans way back from the British colonization era. The first colony for the British was Newfoundland in 1497. Then a century later, it found its place in America. One of the major interests of the British to relocate to America (New England) was as a result of the ample space the continent provided for its population. This is so because the Rural England was said to be full by the 17 th century.

By 1604, an agreement had been signed between the two countries and in 1606 America was subdivided into two monopolies, that is, North and South Virginia. North Virginia was reserved for merchants and fishermen from Plymouth (South West England) whereas South Virginia was set aside for investors and immigrants from London.

However, the 17 th century turned out to be one of the most turbulent times for the British Empire which resulted to a civil war (British Civil War) between the Parliament and the King 1 . Though the war was as a result of political misunderstandings there were also religious strings that were attached to the war.

The English Civil war that began in 1642 was as a result of a contest which was of political nature between the King and the parliament. It was also fueled by religious circles which saw Anglicans favor the king whereas the Puritans supported the parliament.

This was a war against King Charles I, though the Puritans felt it was their obligation to remain in England opposing migration to the New England. The war came to halt in 1649 when King Charles I was executed and the parliament won the war. Therefore, during the following eleven years, between 1649 and 1660, the Puritans were the supreme leaders of England and this had an impact on the New England.

One impact was that the colonists in New England governed themselves and secondly they did not strictly conform to the orders or wishes of the rulers in England anymore.

This was as a result of the Parliament and Puritans defeat of King Charles I where the battle was of a political nature. Since the Puritans believed they had a religious obligation which implied they had to remain in England, this led to a low migration number of the Puritans from 1649 which in return made the New England colonists gain governance power over themselves 2 .

A great number of Puritans had migrated to New England between 1630 and 1642 where King Charles I had not prohibited then to do so. This was because it was in his favor if they migrated due the rising pressure between the Parliament and him since the Puritans were always against him; therefore they were in support of the Parliament. The reluctance of the Puritans to relocate to New England made life easier for the colonists as opposed to the time when King Charles I was in power.

This led to the colonists in Virginia to accepting Cromwell’s authority and those of the Puritans; which in return saw them reclaim power to govern over themselves.

The reign of the Puritans came to an end as from the 1660s when Charles II rose to the throne of England as King. This was viewed as a restoration to the throne by the people of England. King Charles II resurfaced the colonialism spirit and interest for this was to be his major focus during his reign. This saw the new government with increased and vigorous efforts in the colonial affairs.

Due to the heightened interests for England to resume its power over the colonists, the New Policy of the Stuarts (The Stuart Tyranny) was set in place. This was as a result of the growth of the colonies in terms of strength and liberty due to the authority Cromwell and the Puritans had bestowed to them which were against England’s laws 3 .

Charles II and James were not pleased with these results for the colonies had become too free as well as strong. Therefore, they reduced the colonies into royal provinces including Virginia with exception of Pennsylvania which was under their friend and ally, William Penn.

This went on well because of the reluctance of the colonists to team up with the French and the Indians. This new policy led to an attack on Massachusetts since the Puritans had initially taken it over and given full authority to the natives that even saw the Church of England decapitate its rights where the members would not worship freely as they could have wished.

This had made the natives so free that they did not give heed to the laws and the asserted acts by parliament because the Puritans held that such administrative rules and regulations had no force over the colony.

The attack as summoned by King Charles II saw England restore its power over the colony 4 . Sir Edmund Andros was given the mandate to govern Massachusetts and at the same time, was ordered to set up the Church of England once more where he could tax the people or take away their lands if deemed fit without their consultation or consent. This saw the Massachusetts governing power diminish for they were under new control.

This also led to Andros enforcing the Navigation laws that saw him take possession of Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Plymouth as he was still the governor of New Hampshire and New York.

By the time several cities including New York were founded, they already had religious toleration to Christians; they were not founded as royal colonies rather they were founded on a proprietary basis. The Navigation Acts provided that colonies were to exist solely in respect to the mother country. This concept was borrowed from Mercantilist theory with the aim of ensuring that England was the main parent of all these colonies therefore any colonial trade from any of the colonies was supposed to benefit England 5 .

This was the main reason why almost all exports were diverted to England.

The Act also abhorred foreign trade because it would have benefited foreign countries as well as enriching the colonies at England’s expense. These acts also geared to centralizing economic decision making by the parliament so as to enable the British Merchants to remain at the core of the colonial trade for the colonies were an important market to England (mother-country).

The trade goods were to be supplied to the colonies through British and Colonial merchants as well 6 . In the light of the Economic trade boom from the royal colonies, especially in tobacco, there was also a continuous deafening outbreaks of Malaria and Yellow fever among colonies especially Virginia which was the first southern colony. This posed to be a major risk for the colonists for their health deteriorated a great deal.

In 1606, Virginia was divided into two colonies which were served by two groups from England. 1607 saw the establishment of Jamestown in 1620. Plymouth colony was established by Mayflower; in 1629 Puritans were allowed to settle is Massachusetts by the Royal Charter. In the year 1642, the British Civil War started 7 . The war ended in 1649 and in 1651, Navigation Acts directed all colonial trade to be done in British ships.

King Charles I was beheaded and the Puritans coupled with the parliament took up power until 1660. Between 1649 and 1960, the Puritans took over most of the New England and changed English laws.

They also gave colonists power to govern themselves. In 1660, Charles II came into power as King and implemented colonial policy. Between 1660 and 1963, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island were acquired by the British as colonies. Bacon’s Rebellion took place in 1676. King Philip’s war between Indians happened between 1675 and 1976.

The Glorious Revolution occurred in the year 1689, instituted by William and Mary. Due to the bad government of Carolina proprietors, a rebellion ensued in I719. In 1681, Quaker colony was established by William Penn. During 1756-1963, French ambitions chastened. 1700 and 1960 saw prosperity of colonies which became stronger evidenced by development of commerce and establishment of manufacturing plants. Increase in Parliamentary power over royal power was also experienced in 1760s.

This was as a result of the Elected Legislators who had backing of the public opinion (creating a legitimate government perception). The Legislators also claimed the right to set governor’s salaries as well as impose local taxes and the British colonial policy (after the French-Indian War) stifled their power too.

Armitage David, “Civil War and Revolution”, Harvard University. 2009. Web.

British Empire. “ Initial Contacts with the English British Empire Portal – United Kingdom ”. 2011. Web.

Cottrell, Peter. “The English Civil War in the American Colonies”, Royal Army-Sealed Society. 2006. Web.

Graves, Spencer. “ Violence, Nonviolence, and the American Revolution ”, American History. 2004. Web.

McDougall, Walter. “The Colonial Origins of American Identity”, University of Pennsylvania. 2004. Web.

Michael Smith, “Colonial Life in Virginia”, Geo-Cities. 2002. Web.

U.S. History. “ The Southern Colonies ”, United States-History Page. 2011. Web.

Worcestershire. “Archeology of English War”, Worcestershire County Council. 2002. Web.

Reference List

• Armitage David, “Civil War and Revolution”, Harvard University, 2009.
• British Empire, “Initial Contacts with the English British Empire Portal – United Kingdom”, 2011.
• Cottrell Peter, “The English Civil War in the American Colonies”, Royal Army-Sealed Society, 2006.
• Graves Spencer, “Violence, Nonviolence, and the American Revolution”, American History, 2004.
• Worcestershire. “Archeology of English War”, Worcestershire County Council. 2002.
• McDougall Walter, “The Colonial Origins of American Identity”, University of Pennsylvania, 2004.
• U.S. History, “The Southern Colonies”, United States-History Page, 2011.
• Geo-Cities. 2002.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 19). Impacts of English Civil War. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impacts-of-english-civil-war/

"Impacts of English Civil War." IvyPanda , 19 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/impacts-of-english-civil-war/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Impacts of English Civil War'. 19 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Impacts of English Civil War." February 19, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impacts-of-english-civil-war/.

1. IvyPanda . "Impacts of English Civil War." February 19, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impacts-of-english-civil-war/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Impacts of English Civil War." February 19, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impacts-of-english-civil-war/.

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Short Essay: Civil War

Crafting a short essay on a topic as expansive as the Civil War can be a daunting task. The key to success lies in focusing your argument, conducting thorough research, and presenting your findings in a clear, concise manner. Below is a guide designed to help you write a compelling essay on the Civil War, covering everything from initial research to final proofreading.

Table of Contents

Understanding the Assignment

Before you begin, ensure you understand the requirements of the assignment. What is the prompt asking you to discuss? Is there a specific angle or topic you need to focus on, such as the causes of the Civil War, a particular battle, or the ramifications of the conflict? Clarifying these points will help you stay on topic and avoid unnecessary tangents.

Initial Research and Thesis Development

Start with a broad overview of the Civil War to help you narrow down your focus. Books, academic journals, and reputable online sources can provide a solid foundation of knowledge. As you research, look for a specific aspect of the Civil War that interests you and has sufficient material to explore in a short essay.

From your research, develop a thesis statement that presents your central argument. A strong thesis is specific and debatable, guiding the direction of your essay. For example, if you’re discussing the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might argue that while slavery was the central issue, other political and economic factors also played crucial roles.

Crafting an Outline

An outline is invaluable for organizing your thoughts and ensuring you cover all necessary points. For a 1200-word essay, a simple structure might include:

Mastering the Short Essay: Writing About the Civil War

Crafting a short essay on a topic as expansive as the Civil War can be a daunting task. The key to success lies in focusing your argument, conducting thorough research, and presenting your findings in a clear, concise manner. Below is a guide designed to help you write a compelling 1200-word essay on the Civil War, covering everything from initial research to final proofreading.

• Hook to engage the reader
• Background information
• Thesis statement
• Paragraph 1: Major cause or event with supporting evidence
• Paragraph 2: Another cause or event with supporting evidence
• Paragraph 3: Further analysis or an additional supporting point
• (Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence and provide analysis, not just description)
• Restate the thesis in a new way
• Summarize key points
• Provide final thoughts or implications of your argument

Writing the Introduction

Begin your essay with a compelling hook, such as a provocative question, a brief anecdote, or a startling statistic related to the Civil War. Provide necessary background information that sets the stage for your thesis, and conclude the introduction with your thesis statement, clearly laying out what your essay will argue.

Developing the Body Paragraphs

Each body paragraph should focus on one main idea that supports your thesis. Start with a topic sentence that clearly states the paragraph’s main point. Follow this with evidence from your research, including quotes, statistics, and historical examples. Be sure to analyze the evidence, explaining how it supports your argument. Transition smoothly between paragraphs to maintain a cohesive narrative.

Writing the Conclusion

Your conclusion should restate your thesis in a new light, considering the evidence and analysis you’ve presented. Summarize the main points of your essay and end with a strong final thought that underscores the significance of your argument. Avoid introducing new information in the conclusion.

Integrating Sources

When citing sources, follow the required citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) and ensure that all quotations and paraphrased material are properly attributed. This not only gives credit to the original authors but also strengthens the credibility of your own work.

Editing and Proofreading

After completing your draft, take a break before revising. Editing is crucial for clarity and conciseness. Check that each sentence and paragraph contributes to your thesis and that your argument flows logically. Look for areas where you can tighten your prose and eliminate redundancy.

Proofreading is the final step. Read your essay carefully for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Reading aloud can help you catch mistakes that your eyes might skip when reading silently.

Additional Tips

• Stay within the word count. It’s easy to become engrossed in the vast history of the Civil War, but discipline is key to maintaining a concise essay.
• Use primary sources such as speeches, letters, and official documents to provide a firsthand perspective on the Civil War.
• Understand the limitations of your essay. You cannot cover everything about the Civil War in 1200 words, so focus on a particular aspect or argument.
• Maintain an objective tone, especially when discussing controversial or sensitive topics. Present evidence fairly and acknowledge counterarguments where appropriate.

Example of a Short Civil War Essay Structure

Introduction (150 words)

• Hook: Present an intriguing fact about the Civil War’s impact.
• Background: Briefly outline the period leading up to the war.
• Thesis: State your argument regarding the primary cause of the Civil War.

Body (900 words)

• Topic Sentence: Introduce the first cause (e.g., economic differences between theNorth and South).
• Evidence & Analysis: Provide specific examples and discuss how the economic divide contributed to tensions.
• Transition: Lead into the next paragraph by hinting at how economic factors intertwined with more direct causes.
• Topic Sentence: Discuss the role of slavery and its moral implications as a central cause.
• Evidence & Analysis: Use primary sources and historical evidence to show how slavery fueled sectionalism.
• Transition: Connect the issue of slavery to the wider political frictions it exacerbated.
• Topic Sentence: Address political factors, such as the power struggle between state and federal governments.
• Evidence & Analysis: Draw from political speeches and legislative acts to demonstrate the growing divide.
• Transition: Conclude with how these factors combined to make conflict inevitable.

Conclusion (150 words)

• Restate Thesis: Summarize your argument, now substantiated with evidence.
• Recap Main Points: Briefly review the causes discussed and their interconnections.
• Final Thought: Offer insight into the Civil War’s legacy and its relevance to contemporary issues or historical understanding.

By adhering to this structure and focusing on clear, analytical prose, your essay will not only fulfill the assignment’s requirements but also provide a meaningful contribution to the understanding of the Civil War’s complex causes and legacy.

Civil War Short Essay Example #1

The American Civil War remains one of the most transformative periods in United States history, a conflict that pitted brother against brother and nearly tore the nation asunder. While the moral battle over slavery is often cited as the primary cause of the war, an exploration of the period reveals a complex web of political and economic factors that were equally instrumental in leading to the secession of the Southern states and the subsequent conflict. This essay will argue that, in addition to the obvious moral divide over slavery, the Civil War was rooted in profound economic differences and political disputes that shaped the trajectory of the nation.

Economic Divergence Between North and South

The antebellum period in the United States was marked by a growing economic chasm between the industrializing North and the agrarian South. The North’s economy was rapidly diversifying and industrializing, leading to the development of a modern capitalist economy that required free labor and the protection of patents and innovations. In stark contrast, the Southern economy was heavily reliant on agriculture, particularly the cultivation of cotton, which required a large, cheap labor force — a need met by the institution of slavery.

The economic policies that benefited the North, such as tariffs on imported goods, were often detrimental to the South, which relied on free trade to export its agricultural products. The Tariff of 1828, known in the South as the “Tariff of Abominations,” exemplified such contentious economic policies, as it placed heavy duties on imported goods, disadvantaging Southern planters. The resulting economic strain contributed significantly to the growing sentiment of Southern nationalism and the belief that the federal government was favoring Northern interests at the expense of the Southern way of life.

Political Strife and the Struggle for Power

Politically, the United States was in turmoil as the debate over the expansion of slavery into new territories and states intensified. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 attempted to regulate the spread of slavery but ultimately only postponed the inevitable conflict. The Dred Scott decision of 1857, which ruled that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in the territories, inflamed tensions further, signaling to the anti-slavery North that there was no legal method to prevent the spread of the institution.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, on a platform that opposed the extension of slavery, was the final straw for many in the South. Lincoln’s victory was seen not only as a direct threat to the institution of slavery but also as evidence that the South no longer had a voice in the national government. Secession followed, as Southern states sought to protect their economic interests and maintain their political power by forming a separate nation in which their values and economic system could persist unchallenged.

While the moral conflict over the institution of slavery was undeniably a driving force behind the American Civil War, the struggle was also deeply rooted in fundamental economic and political disparities between the North and South. The industrial versus agricultural economies, the imposition of tariffs, the political power struggles, and the contentious legislation over the spread of slavery all combined to create an atmosphere ripe for conflict. The Civil War was, therefore, not solely a battle over the morality of slavery but also a clash over different visions of economic development and political power. Understanding these contributing factors is crucial to grasping the complexity of the Civil War and the lasting impact it had on the United States, shaping the nation’s economic and political landscape for generations to come.

Civil War Short Essay Example #2

The Civil War, a pivotal event in American history, was a complex conflict with roots extending deep into the nation’s past. Central to this conflict was the institution of slavery, which had not only moral and humanitarian implications but also profound socio-economic and political consequences. This essay contends that slavery was not just a side issue but the core factor that led to the secession of the Southern states and ultimately the Civil War, as it was inextricably linked to the identity, economy, and political power of the South.

Slavery: The Cornerstone of Southern Society

In the antebellum South, slavery was more than a labor system; it was the foundation upon which the social order and economic prosperity of the Southern states were built. The “peculiar institution” enabled the South to become a powerhouse of agricultural production, particularly in the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, and sugar. This agrarian economy was so reliant on slave labor that by the mid-19th century, nearly four million African Americans lived in bondage, representing a significant portion of the South’s population and economic might.

The wealth generated by slave labor created a stark division in society, with a small elite of plantation owners exerting considerable influence over Southern politics. This elite worked tirelessly to protect and expand slavery as essential to their economic interests and way of life, leading to a rigid defense of the institution and a growing sense of Southern distinctiveness.

The Moral and Political Battle Lines

The moral crusade against slavery had been growing for decades, with abolitionists in the North and elsewhere condemning the practice as an abhorrent violation of human rights. The publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the violent resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, among other events, heightened Northern opposition to slavery and sowed seeds of sectional discord.

The political arena became a battleground over the issue of slavery, with the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s, which held the containment of slavery as one of its central tenets. The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act sought to address the extension of slavery in new territories but ultimately underscored the inability of legislative measures to resolve the deep-seated conflict.

The violent confrontations in “Bleeding Kansas,” the Dred Scott decision, and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry were symptomatic of the tensions that had escalated to a level where political compromise seemed unachievable. The election of Abraham Lincoln, who was perceived as an enemy of the Southern way of life, acted as the catalyst that transformed the dispute over slavery from a political struggle into an armed conflict.

Secession and the Onset of War

The secession of the Southern states was a direct response to the threat they perceived to the institution of slavery. The Confederate States of America was founded on the principle of preserving and maintaining the institution of slavery, which its leaders deemed essential for their economic survival and societal structure. The firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 was not just an act of rebellion; it was a defense of the socio-economic order of the South against what was seen as Northern aggression.

The American Civil War was fundamentally a conflict over slavery and its place in the United States. The institution was so deeply embedded in the Southern economy, society, and identity that any threat to its existence was met with the utmost resistance. While there were certainly other factors at play, including states’ rights and economic disagreements, these issues cannot be disentangled from the overarching presence of slavery. The battle over whether the United States would be a land of freedom or bondage shaped the political discourse of the era and ignited a war whose reverberations are still felt today. By acknowledging the centrality of slavery in the Civil War, we gain a clearer understanding of the profound sacrifices made in the pursuit of liberty and equality, and the ongoing struggle to realize these ideals for all Americans.

Final Thoughts

Writing a short essay on the Civil War demands focus, discipline, and attention to detail. By carefully selecting a topic, crafting a clear thesis, and supporting your argument with well-researched evidence, you can create a powerful and concise piece of writing. Remember to revise and proofread thoroughly to ensure that your essay is free of errors and that your argument shines through. With these strategies in mind, you are well-equipped to tackle a short essay on the Civil War or any other historical topic with confidence and skill.

About Mr. Greg

Mr. Greg is an English teacher from Edinburgh, Scotland, currently based in Hong Kong. He has over 5 years teaching experience and recently completed his PGCE at the University of Essex Online. In 2013, he graduated from Edinburgh Napier University with a BEng(Hons) in Computing, with a focus on social media.

Mr. Greg’s English Cloud was created in 2020 during the pandemic, aiming to provide students and parents with resources to help facilitate their learning at home.

Whatsapp: +85259609792

[email protected]

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Jamelle Bouie

What are the stakes of ‘civil war,’ really.

By Jamelle Bouie

Opinion Columnist

Ahead of the release of “Civil War,” the new alt-history action-drama from the director Alex Garland, A24, the studio that produced the film, released a map of the United States showing the lines of the conflict. There was the “New People’s Army” of the Pacific Northwest, the Mountain West and some of the Great Plains. There were the “Western Forces” of Texas and California. And there was the “Florida Alliance,” encompassing most of the Southeast. What remained was labeled “the Loyalist States.”

This little bit of information spurred a torrent of speculation on social media about the political contours of the film. What, exactly, were the stakes of the conflict? How, precisely, did the country come to war in the world of the movie? In what universe do the people of California find common cause with the people of Texas? The scenario wasn’t just far-fetched; it seemed nonsensical. And it did not help that in interviews , Garland took a “pox on both their houses” approach when asked about the relationship between his film and contemporary political life. “It’s polarization,” he said. “You could see that everywhere. And you could see it getting magnified.”

I saw “Civil War” a few weeks ago at a screening in Charlottesville. I had no particular expectations, but I was interested to see if the film would try to flesh out its world. It is not a spoiler to say that, well, it didn’t.

Garland and his collaborators make no attempt to explain the war. They make no attempt to explain the politics of the war. They make no attempt to explain anything about the world of the film. There are hints — allusions to the precipitating crisis and the contours of the conflict. In one scene, a television broadcast refers to the president’s third term. In another, a soldier or paramilitary whose allegiances are unclear, executes a hostage who isn’t the right “kind of American.” In another sequence, we see a male soldier — an insurgent fighting the government — sporting colored hair and painted fingernails.

Overall, however, the movie isn’t about the war itself. It is about war itself. It is not an idle choice that the protagonists of the film — and the people we spend the most time with overall — are journalists. They are on a road trip to see the front lines of the war in Charlottesville (I will say that it was a very strange experience watching the movie in a movie theater roughly 30 minutes from where the scene is supposed to be set), and we experience the conflict from their perspective as men and women who cover violent conflict. Their job is to view things as objectively as possible. This carries over to the way the story is filmed and edited. We see what they see, shorn of any glamour or excitement. The war is bloody, frightening and extremely loud.

Nothing depicted in the film — torture, summary executions and mass murder — is novel. It is part of our actual past. It has happened in many places around the world. It is happening right now in many places around the world. What makes the film striking, and I think effective, is that it shows us a vision of this violence in something like the contemporary United States.

The point, however, is not to bemoan division in the usual facile way that marks a good deal of modern political commentary. The point is to remind Americans of the reality of armed conflict of the sort that our government has precipitated in other countries. The point, as well, is to shake Americans of the delusion that we could go to war with each other in a way that would not end in catastrophic disaster.

There is a palpable thirst for conflict and political violence among some Americans right now. There was the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, of course. There are also open calls on the extreme right for civil war. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican representative from Georgia, wants a “ national divorce .” A writer for the influential Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank, once mused that “most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.” Disturbingly large numbers of Americans believe that violence might be necessary to achieve their political goals.

More than anything else, “Civil War” is plugged into this almost libidinal desire. It shows people, on both sides of the conflict, relishing the opportunity to kill — taking pleasure in the chance to wipe their enemies from the earth. In depicting this, “Civil War” is asking its American viewers to take a long, hard look at what it means to want to bring harm to their fellow citizens.

By setting the details of the conflict aside to focus on the experience of violence, “Civil War” is a film that asks a single, simple question of its audience: Is this what you really want?

What I Wrote

My Tuesday column was about Donald Trump’s attempt to distance himself from his anti-abortion base:

The truth of the matter is that given a second term in office, Trump and his allies will do everything in their power to ban abortion nationwide, with or without a Republican majority in Congress.

My Friday column was narrowly about the Electoral College and broadly about the use of the past to guide the present:

But whether as men or myths, the framers cannot do this. They cannot justify the choices we make while we navigate our world. The beauty and, perhaps, the curse of self-government is that it is, in fact, self-government. Our choices are our own, and we must defend them on their own terms. And while it is often good and useful to look to the past for guidance, the past cannot answer our questions or tackle our problems.

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Photo of the Week

I drove down to Petersburg, Va., a few weeks ago to walk around and take a few photos. This is one of my favorites.

Now Eating: Blistered Broccoli Pasta With Walnuts, Pecorino and Mint

A very simple pasta that comes together in no time at all. Be sure to use some of the pasta cooking liquid to make the dish less dry. If you’re feeling fancy, you could add a nice tin of fish to the mix — sardines or mackerel would work well. Recipe comes from the Cooking Section of The New York Times .

Ingredients

Kosher salt and black pepper

12 ounces fusilli or other short pasta

½ cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling

½ cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes

1 bunch broccoli or cauliflower florets roughly chopped and stalks peeled and sliced ¼-inch thick

1 lemon, zested then quartered

½ cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, plus more for serving

1 cup packed fresh mint leaves or parsley leaves

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions until al dente.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the walnuts and red-pepper flakes, if using, and cook, stirring, until golden and fragrant, about 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer walnuts and red-pepper flakes to a small bowl. Season walnuts with a little salt and pepper.

Add the broccoli to the skillet and toss to coat in the oil. Shake the skillet so broccoli settles in an even layer. Cook, undisturbed, 2 minutes. Toss and shake to arrange in an even layer again and cook, undisturbed, another 2 to 3 minutes; season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

Drain pasta and add to the skillet along with the lemon zest, cheese, toasted walnuts and half the mint; toss to combine. Divide among plates or bowls and top with remaining mint, more cheese and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve with lemon wedges, squeezing juice on top, if desired.

Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @ jbouie

Civil War’s ending, explained

Warning: This article contains spoilers for  Civil War .

Alex Garland’s newest film Civil War picks up at the height of a modern-day civil war taking place in America. But much like Garland’s other hits like Ex Machina and 28 Days Later , the plot of Civil War serves mainly as a vehicle for emotional provocation and character building. The film follows a group of war reporters – veteran photojournalists Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Joel (Wagner Moura) and the novice Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) – as they make their way to Washington DC, sensing that an epic conclusion to the war is about to reshape America. .. and make for an award-winning story.

Throughout the movie, the group travels across America toward Washington, where the Western Forces (an allegiance between California and Texas) are trying to besiege the capital and force the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) to surrender. But along the way, the group encounters bloodshed, rogue killers, and a country that has devolved into madness. The climax of Civil War shows the group finally arriving in DC just in time to document the Western Forces’ invasion.

How does Civil War end?

In Civil War ‘s finale, Lee, Joel, and Jessie follow the Western Forces troops into Washington DC, documenting their invasion. During a shootout, Lee is killed saving Jessie, who documents her idol’s demise by taking a photograph. In the last few minutes of the movie, the Forces finally manage to enter the White House, with only a dozen or so Secret Service members left to protect the president. Initially, they find the Press Secretary, who demands that the two sides reach a deal before she hands over the president: in exchange for his surrender, the Western Forces must promise not to harm him.

The Western Forces refuse the deal and kill her before finding the president cowering under a desk in the next room. Soldiers grab him before he can escape, but before he’s killed, Joel demands that they let the president give a final quote, hoping it will make a great addition to his story. But instead of delivering a history-making speech, the president only begs for his life before being shot. The film then comes to an abrupt end, purposefully avoiding any kind of denouement or epilogue that would show what becomes of America.

Who are the ‘bad guys’ in Civil War?

One of the most unique aspects of Civil War is that there really are no “good” or “bad” guys in the movie. In fact, throughout the entire film, politics is rarely touched upon. The Western Forces is created by an allegiance between Texas and California, two states that politically would never align on anything in the real world. But Civil War has no interest in explaining why or how the country descended into warfare, it simply shows the aftermath of America’s decline.

Instead of being a gritty political thriller, Civil War only wants to show the reality of what war on American soil would look like – societal collapse, dead bodies in the streets, and a constant feeling of fear and dread. Audiences are never given a reason to root for either side because neither side is presented as the hero.

Even the protagonists in the movie have attributes that are somewhat unlikable. Lee and Joel have been numbed from their decades of covering wars around the globe, and they teach Jessie not to get attached to the surrounding conflict and to simply view it as an outsider. Instead of caring about the future of their own country, the group merely wants to get a great story that will help their careers. But as the bodies of their fellow Americans pile up around them, even Lee and Joel begin to feel a sense of ennui regarding the dire state of their country.

At the film’s SXSW premiere, Garland told the audience his purpose for making Civil War was to do the opposite of what some war movies do. He didn’t want to unintentionally glamorize war, commenting to the crowd about how movies like Apocalypse Now can unintentionally become “seductive” and make war seem like some kind of noble quest. Instead, he wanted to show the brutal, cruel reality that war brings. He reiterated that he wanted to project the idea of a second American Civil War as a “bad idea.”

Civil War is now in theaters.

Civil War : Let’s Unpack the Ending

Let’s talk about Lee, Jessie, and President Nick Offerman.

Congrats, reader. If you made it here, that means you endured the brutal 109 minutes that comprise A24’s Civil War . You came to terms with the reality that America is so fucked up nowadays that a British filmmaker (Alex Garland) was moved to write speculative fiction about our downfall. You saw “GO STEELERS!” on that Pennsylvania underpass and wondered if the NFL could make it through an American Civil War. You asked yourself, When will Jesse Plemons ditch the scary shtick and just play a rom-com lead? I like that guy!

Most of all, you’re still trying to make sense of that ending, which sees a Call of Duty– esque raid on the White House—and the death of one of the film’s heroes. So in this story, I’ll explain exactly how Torrance Shipman evolved from a do-gooding cheerleader at San Diego’s Rancho Carne High School into a weary war photographer during the second American Civil War.

(Sorry. That’s a Bring It On joke, and it was not a very good one. Moving on.)

[ Trump voice ] The country is doing well in so many ways...

Throughout Civil War , I wondered if I missed an important line of dialogue that told us how this whole thing started—because this film doesn’t really tell us much about its central conflict. A few important bits we learn (and infer) about this particular dystopia:

• Nineteen states seceded from—and are violently rebelling against—the United States government. The collection of states is called the Western Forces, which include California and Texas (an unlikely but presumably powerful alliance).

• Don’t let President Nick Offerman’s opening scene fool you—this government isn’t so diplomatic anymore. He seemingly ushered in a dangerously authoritarian reign, where journalists are executed on sight in the nation’s capital; the Western Forces consider him a dictator; and he’s at least three terms into his presidency.

• We’re far enough into the conflict that a large amount of America has been ravaged by the war. The New York Times is barely a newspaper anymore. There was, at one point, an “Antifa Massacre.” Some communities play Switzerland in this whole thing and live in relative peace...with armed protection.

Apparently, the lack of exposition is intentional. A24’s press notes for Civil War —which I found incredibly helpful and will refer to later on—outright state that the film is supposed to be a “Rorschach test of America, left for viewers to wrestle with on their own.” Cailee Spaeny (who plays Jessie) told A24, “You are putting pieces together for yourself. Your internal feelings about why or how war like this would start and the cracks that form to cause a war to happen in America is up to you to fill in.”

Now, I’m not sure if I totally agree with this, because Garland positions the team of journalists as the heroes of the story—and they’re sympathetic to the Western Forces. Plus, you know, what happens at the very end of the film...

“You sacrificed Kirsten Dunst!”

This is what a woman screamed during my Civil War screening. I agree—it’s messed up! The final stretch shows the Western Forces staging an attack on the White House, with intent to kill the president. (Fun fact, from A24: Most of that exterior set was real. “At some point it was decided for all the right reasons, safety among them, we’re going to build that block,” production designer Caty Maxey said. “We built four-hundred-foot-long buildings [and] two sides of the street in three and a half weeks.” Imagine!)

During the White House raid, Jessie is increasingly thrilled by the pursuit of the perfect photograph. She constantly puts herself in the line of fire until—as the Western Forces are just a couple rooms away from reaching the president—she’s right in front of a bullet. Lee (Kirsten Dunst) puts down her camera and throws herself in front of the gunfire. As she falls to the floor, Jessie takes a picture of her mentor’s final moments.

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It’s a brutal resolution for what I felt was the strongest thread in Civil War : the psychology of the war journalist. Throughout most of the film, Lee preaches one thing to Jessie: Document the moment by any means necessary. By the end, though, she sees futility in her work; by Lee’s admission, her photographs were a warning that was never received. During the White House skirmish, what’s surely a horrible case of PTSD comes to a head. Lee can hardly bring herself to use her camera. You have to wonder if—seeing the Western Forces overtake the government, which would surely breed more bloodshed—she simply sees no use in capturing another death. She chooses to save a life and give her own.

“She sees it and hates it for her, because there’s part of Lee that’s like, Don’t do this to yourself, ” Dunst told A24. “There’s part of Lee that becomes very protective of her because she knows the addiction to what they’re doing, this need to put themselves in the worst possible situations to tell the truth about what’s going on. There’s a real warning: Don’t become me. Don’t become hardened. Don’t lose your life. ”

Meanwhile, we’re left to choose how we feel about Jessie’s decision to photograph Lee’s death. As Dunst implied, is Lee addicted to the thrill of the work? Or is she just documenting the truth?

RIP President Ron Swanson

So is this guy a Trump stand-in? I’d say no. Actually, quite the opposite. My take is that Garland cast an actor as affable and beloved as Nick Offerman just to show that even someone who is seemingly good has the potential to destroy a nation. Plus, we don’t really hear from the guy. We really only see him at the beginning and end of the film.

In the final moments of Civil War , the Western Forces finally close in on the president and Joel ( Wagner Moura ) has his interview moment. He requests a quote from the leader, who says, “Don’t let them kill me!” Joel replies with the best line of the movie: “That’ll do.” Then the Western Forces troopers kill the president, and Jessie takes—as we learn in the end credits—a photo of the Army members surrounding his dead body.

We’re left to wonder where the United States goes from there. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever find out, unless Garland is truly deranged and directs Civil War 2 . The Western Forces would have to rebuild the American government from the ground up—if they’re even interested in doing such a thing.

What Civil War offers, as far as its political statement goes, is a warning. Garland has repeatedly called his film a parable, meant to tell us what America might look like should its fault lines continue to multiply. “The modern state of civil war is a fractured collapse across the board,” the director told A24. “This is not a repetition of the previous Civil War. I don’t think America or the rest of the world is at danger of the clear demarcations of the previous Civil War. That’s not the risk the world faces. We are facing a disintegration risk.”

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