11B

Stuart Britain and the Crisis of Monarchy, 1603-1702

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SECTION TWO Revolution, 1629-1649

Topic 11 The Second Civil War

Key Question B: What factors led to the Royalist defeat in the Second Civil War?

The outbreak of the Second Civil War

Four separate groups had played a part in the outbreak of a Second Civil War:

1. The King: Charles was a difficult prisoner. After surrendering to the Scots in 1646, he was held prisoner in Newcastle. When the Scots handed him over to Parliament, he was moved to Holdenby House in Northamptonshire. It was here he was seized by Cornet George Joyce, who took him to the New Model Army base at Newmarket. He travelled south with the Army to Reading, where he negotiated with Ireton and Cromwell, but never with any intention of agreeing to a settlement. As the Army approached London, he was placed under house arrest at Hampton Court Palace. In November 1647, he escaped through an open window and made his way in disguise to the Isle of Wight. Here, he was arrested again and imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle, but would somehow still be able to negotiate an alliance with the Scots that would lead to a Second Civil War. In addition to his continued attempts to escape captivity, the King’s conduct in the negotiations for a settlement with Parliament and the New Model Army was intentionally divisive. Charles fully anticipated a backlash against his enemies if he could delay making a deal: the longer he could procrastinate, the deeper the divisions within the Parliamentary cause would become, and the likelihood of the tide of public opinion turning in the Royalists’ favour would grow. Charles had absolutely no qualms about playing Parliament, the Army and the Scots off against each other and making contradictory promises that he did not intend to keep. At the same time, he was also duplicitously reaching out to potential overseas allies in an attempt to renew the war. Ultimately, he believed that he was a King dealing with rebels, and so there was never any obligation for him to keep his word.

2. Parliament: Even before the end of the First Civil War, there was a conservative reaction against the perceived intrusions of parliamentary rule over areas of the country. People had become weary of the taxes imposed upon them to fund the New Model Army, inflation, looting and the general harshness of being in a continuous state of war. During the period 1646-47, public anger at the failure to reach a workable settlement began to be directed at Parliament. The replacement of the traditional form of local government with county committees run by ‘outsiders’ of lower social standing was increasingly resented. There was also growing concern that no lasting agreement had been made regarding the future of the Church. It was widely assumed that, as Parliament had been the victors in the conflict, this must all be their fault. The majority of the population still associated the monarchy with order and tradition, and thus constantly harboured a desire for the restoration of royal authority.

3. The New Model Army: For many, the Army appeared to be the main obstacle preventing a return to ‘normality’. When its soldiers took control of the King, it assumed sole responsibility for the failure to reach a settlement. During the course of the negotiations in 1646-47, Parliament attempted to raise a new military force consisting of its sympathisers in London; at the same time, it excluded from the House of Commons the Independent MPs who supported the Army. When the Army Council sanctioned several divisions to storm Parliament to demand the Independents reinstatement in August 1647, it became clear that the NMA no longer regarded itself as the servant of the country’s politicians. To further complicate matters, representatives of the rank-and-file, known as ‘agitators’, began to put forward and support increasingly radical demands for a new post-war society that seemed to challenge the existing natural order. This created the general feeling throughout the country that a settlement acceptable to the King and the Political Nation would only be possible once the New Model Army had been finally disbanded.

4. The Scots: The Scots’ decision to ally themselves to the Parliamentary cause in 1643 in the Solemn Engagement and Covenant was primarily motivated by a desire to uphold the Presbyterian Church. However, by 1647, the greatest threat to their religion no longer seemed to come from the defeated King, but from Independents who had split from their allies during the war, partly on the grounds that they no longer approved of the Scots’ strict religious beliefs and lack of toleration for all forms of Protestant worship. Accordingly, the Duke of Hamilton (who had been one of the first to oppose the alliance with Parliament in 1643) managed to persuade the Scottish Parliament that the best chance of safeguarding Presbyterianism was to now side with the King. This was based on the fact that in some of the negotiations, Charles had shown a willingness to give Presbyterianism a ‘trial run’ in England.

Communicating via secret letters passed in and out of Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight (where Charles was held prisoner), the Scots therefore struck a deal with the King at the end of 1647 called The Engagement. The main terms were:

  • a Scottish army would invade England to restore the King to the throne;

  • Presbyterianism would be established in England for three years as a trial (and would continue permanently in Scotland);

  • religious sectarianism would be suppressed and Independents would be punished.

At the same time as Charles was negotiating The Engagement with the Scots, Parliament was making one final attempt to reach a settlement with the King. Based upon some of the original terms of The Newcastle Propositions, a document known as The Four Bills stipulated that:

  • Charles was to surrender all military power by ceding to Parliament authority over the army and navy for twenty years;

  • after this time, the Crown would be required to gain the consent of both Houses of Parliament before authorising any military action;

  • Parliament claimed the right to adjourn itself to a location of its own choosing to safeguard against any possible attempt by the King to use his popular support in London to coerce Parliament;

  • Charles was required to revoke all his recent declarations against Parliament and to annul all honours (for service to the Royalists in the Civil War) he had recently granted.

The Four Bills were also regarded by MPs as a test of the King's sincerity in the face of rumours that he was negotiating for military support from the Scots. If the King agreed, he was to be invited to London to discuss all other points of contention (e.g., the state religion and the selection of royal advisers among other issues). The terms were presented to Charles at Carisbrooke Castle on 24 December 1647. He announced his rejection of them four days later. In the meantime, he had secretly signed The Engagement with the Scots.

By rejecting The Four Bills and aligning himself with the Covenanters, Charles was gambling that Scottish intervention would force the Political Presbyterians in London to support the Royalist cause against the Army. On this point, however, he had miscalculated. News of his Scottish alliance drove the Presbyterians and Independents back together. In The Vote of No Addresses, passed on 11 January 1648, MPs, whether Presbyterian or Independent, once again made common cause with the Army and resolved that there would be no further negotiations with the King. The country was again at war.

The Royalist defeat, 1648

The Royalists never stood a realistic chance of winning the Second Civil War. Charles had expected that a series of anti-Parliament, pro-Presbyterian risings would take place across the country. In addition to the invasion of the Scots, he hoped this would prove too much for the New Model Army. In the event, there were some sporadic outbreaks of revolt, but these proved uncoordinated, and the Army was able to split its forces efficiently to deal with each of the threats it faced. While Fairfax and Ireton suppressed localised insurrection in the east of the country, Cromwell inflicted a decisive defeat on the Royalists at the Battle of Preston in August. Fairfax’s capture of Colchester at the end of the summer marked the end of the fighting, and in October, Cromwell travelled to Edinburgh to ensure that MPs loyal to the English Parliament were firmly in control of the political situation in Scotland.

For the soldiers of the Parliamentary forces, victory in the Second Civil War was further justification that the New Model Army was ‘God’s Instrument’. It came to be popularly believed that they were being guided by Providence – the concept that their actions were sanctioned by divine authority. The growing religious motivation of the NMA can be illustrated by the identification of the following key features, all of which were regarded as crucial to their success on the battlefield:

  • only the most devout (most were Puritans) were made officers;

  • chaplains were appointed to each regiment and accompanied them on their campaigns and even went into battle with the soldiers, chanting Bible passages to lend encouragement;

  • each regiment adopted its own banner and religious motto;

  • fasting and self-reflection were taught to be an integral part of preparation for battle, or even for political negotiations;

  • soldiers would regularly preach to each other, spreading ever more radical ideas throughout the ranks;

  • the Army’s physical separation from the rest of society reinforced the image of their own ‘Godliness’ and helped to raise morale;

  • the creation of the General Council of the Army in 1647, with ‘agitators’ representing the rank-and-file soldiers, gave all members of the Army a strong conviction that they were equally valued.

The NMA had viewed the First Civil War as an understandable necessity: the contest had been fairly fought (in the context of military conflict at least), and, in the end, God had judged against the Royalists. To deliberately begin another Civil War, as Charles had done by signing The Engagement, represented a direct challenge to God’s original judgement, and was therefore unforgivable. A turning point had thus been reached: there was now no more talk of ‘evil advisers’, only of a duplicitous monarch who could not be trusted. Many now started to regard negotiating a political settlement with Charles and the Royalists as an impossibility and, for the first time, were giving serious consideration to a republican future.