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.org: How Did The Evolution Of The Rifle Change The Civil War?

A unmarried monarch

Elizabeth I, the last of the Tudor monarchs, died in 1603 and the thrones of England and Ireland passed to her cousin, James Stuart.

Thus James Half-dozen of Scotland besides became James I of England. The three separate kingdoms were united under a single ruler for the first time, and James I and VI, as he now became, entered upon his unique inheritance.

England, Scotland and Republic of ireland were very different countries, and the memories of by conflict ran deep.

James had awaited Elizabeth's death with eager anticipation, because of the wealth and prestige the English language crown would bring him. Only, as this canny monarch must have known all too well, the balancing human activity he would henceforth be required to perform was not an piece of cake one.

England, Scotland and Ireland were very dissimilar countries, with very different histories, and the memories of past conflict betwixt those countries - and indeed, of past conflict between unlike indigenous groups within those countries - ran deep.

To make matters trickier however, each kingdom favoured a unlike form of religion. About Scots were Calvinists, most English language favoured a more moderate form of Protestantism and most Irish gaelic remained stoutly Catholic. Yet each kingdom also independent strong religious minorities.

In England, the primary such grouping were the Catholics, who initially believed that James would prove less severe to them than Elizabeth had been.

When these expectations were disappointed, Catholic conspirators hatched a plot to blow both the new king and his parliament sky-high.

The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot served every bit a warning to James, if whatever were needed, of the very grave dangers religious divisions could pose, both to his own person and to the stability of his triple crown.

Charles I

James I was resolved to go along his kingdoms out of foreign entanglements if he could.

However - following the matrimony of his daughter Elizabeth to Frederick Five, elector of the Rhineland Palatinate; Frederick's crowning as rex of Bohemia; and the forcible ejection of the young couple from their new kingdom by Cosmic forces presently afterwards - James found himself beingness dragged into the continental 30 Years' War.

Many of Charles'due south subjects became alienated by his religious policies.

His health failing, the one-time king died in 1625 and was succeeded past his son Charles, who initially threw himself into the fight against the Catholic powers, but eventually withdrew from the European conflict in 1630.

Charles I was a conscientious and principled ruler, but he was also stubborn, reserved and politically maladroit. From the moment that he showtime assumed the crown, uneasy murmurs nigh his way of regime began to be heard.

Over the next 15 years, many of Charles's English subjects became alienated past his religious policies and by his apparent decision to dominion without parliaments.

Some, especially the more than zealous Protestants, or 'puritans', came to believe in the existence of a sinister royal plot - ane which aimed at the restoration of the Catholic organized religion in England and the destruction of the people's liberties.

Similar fears were abroad in Scotland, and when Charles attempted to introduce a new prayer book to that country in 1637 he provoked furious resistance.

Charles'southward subsequent attempts to beat out the Scots by force went disastrously wrong, forcing him to summon an English parliament in October 1640. Once this assembly had begun to sit, Charles was assailed by angry complaints about his policies.

At first, the king seemed to take practically no supporters. But every bit puritan members of parliament began to push for wholesale reform of the church and religious traditionalists became alarmed, Charles found himself at the caput of a swelling political constituency.

And then, in 1641, the Catholics of Ireland rose upward in arms, killing many hundreds of the English and Scottish Protestants who had settled in their country.

The rebellion caused panic in England, and made information technology harder than e'er for a political compromise to exist reached. Charles I and parliament could not agree and England began to divide into two armed camps.

Civil war

The warrant for the execution of Charles I, 30 January 1649 The warrant for the execution of Charles I, 30 January 1649  ©

The civil war which broke out in 1642 saw a broadly Royalist northward and west ranged against a broadly Parliamentarian south and e.

Charles derived particular advantage from the back up of the Welsh and the Cornish, who supplied him with many of his foot soldiers, while parliament derived still more advantage from its possession of London.

In mid-1643, information technology looked every bit if the king might be about to defeat his opponents, merely later that twelvemonth the Parliamentarians concluded a military alliance with the Scots.

Charles was tried, found guilty, and beheaded in January 1649.

Following the intervention of a powerful Scottish ground forces and the defeat of the male monarch's forces at Marston Moor in 1644, Charles lost control of the due north of United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland.

The post-obit twelvemonth, Charles was defeated by parliament's New Model Regular army at Naseby and it became clear that the Royalist cause was lost.

Unwilling to surrender to the Parliamentarians, the king gave himself up to the Scots instead, but when they finally left England, the Scots handed Charles over to their parliamentary allies.

Still determined non to compromise with his enemies, the convict king managed to stir upward a new bout of violence known every bit the Second Ceremonious War.

Realising that the kingdom could never be settled in peace while Charles I remained alive, a number of radical MPs and officers in the New Model Regular army somewhen decided that the king had to be charged with loftier treason. Charles was accordingly tried, constitute guilty, and beheaded in January 1649.

In the wake of the king's execution, a republican regime was established in England, a regime which was chiefly underpinned by the stark military power of the New Model Ground forces.

Fall of the republic

Oliver Cromwell depicted on horseback, 1650 Oliver Cromwell depicted on horseback, 1650  ©

England's new rulers were adamant to re-establish England's traditional potency over Republic of ireland, and in 1649 they sent a force under Oliver Cromwell to undertake the reconquest of Republic of ireland, a task that was effectively completed by 1652.

Meanwhile, Charles I's eldest son had come to an agreement with the Scots and in January 1651 had been crowned as Charles Ii of Scotland. Later that year, Charles invaded England with a Scottish regular army, only was defeated past Cromwell at Worcester.

Cromwell strove to establish broad-based support for godly republican government - with scant success.

The immature king but managed to avoid capture, and afterwards escaped to France. His Scottish subjects were left in a sorry plight, and soon the Parliamentarians had conquered the whole of Scotland.

In 1653, Cromwell was installed as 'lord protector' of the new Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Republic of ireland. Over the next five years, he strove to institute broad-based support for godly republican regime with scant success.

Cromwell died in 1658 and was succeeded as protector past his son, Richard, but Richard had footling bent for the function he was now chosen upon to play and abdicated 8 months later.

After Richard Cromwell's resignation, the republic slowly brutal apart and Charles II was somewhen invited to resume his father's throne. In May 1660, Charles 2 entered London in triumph. The monarchy had been restored.

Charles II was an intelligent but deeply contemptuous man, more than interested in his own pleasures than in points of political or religious principle. His lifelong preoccupation with his many mistresses did nothing to meliorate his public prototype.

The early years of the new king'south reign were scarcely glorious ones. In 1665 London was devastated by the plague, while a year later much of the upper-case letter was destroyed in the Cracking Burn of London.

The Dutch raid on Chatham in 1667 was one the most humiliating military reverses England had ever suffered.

Nevertheless, the male monarch was a cunning political operator and when he died in 1685 the position of the Stuart monarchy seemed secure. But things swiftly changed following the accession of his brother, James, who was openly Catholic.

Catholic succession

William III, by Sir Godfrey Kneller William III, by Sir Godfrey Kneller  ©

James Two at once fabricated it apparently that he was determined to improve the lot of his Catholic subjects, and many began to doubtable that his ultimate aim was to restore England to the Catholic fold.

The nascency of James's son in 1688 made matters even worse since it forced anxious Protestants to confront the fact that their Catholic king at present had a male person heir.

Soon afterward, a group of English Protestants begged the Dutch Stadholder William of Orange - who had married James Two'southward eldest daughter, Mary, in 1677 - to come to their help.

Many suspected that James Ii wanted to bring dorsum Catholicism.

William, who had long been anticipating such a call, accordingly set canvas with an army for England. James II fled to French republic a few weeks afterwards and William and Mary were crowned every bit joint monarchs the following yr.

James II still had many supporters in Ireland, and in March 1689 he landed there with a French ground forces.

William at present assembled an army of his own to meet this claiming, and in 1690 he decisively defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne. James promptly returned to France, leaving William free to consolidate his concord on power.

The death of Mary in 1694 left William equally sole ruler of the 3 kingdoms, and by 1700 all eyes were turning to the trouble of the succession.

Because neither William nor James Two's surviving daughter, Anne, had any children, Protestants were terrified that the throne would eventually revert to James II, to his son, or to one of the many other Catholic claimants.

To avoid this danger, the Act of Settlement was passed in 1701, directing that after the deaths of William and Anne the throne would render to the descendants of James I's girl, Elizabeth.

Sophia, electress of Hanover, and her heirs thus became adjacent in line to the English throne.

In 1702, William died and was succeeded past Anne. Five years after this, a formal matrimony of the kingdoms of England and Scotland was contrived, in order to ensure that there would be a Protestant succession in Scotland likewise.

Henceforth England and Scotland officially became i country, and when Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs, died in 1714, it was to the throne of the United kingdom of Great Britain that George I, the first of the Hanoverians, succeeded.

Find out more

Books

The Stuart Historic period: England, 1603-1714 by Barry Coward (Longman, 2003)

The British Problem, 1534-1707: Country Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago edited by Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill (Palgrave MacMillan, 1996)

The 3 Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century edited by Allan Macinnes and Jane H Ohlmeyer (Four Courts Press, 2000)

England in Conflict, 1603 - 1660 by Derek Hirst (Hodder Arnold, 1999)

Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Royal Matrimony, 1603 - 1715 past Keith Brown (Palgrave Macmillan, 1992)

Making Ireland British, 1580 - 1650 by Nicholas Canny (Oxford University Press, 2003)

The Kingdom of Ireland, 1641 - 1760 past Toby Barnard (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)

Revolt in the Provinces: The People of England and the Tragedies of War, 1634 - 1648 by John Morrill (Longman, 1999)

The British Wars, 1637-51 by Peter Gaunt (Routledge, 1997)

The British Democracy, 1649 - 1660 by Ronald Hutton (Palgrave MacMillan, 2000)

The Reigns of Charles Two and James VII and Two edited past Lionel KJ Glassey (Palgrave Macmillan, 1997)

Debates in Stuart History by Ronald Hutton (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)

About the author

Mark Stoyle is professor of early on modern history at the University of Southampton. He has published extensively on popular politics during the Tudor and Stuart periods. His latest book, Soldiers and Strangers: An Indigenous History of the English Civil War, was published by Yale University Printing in 2005.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/overview_civil_war_revolution_01.shtml

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