The Aftermath of the First Civil War
The Aftermath of War - A complicated time
Blink and you would miss the next twist and turn of the post war political machinations. Due almost certainly because of Cromwell's and Parliament's failure to plan for a post war peace, the Parliamentary alliance fractured in to many pieces. New factions, groups, rivalries emerged during the 1646-1649 period. All of these groups tried to impose their own ideas on how to run a post war regime. All tried to out do each other negotiating with other parties. Close allies would split, sworn enemies would unite only to split even before they had implemented their designs. From the prism of three hundred years each political strand is so mingled it looks like a plate of spaghetti. Although the future was far from clear, at this stage the regicide was the least likely scenario
What were the different political ideas, how did they take shape and who shaped them?
First of all what was the state of play in 1646?
The King - A Poor Poker Player
Despite the low regard that Charles 1 was personally held, he was a political fact of life. No settlement to the post-war English political system was possible without an understanding with the king. The problem was he was duplicitous, not in a cunning, artful way of playing one group off against another but one who accepted to be dealt a Royal Flush every hand and walk away with the winnings. This made negotiations very frustrating although many tried. For him, episcopacy and and prerogative were not up for negotiation. At each turn, when it might seem he might opt for another alternative, for him it was just another rung up the ladder to get back to where he was in 1640.
Parliament - A divided House
In 1646-1649, it seemed that the MP's hated themselves almost much as they despised the King. It is act of a brave or foolish historian to try and categorize the factions in parliament and overlay each with some uniform political strategy. The best you can do is divide them into a broadly pro-war faction that wanted to impose a settlement on the King that he would be forced to accept, and a pro-peace faction that wanted a mutually agreed settlement with the king restored to the throne.
Religion - One man's tolerance is another man's heresy
Irony does not come close to describing the Puritanical zealots who had railed against Archbishop Laud's intolerant episcopal church, now arguing that liberty of conscience was heresy. However, there was a cohesive strand of argument here. That being that without a formal police force you needed uniformity of purpose and doctrine to maintain social order. It was the same argument that the Royalists had employed. The only difference was that Laud was more concerned with the outwardly displayed beliefs in the form of rites and ceremony and not necessarily with inner beliefs. The Presbyterians
| 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 |
