The English Civil War began on Aug. 22, 1642, when the Royalist forces under Charles I raised the King's standard at Nottingham.
City streets were barricaded during the early weeks of the Civil War. Later, the war
was mainly fought in country areas.
By December 1643,
Charles I and his supporters controlled Northern and Western England and
Wales. His armies had won three major battles.
By December 1645, the Scots and the
forces of Parliament—especially the New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell- had
taken control of most of England.
By September 1651, Cromwell had put down Royalist uprisings in Ireland and
Scotland. He defeated Prince Charles at Dunbar and again at Worcester.
Officers on both sides wore armour to protect themselves and Parliamentary
armies, wore much simpler uniforms.
At his trial, Charles I, shown above facing the table and members
of the special court, was convicted of treason.
Civil War fighting started in Dublin.
Government troops, above,
outnumbered irregulars and were better equipped. They drove the Irregulars from
Dublin in about 10 days.
City streets were barricaded during
the early weeks of the Civil War. Later, the war was mainly fought in country
areas.
The Four Courts building was held by the Irregulars before the Irish Civil War
started. It was damaged early in the fighting.
English Civil War
Civil War, English, was fought between the
forces of King Charles I and those of the English Parliament. The War took
place in two parts. The first part lasted from 1642 to 1646, the second from
April to November, 1648.
It led to the execution of Charles i in 1649 and the defeat and
exile of his son, later Charles II, in 1651.
Causes of the Civil War
Before the Civil War, the English monarch ran the national
government with the aid of ministers. Parliament took a less important part in
state affairs than it does now. The first Stuart king, James I, reigned from
1603 to 1625. He wanted to rule as an absolute monarch. But Parliament did not
share his views. His son, Charles I, called three Parliaments between 1625 and
1628, and had trouble with each. After dissolving
(ending) the third in 1629, he ruled without Parliament at all until 1640.
Economic causes. Inflation forced up
prices in all parts of Europe between 1530 and 1640. It drastically reduced
the value of the monarch's income. James I spent money lavishly, but Parliament
refused to give him more. He responded by levying new import duties.
In 1625, Parliament refused to grant Charles I tonnage and poundage (the customs
duties that normally provided much of the monarch's income). Charles forced
property owners to lend him money and imprisoned those who refused. In 1628,
Parliament passed the Petition of
Right, forbidding the King to raise any taxes without its consent.
Charles accepted the Petition, but insisted that it did not apply to customs
duties. In the 1630s, he evaded the Petition by collecting ship money (see Ship money).
Religious
causes. For many years, a radical group within the Church of England, the Puritans, sought to do away with
bishops and revise the Prayer Book. James I resisted the Puritans. Charles
fought against them, working with a reactionary group of churchmen led by William
Laud. He made Laud Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. The Puritans accused
Charles and Laud of leaning towards Roman Catholicism. Charles's wife,
Henrietta Maria, was unpopular because she was Catholic and because she was
the sister of Louis XIII of France. Laud was also unpopular because he
encouraged Charles's belief in the divine
right of kings (the idea that kings were appointed by God and ruled
on God's behalf).
War with the Scots. In 1638, the Scots
rebelled against Charles when he tried to impose the English Prayer Book on
their Presbyterian Church. Charles mounted an expensive campaign against the
Scots in 1639, but it failed. His most able minister, the Earl of Strafford,
advised him to summon a Parliament to raise money for another campaign in
Scotland. The Short Parliament
met in April 1640, but refused to vote further taxes until the King dealt with
its complaints. Strafford advised Charles to dissolve it after only three
weeks. The Scots then invaded northern England and forced Charles to buy a
truce. To do so, Charles had to recall Parliament
The first session of the Long
Parliament lasted from November 1640 to September 1641. Led by John
Pym, it passed laws making ship money illegal and abolishing the courts of Star
Chamber and High Commission. It impeached Strafford, and he was executed in
1641. The session also forced Charles to agree to call Parliament every three
years, with the further provision that he could not dissolve it without its own
consent
The final crisis began with the outbreak
of a rebellion of Roman Catholics in Ireland in November 1641. Charles wanted
to raise a new army to reconquer Ireland, but Parliament did not trust him to
command it Instead, Parliament passed the Grand
Remonstrance, attacking the King's policies for the past 10 years,
calling for radical reform of the Church and demanding the right to control the
appointment of ministers. In January 1642, Charles ordered the impeachment of
five members of Parliament, including John Pym and John Hampden. When
Parliament refused to surrender the five, Charles invaded the Commons chamber
in person—a breach of parliamentary privilege. The five had already left to
take shelter in the City of London.
Surrounded by enemies in London, Charles left the capital to seek
support in the provinces. In March, he refused to give up control of the army.
In June, Parliament began raising its own army. It also sent Charles Nineteen Propositions, a document
that amounted to terms for his surrender.
Charles raised his standard at Nottingham in August The first
clash had already taken place at Manchester in July. By September, fighting had
broken out between Royalists—
supporters of the King—and supporters of Parliament in all parts of the
country.
Cavaliers and Roundheads
The word Cavalier
meant a chevalier (horseman).
It shows that the Royalists were at first superior in cavalry. The term Roundhead originally referred to the
Parliamentary infantryman, with his hair cut short to fit his casque (steel helmet). By the end of
the English Civil War, the armies of Parliament were superior in cavalry and
infantry.
Many people imagine that the Cavaliers were all merry, dashing
figures with long, flowing hair and luxurious clothes. They also think that
the Roundheads were stern, pious, pleasure-hating people with close-cropped
hair and dark, unadorned uniforms. A few individuals of each type certainly
existed, but only as a minority on either side.
The two sides were not based on differences in class. Parliament
could call on as many nobles and gentry as could the King. Many families
included supporters of both sides.
Parliament's control of London and most of the other important
towns gave it a distinct advantage. It raised war funds through taxation. The
King had to rely on voluntary contributions. But Parliament won because it able
to finance a professional army that could fight anywhere; any time.
The first phase, 1642-1646
The Parliamentary army assembled at Northampton in September 1642,
under the Earl of Essex. Leaving Nottingham, Charles marched through Chester
and Shrewsbury, recruiting an army roughly equal to Essex's. The two armies
clashed at Edgehill, in Warwickshire, on October 23. The King's nephew, Prince
Rupert, led the cavalry brilliantly, and the King won. But his attack on London
in November failed when it reached Tumham Green. Charles pulled back to Oxford.
In 1643, the Parliamentary army
under Essex spent most of the summer trying to advance on Oxford. In the north,
a Royalist army under the Earl of Newcastle smashed a Parliamentary army under
Ferdinando and Thomas Fairfax at Adwalton Moor, near Leeds (June 30). Then, in
the west, a Royalist army under Sir Ralph Hop- ton defeated Sir William Waller
at Roundway Down, in Somerset (July 13).
Leaders in Parliament feared that Hopton and Newcastle would join
forces with Charles and attack London. They decided to turn to the Scots for
help, signing the Solemn League and
Covenant in September. The document was a league (treaty) against the King and a
covenant (promise) of Church
reform. The Scots crossed the border in January 1644.
The Royalist armies never joined forces. The Earl of Newcastle's
army was blocked by Parliament's East Anglian forces, called the Eastern Association, commanded by the
Earl of Manchester. Flopton's army captured Bristol, but could do no more.
Charles besieged Gloucester for a time and then lost the first Battle of
Newbury (Sept 20,1643).
In 1644, Royalist forces
defeated Waller at Cropredy Bridge, near Banbury, in Oxfordshire (June 29).
But, in the north, the Scots drove the Royalists under the Earl of Newcastle
into York. Parliamentary forces under the Fairfaxes and the Eastern Association
army, commanded by Oliver Cromwell, joined the siege. Charles ordered Prince
Rupert to relieve York. On July 2, though outnumbered 3 to 2, the Royalists
fought the Parliamentarians and Scots on Marston Moor. They lost the bloodiest
battle of the war mainly because Cromwell defeated the Royalist cavalry under
Lord Goring.
The Earl of Essex led a Parliamentary army into Cornwall, but was
trapped at Lostwithiel. He escaped by boat, leaving most of his army to
surrender. The Earl of Manchester marched south, but was outmanoeuvred by a
much smaller Royalist army. Charles won the second Battle of Newbury (October
27).
Montrose. The chronic bad feeling
between the Scots and the English led to endless disputes. The Scots moved no
farther south than Newark. Then they had to send a large part of their army
back north to deal with the Marquess of Montrose. He persuaded the Highland
clans to rebel against the Scottish government in the King's name in September
1644. He then conducted a brilliant guerrilla campaign, occupying Glasgow in August
1645. But he was defeated at Philiphaugh (Sept 13, 1645). His army broke up and
he fled abroad.
The New Model Army. In the winter of 1644
to 1645, Cromwell led a fierce campaign to purge the high command. Parliament
passed the Self-Denying Ordinance, which required all members of both Houses to
resign their commissions. The ordinance seemed designed to keep politics out of
the military command. But Cromwell's friends in Parliament had him
reappointed. They also persuaded Parliament to establish a full-time professional
army, the New Model, under Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Cromwell as general of
horse.
The New Model Army was irresistible. At the Battle of Naseby, in
Northamptonshire (June 14,1645), it destroyed the King's main field army. It
then destroyed the western army under Goring at Langport, in Somerset (July
10). Rupert surrendered Bristol, and organized Royalist resistance collapsed.
In April 1646, Charles left Oxford in disguise and surrendered to the Scots
army at Newark (May 5). The Scots retreated with him to Newcastle.
The second phase
No peace treaty was signed, because both Parliament and the Scots
had always claimed that they were fighting to free the King from his wicked
advisers, not fighting the King himself. They proposed constitutional safeguards
to restrict the King's choice of ministers and his control of the army.
The Scots withdrew from northern England and surrendered Charles
to the Parliamentarians in January 1647, in return for a large sum of money.
Parliament was by then having trouble controlling the New Model Arny, which
objected to being demobilized without full pay and an amnesty. The army had
been infiltrated by a group of extreme radicals, the Levellers. Led by John Lil- bume, the Levellers wanted to
abolish the kingship and the House of Lords and to create a republican government
They also wanted radical social reform.
Army officers kidnapped Charles in June, and in August, the army
occupied London and expelled its chief opponents from Parliament Cromwell tried
to persuade Charles to accept a compromise scheme, called the Heads of the Proposals, which made
concessions to him as well as the Levellers. But in November, Charles escaped
to Carisbrooke Castle, on the Isle of Wight There he sought help from dissident
Scots nobles. War broke out again in the summer of 1648, but it was speedily
over. Cromwell routed the invading Scots at Preston (August 17), and the army
put down Royalist risings elsewhere.
Many people held the King personally responsible for this second
civil war. The victorious army demanded that he be punished. In December, it
again occupied London, and Colonel Thomas Pride removed all MP's still
favouring negotiations (Pride's Purge, December 6).
Charles stood trial before a special High Court of Justice in
January 1649 and was convicted of high treason against the people of England
and the constitution. He was executed on Jan. 30,1649.
The Commonwealth. England became a
republic, called the Commonwealth,
and the monarchy and House of Lords were abolished. But no one moved to replace
the Rump of the old House of
Commons, which had been reduced from more than 500 to less than 150 members.
The Levellers objected to the new government, but were firmly suppressed.
Cromwell led the army against Ireland in 1649, finally ending the rebellion
that began in 1641. His men treated the Irish with great brutality.
The Scots bitterly condemned the King's execution, pointing out
that he was also King of Scotland. They recognized his son as Charles II and
invited him to Edinburgh. Cromwell invaded Scotland in July 1650, and defeated
the Scots at Dunbar, near Edinburgh (September 3). Montrose returned to support
the young Charles, but he was defeated and executed. In the next summer,
Charles II himself led the last Scots invasion of England. Cromwell defeated
him at Worcester (Sept 3,1651). After six weeks in hiding, the King escaped to
France. Scotland came under military rule, and the English Civil War ended.
The Protectorate. For all its military
success, the Commonwealth could not secure the loyalty or respect of the
English people. In 1653, Cromwell staged a military coup, dissolved the Rump
Parliament, and ruled as Lord Protector. His son Richard succeeded him in 1658,
but fell in another coup. The leaders of this revolt quarrelled among
themselves.
Finally, in January 1660, George Monk restored order. He recalled
the Rump Parliament, but forced it to take back the MPs excluded in 1648. The
Long Parliament promptly dissolved itself, calling for a general election in
April. The new Parliament at once recalled Charles II from exile.
Results of the war
The Restoration seemed to turn the clock back to 1641. Parliament
restored the Church of England and established complete religious uniformity
by statute. Charles II controlled the army and appointed ministers without
consulting Parliament at all. The divine right of kings was confirmed.
But despite the Restoration, Parliament—not the king—controlled
the Church, and Parliament legalized religious dissent in 1689. Parliament also
kept its control of taxation, won in 1641. The power and prestige of the Crown
had so declined that, in 1688, Parliament was able to remove one king, James
II, and substitute another, William III. The Crown's power was further limited
by the Act of Settlement of 1701. This brought the Hanoverian dynasty to rule
Britain and helped in the evolution of the present constitution. Related
articles: See History of United Kingdom, and the following articles: Charles
(I); Laud, William; Clarendon, Earl of; Pym, John; Cromwell, Oliver; Strafford,
Earl of; and James (I)
Irish Civil War
Civil War, Irish,was fought between
supporters and opponents of the Anglo-Irish treaty of December 1921. The war
lasted from June 1922 until May 1923. Protreaty government fortes won the war,
supported by a majority of the Irish people. Their victory ensured the
survival of parliamentary democracy, and removed the threat of a military
dictatorship favoured by some of the antitreaty forces. The Civil War left
bitter memories, which have influenced Irish party politics ever since.
Causes of the war
In July 1921, a truce was arranged that ended more than two years
of bitter warfare between British government forces and the Irish Republican
Army (IRA). The British government had been ruling Ireland, and the IRA was a
volunteer guerrilla force dedicated to establishing an Irish Republic After the
truce was declared, the British and Irish tried to devise a form of Irish
self- government agreeable to both sides.
There were three main Irish leaders at this time. Eamon de Valera
was president of Sinn Fein, the parliamentary representatives of the
Republican movement Sinn Fein had won a big majority in the general election of
1918. Arthur Griffith was vice president of Sinn Fein. Michael Collins was the
IRA's most important military leader.
All three men accepted the need for compromise with the British,
but they differed on the degree of compromise that they considered acceptable.
A delegation headed by Griffith and Collins signed the treaty on Dec. 6,1921,
in London. De Valera chose to remain in Ireland and did not sign the treaty.
The terms of the treaty
The treaty's main terms called for British forces to withdraw from
southern Ireland. The 26 southern counties were constituted the Irish Free
State and given the status of a dominion
(self-governing country) of Britain. The parliament of the six counties of
Northern Ireland was entitled to withdraw from the Irish Free State and remain
part of the United Kingdom, which it immediately did.
A Boundary Commission was established to determine the proper
border between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland. Most Sinn Fein
representatives believed that the commission would transfer so much territory
to the south that the rest of Northern Ireland would not be able to survive and
would have to join with the Irish Free State. Also under the treaty, Britain
retained naval bases in southern Ireland, along with the right to demand
further facilities in time of war.
The main cause of the Civil War was neither Ireland's partition (separation of north and
south) nor Britain's naval bases. Instead, it was the oath of fidelity that all
members of the new Free State parliament had to take to the King of England,
who was head of the Commonwealth. The oath and the presence of a governor general
as the king's representative in Ireland were evidence that the Free State was
not the republic for which the IRA had fought.
A majority of the active IRA opposed the treaty. But DailEireann (the Sinn Fein parliament)
accepted the treaty by a vote of 64 to 57 in January 1922. A provisional
government was then established with Michael Collins as chairman. Collins
enjoyed the support of Griffith, but de Valera assumed the political leadership
of the antitreaty minority.
Collins felt that the IRA lacked the resources to continue its
fight and that the treaty could be used as a stepping stone to complete
freedom. But Collins was reluctant to take arms against his old comrades. De
Valera also hoped for a political solution rather than a military one. But he
was quickly pushed aside by the antitreaty IRA, under Rory O'Connor, who
despised civilian rule. This group seized the Four Courts building in Dublin in
April.
The outbreak of war
In the general election of June 1922, antitreaty candidates won
only 30 per cent of the seats. The Civil War began shortly after this election.
The precise origins of the outbreak of hostilities are still uncertain. Collins
came under British pressure to clear the Four Courts after the assassination of
Field Marshal Sir Flenry Wilson by the IRA in London on June 22. Wilson was
closely associated with Ulster
Unionists (those who wished to keep strong ties with the government
of the UK) who were then engaged in bitter conflict with nationalists (those who desired
reunion with southern Ireland) in Northern Ireland. Ironically, it may have
been Collins himself who ordered the assassination. After the kidnapping of
one of his senior officers on June 27, Collins immediately ordered an attack
on the Four Courts.
Collins captured the Four Courts when Rory O' Connor surrendered
after three days of fighting. The antitreaty forces, called the Irregulars, were driven from Dublin in
another week. During the next month, the main provincial cities of Limerick,
Waterford, and Cork were also captured by government troops. By mid- August,
the Irregular forces had retreated into the small towns and the countryside,
where they resorted to
The Four Courts building was
held by the Irregulars before the Irish Gvil War started. It was damaged early
in the fighting.
guerrilla warfare. It was only a matter of time until they were
crushed by the much bigger and better-equipped government army of more than
50,000 men.
On Aug. 12,1922, Griffith died suddenly. Collins was killed in an
ambush on August 22.
Collins had continued to hope for conciliation until his death.
His successor as chairman of the provisional government, William Cosgrave, had
little sympathy for his opponents. Cosgrave's government resorted to a policy
of executing prisoners after their trial by military court The most prominent
victim of this policy was Robert Erskine Childers, publicity director for the
antitreaty forces. Childers was shot in November 1922. Four senior antitreaty
prisoners, including Rory O'Connor, were summarily executed on December 8 in
reprisal for the assassination the previous day of a protreaty Member of
Parliament. Historians disagree on the effects of the policy that led to the
execution of 77 prisoners during the war. Some historians believe that the
executions reinforced the Irregulars' will to resist Others think that only
the fear of reprisal executions prevented more widespread assassination of
civilians.
The Irregulars were gradually ground down by government forces in
an extended series of small-scale but bitter operations. There were atrocities
on both sides.
De Valera recognized the futility of the continuing struggle. But
he exerted no influence over the antitreaty military leaders, many of whom
despised him as a mere politician. Only when Liam Lynch, the main antitreaty
commander, was killed in April 1923 did de Valera recover some of his
influence over the military element On April 27,1923, the Irregulars announced
the suspension of the conflict There was no formal surrender by the
Irregulars, only a dumping of arms to await more favourable circumstances.
Results of the war
The war's immediate result was the imprisonment of more than
10,000 Irregulars, including de Valera. Cos- grave proceeded with the historic
task of state building. But his government suffered a setback in 1925 when Boundary
Commission, contrary to nationalist expectations, recommended virtually no
change in the border between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland. De Valera
finally entered the Dail in 1927 and took the oath that he had earlier
denounced, regarding it as an empty formula. De Valera won the 1932 general
election. Over the next six years, he abolished the oath, eliminated the office
of governor general from the constitution, introduced his own new republican
constitution in 1937, and, after negotiations with Neville Chamberlain in 1938,
recovered the ports held as naval bases by the British.
The government's victory in the war prevented a military
dictatorship from emerging. It allowed the state to be founded on a democratic
tradition. However, in the long run, the real winner was de Valera His most dangerous
enemies and his most dangerous friends either died or were killed during the
war. This enabled him to build later on Cosgrave's achievement But the bitterness
caused by the Civil War lasted for decades. The main division in Irish
politics, between de Valera's Fianna Fail Party and Cosgrave's Fine Gael Party,
was rooted in the war and still exists today.
Related articles: Childers (Robert
Erskine), Griffith, Arthur; Collins, Michael; History of Ireland; Cosgrave,
William Thomas; Sinn Fein; and De Valera, Eamon.
Civilization
Civilization is a way of life that
arose after people began to live in cities or in societies organized as states.
The word comes from the Latin word civis, which
means citizen of a city.
A civilization consists of the art, customs, technology, form of
government, and everything else that makes up the way of life in a society. In
this respect, civilization is similar to culture. But culture refers to any way
of life and includes both simple and complex life styles. The word civilization refers
only to life styles that feature complex economic, governmental, and social
systems. Therefore, although every human being lives within a culture, not
everyone lives within a civilization. See Culture.
Throughout history, individual civilizations have arisen and
collapsed, but the basic features of civilization do not disappear. Ideas and
inventions spread from one civilization to another. In many cases, similar
developments occur independently in different civilizations.
How civilizations develop. During
most of the prehistoric period, people lived in small groups and moved from
place to place in search of food. They hunted, fished, and gathered wild
plants. These early people had a simple social organization based on family
ties.
About 9000 B.C, people in the Middle East began to cultivate
cereal grasses and other plants. They also domesticated goats and sheep at
about this time, and they later tamed cattle. In Southeast Asia, people had
begun raising crops by about 7000 B.C People living in what is now Mexico also
learned to grow crops by about 7000 B.C..
The rise of agriculture was a major step in the development of
civilization. Farmers settled in permanent villages, where they could grow
enough food to support a few craftworkers and priests. Periodic food shortages
led to increased trade among villages. The villagers exchanged grain, pottery,
and various raw materials.
By about 3500 B.C, people in the Middle East had learned to smelt
copper and make bronze tools and weapons. The demand for metal ore increased,
and priests and chieftains gained greater control over trade. Gradually,
villages in the Middle East grew into cities. Religious shrines and sacred
places, which flourished as ceremonial sites, became the centres of economic
and political power in the emerging cities.
Several civilizations developed independently in various parts of
the world. The first one arose about 3500 B.C in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in
the Middle East Others developed in the Nile Valley in Egypt, the Indus Valley
in what are now Pakistan and northwestern India, the Huang He Valley in China,
and the Andes Mountains of present-day Peru. These ancient civilizations grew
up in widely different natural environments. The people developed systems of
writing and new forms of government, made advances in science and technology,
and excelled in crafts and art For a description of these and other early
civilizations, see History of the world.
Why civilizations rise and fall. Philosophers,
historians, and archaeologists have suggested many reasons for the rise and
fall of civilizations. Georg W. F. Hegel, a German philosopher of the early
1800's, compared societies to individuals who pass the torch of civilization
from one to another. During this process, according to Hegel, civilization
develops through three stages: (1) rule by one person, a dictator; (2)
rule by one class of society; and (3) rule by all the people. Hegel believed
the process eventually results in freedom for all people.
The German philosopher Oswald Spengler thought civilizations, like
living things, are born, mature, and die. In The
Decline of the West (1918-1922),
he wrote that Western civilization is dying and will be replaced by a new Asian
civilization.
The British historian Arnold Toynbee proposed his theory of challenge
and response in A
Study of History (1934-1961). Toynbee
believed that civilizations arise only where the environment challenges the
people, and only when the people are ready to respond to the challenge. For
example, a hot, dry climate makes land unsuitable for farming and represents a
challenge to people who live there. The people may respond to this challenge by
building irrigation systems to improve the land. Toynbee suggested that
civilizations collapse when the people lose their creativity.
Most archaeologists attribute the rise of civilizations to a
combination of causes, including the structure of political and social life,
the ways people modify their environment, and changes in population. In many
cases, civilizations may have appeared because local chieftains took deliberate
steps to strengthen their own power. Many scientists believe that political
forces and the misuse of land and other natural resources resulted in the
economic and political collapse of early civilizations. For a discussion of the
history of civilization, see History of the world.
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