How the Parliamentarians Won the First Civil War

Precursor to War

The king's aborted attempt to arrest five MP's set off a chain of events that led to the first civil war. The King left London and finally settled in Oxford. Queen Henrietta fled back to France. Almost immediately petitions were being raised in the shires pledging support to Parliament. Parliament capitalized on their popularity by executing the Militia Ordinance organizing a militia and putting it under Parliament's control. Parliament went further with the Nineteen Propositions. These were framed as being a moderate set of proposals but reduced the role of the king to mere ceremony. Not only that Charles 1 noted that it did not just apply to him but to his successors.

Parliament was no longer tolerating dissent. Edward Dering was expelled from the commons for supporting episcopacy. Kentish gentlemen who expressed moderate opposition to the Militia Ordinance were impeached.

The king had little military support at this time. Maybe as little as 800 cavalry but there was still considerable support for the monarchy even if it was lukewarm for Charles himself. John Pym was starting to lose popularity. The Root and Branch petition evoked opposition. Sir Thomas Ashton organized two pro-episcopacy petitions and published the Remonstrance against Presbytery

The kernel of the arguments against abolishing episcopacy was the rubbish of chaos that could replace it, at least in the short run. This conjunction of traditional legal and maintenance of social order dominated the spring and summer of 1642. Pym's continued encouragement of popular participation filled many with trepidation especially given the evidence that popular uprisings could get out of hand. The Irish Rebellion had led to atrocities committed against protestants and riots in England were not unknown. Many raised the spectre of Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Parliamentarians took a relaxed view of the riots. They were "'honest inhabitants who were providing very acceptable services to the commonwealth

MP's were often caught between a rock and a hard place. Thomas Knyvett was on one day given a parliamentary commission to take command of an infantry and later read a royal proclamation denouncing the Militia Ordinance. The king followed up with his own army raising decree called the Commissions of Array. This was carefully worded as not a call to arms to defend an (unpopular) king but to secure peace in the country, deter foreign invasion and quell insurrection in the country.

MP's took up that theme, professing that they wanted to preserve peace. It was a difficult concept to sell. Trying to raise an army, not to fight a war and not to change the status quo is a difficult rallying call to arms. On the other hand, the Parliamentarians could appeal to peoples religious convictions; that the king was being duped by papists and that the Irish Rebellion could spread to England. The atrocities as bad as they were, were played up to the press and hardened peoples' attitudes. There were charismatic leaders supporting the Parliamentarian cause, such as the Earl of Warwick. Location played a significant role also. London and the South East were hard-line parliamentarian supporters and allowed to dissent amongst its population.

Committed Royalists were two distinctive group of people. Firstly, there were the Royalists that funded the the king's army. These were people committed to duty, preservation of existing and tradition forms of government that preserved a balance (unequal in many ways) between parliament and monarch. They were troubled by the religious schisms, factionalism and iconoclasm. Above all they wanted to preserve the traditional social order. as much as they might disagree with the king, the alternative was worse. Those who fought for the royalist cause, shared many of the same motivations. They had been brought up to take up arms for their landowners, squires and Earls. These groups needed each other. The landowners needed tenants to work their farms. The tenants needed food and shelter. Of course, this master / servant relationship was not always deterministic. Some tenants failed to support the summons from the landowner. Maybe they were anti-episcopal, some felt it wrong to disobey Parliament. Consequently,recruiting for the king's army got off to a slow start and had to rely on volunteers. This could lead to a disparate group of soldiers who had different reasons for joining up - comradeship, money, drink. A fact not lost on the Parliamentarians who could describe Royalists as ruffians, the feckless and the irreligious.

Most of all the typical royalist was someone who feared social upheaval and militant puritanism and therefore many only took to the king's cause once the parliamentarian forces were mobilized. After that began to happen then many tended to fall behind the king's banner once it looked inevitable that war was going to happen and they needed to pick a side.

The Battles of the Civil War

Edgehill kicked off the first major battle of the war, , although that had been a skirmish at Powick Bridge where Prince Rupert easily routed the Parliamentarians. At Edgehill, neither side gained an advantage but the Earl of Essex failed to stop the advance of the Royalist army towards London. By November 1642, it seemed against all odds that the Royalists were on course for a quick victory. At Turnham Green on the outskirts of London, the Royalist advance was checked, not by Essex's army so much, but the apprentices and others recruited by the Earl of Warwick. The king's cautious approach not only allowed Essex's men to regroup, but enabled a force of 24,000 face off the Royalist army of 12,000. The King pulled back and in essence this was the end of the fighting season until the following spring during which time the Civil War became more of political maneouvering and negotiation.

Early in the summer of 1643, the Royalists won battles at Bristol, Gloucester, Adwalton Moor, Gainsborough and Lincoln. This was the high water mark for the Royalists and once again they were approaching London, this time via Newbury. Newbury may have been a turning point as the Parliamentary army were able to thwart the London advance. Whether it was or not the tide had definitely turned by the end of the 1643 battle season. The king started to lose territory in the North especially after the Parliamentary army put pressure on the Scottish to take a more prominent role. Prince Rupert fought back with some brilliant military maneouvers but this led to total defeat at Marston Moor in 1644. The king had lost the North.

With the end of the 1644 Battle season, the Winter consistent of more negotiations with the King, the execution of Archbishop Laud and Cromwell's scathing indictment of some of the military leadership. A reorganization began. A New Model Army of highly trained soldiers was initiated. At the same time the Self-Denying Ordinance disbarred many of the politicians in the Commons and the Lords from commanding the regiments such as the Earl of Essex, although this excluded Thomas Cromwell.

The New Model Army came under the control of sir Thomas Fairfax and scored a major victory at the Battle of Naseby. This was followed up by victories at Langport and Bristol. There was no way back for the Royalists although minor battles continued until 1646. In April Charles escaped Oxford and tried to negotiate with the Scots, who sent him back to the Parliamentarians.

The parliamentarians won because

• They had a better command structure, especially after the creation of the New Model Army.
• Morale was maintained over four years of war
• A better all round mobilization of resources

Initially the dash and elan of the Royalists caught the defensive, unimaginative Parliamentarians off guard. Commanders were chosen for their connections not their military aptitude. Cromwell's reforms took a while to bare fruit but an immediate positive effect was the control of the Navy. It was lucky that the Earl of Warwick was a well known sea-farer and managed to get the Navy behind them. The Navy coming out in favour of the Parliamentarians was especially ironic given the investment in ships as a result of Ship Money. Consequently they were able to supply key garrisons and prevent the Royalists from doing so. It may have also been the deciding factor that prevented the Irish from setting sail to aid the Royalists, although it may have been a mixed blessing had they done so. The Navy also played a role bombarding fortifications.

Not only were inept commanders like Lord Essex sidelines buy the soldiers themselves were reformed and replaced. Local mercenaries and lukewarm soldiers from the shires were replaced by zealous activists who were fighting for a cause. As Comwell said I had rather

The control of London was key. First you had a well fortified city with a large anti-Royalist population. With the Navy on hand, London was a key port for the importation of munitions. Rich merchants could be relied on loan money quickly, especially to pay the Scots or organise the New Model Army. Although the Parliament was slow to repay. The influence of the Scots was also important in deciding the final outcome. The Scots could be fickle and likely to swap sides where they sniffed an advantage but on religious matters they always seemed destined to fall behind Cromwell. However, it was their perceived rather than real effect that provide decisive. Militarily they were not very successful but at least they stretched the Royalist resources thin across the country

	Date"Date" is a type and predefined property provided by Semantic MediaWiki to represent date values.
Act Abolishing the Office of King	17 March 1649
Army Remonstrance	18 November 1648
Civil War - Regicide	6 December 1648 30 January 1649
Civil War - Restoration	4 April 1660
Commissions of Array	1 June 1642
Execution of Archbishop William Laud	10 January 1645
Execution of Charles I	30 January 1649
Execution of Thomas Wentworth	12 May 1641
Four Bills	24 December 1647
Grand Remonstrance	22 November 1641
Heads of Proposals	22 September 1647
Instrument of Government	16 December 1653
Militia Ordinance	7 December 1641
Naseby	14 June 1645
National Covenant	27 February 1638
Newcastle Proposals	1 July 1646
Nineteen Propositions	1 June 1642
Petition of Right	7 June 1628
Petition of the Leveller Women	11 September 1649
Putney Debates	1 October 1647
Representation of the Army	5 June 1647
Root and Branch Petition	11 December 1640
Saffron Walden	1 May 1647
Scottish Prayer Book	23 July 1637
Short Parliament	13 April 1640
The Bishop's War	1 January 1639
The Five Members	4 January 1642
The Second Civil War	22 February 1648
The Self Denying Ordinance	19 December 1644
Treaty of Uxbridge	29 January 1645