The English Civil Wars, Part 1 of 2

The English Civil Wars are among the most traumatic and consequential events in British history. What began as a struggle between Crown and Parliament over power, money and religion tore England, Ireland and Scotland apart, leading many to refer to the period as the Wars of Three Kingdoms. It was a conflict bitter enough to split communities, turn neighbour against neighbour, and tear families to shreds. By the time it is over, thousands are dead and the victors have exacted a revenge so shocking that many fear they have insulted God himself. But what disagreements triggered the political crisis that eventually collapsed into open war? How did Charles’ leadership fan the flames of rebellion? And once England goes to war with itself, who will dominate in the struggle to shape the country’s future? This is a Short History Of The English Civil Wars, Part 1 of 2. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Mark Stoyle, Professor of History at the University of Southampton, who specialises in the English Civil War. Written by Sean Coleman | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw Unlock the next two episodes of Short History Of… right now by subscribing to Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network, including Real Survival Stories and Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed, or head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions to get started. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:42Speaker 02

  It's January 4, 1642, in Westminster, London. A dreary, cold winter's afternoon.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  Inside the long, narrow, old chapel of St. Stephen's, where the House of Commons meets, several hundred MPs are crowded onto long wooden benches, wrapped in thick cloaks, their breath clouding the chill air.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  A debate continues to roll on, swinging between old grievances and new dangers, when it is suddenly interrupted by the sound of a disturbance just outside the entrance, with voices raised and heavy footsteps. Within the hall, heads turn, and the chatter thins to indignant consternation. Because it sounds, for all the world, like a small troop arriving.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  The doors fling open, and into the chamber marches none other than the King, Charles I, dressed in a cloak and a broad-brimmed hat, armed men at his back, and barely-contained rage on his face.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Striding into the centre of the room, he announces that he has come here in person to seize five members of the Commons. His voice reaching to every corner of the stunned chamber, he calls out the names of the five men he accuses of treason, whom he believes have led resistance to his authority and driven the kingdom towards rebellion.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  The members of the House are outraged. This place is meant to be protected from precisely this kind of intrusion from the King. The Commons is not a courtroom for a royal arrest. With disbelief passing across the faces of the members of Parliament, King Charles moves through the chamber, glancing from side to side, searching the rows where the five should be sitting. But they are gone, slipped away before he arrived. He demands to know where they are, but is met by silence that stretches across the whole room. Those singled out for answers by the King avert their eyes, none of them willing to collaborate in this appalling breach of protocol.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Undeterred, Charles moves up the chamber towards the Speaker's Chair, the symbolic heart of the Commons. The Speaker, William Lenthol, is there, now caught between obedience to the King before him and duty to the House behind.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  When Charles again demands to know where the five members are, Lenthol kneels before him.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  He answers with careful submission, telling the monarch plainly that he has neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, except as the House directs him.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  But beneath the submissiveness, the defiance is clear for all to hear. And for a few seconds, nobody is quite sure what to do.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  The King is not a man used to being refused, and yet here they all are, each man a subject, each man disobeying him.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Around the chamber, MPs exchange stunned glances as Charles turns from the Speaker's Chair and storms his way back through the House.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  He has no choice but to leave without his presence. The armed men follow him out, the doors close behind them.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  And in the silence that remains, natural order feels broken.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Charles has crossed the threshold in anger, and in doing so, he has crossed a line that makes it clear that the struggle between Crown and Parliament can't be settled by compromise. The road to war lies open.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  The English Civil Wars are among the most traumatic and consequential events in British history. What began as a struggle between Crown and Parliament over power, money, and religion, tore England, Ireland, and Scotland apart, leading many to refer to the period as "The Wars of Three Kingdoms."

• 5:02Speaker 02

  It was a conflict bitter enough to split communities, turn neighbour against neighbour, and tear families to shreds. By the time it is over, thousands are dead, and the victors have exacted a revenge so shocking that many fear they have insulted God himself.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  But what disagreements triggered the political crisis that eventually collapsed into open war? How did Charles's leadership fan the flames of rebellion? And once England goes to war with itself, who will dominate in the struggle to shape the country's future? I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Part One of a two-part short history of the English Civil Wars.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  When Charles's father, James I, dies in 1625, the new King inherits a kingdom already under pressure.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  England is entangled in an expensive war with Catholic Spain, inherited from the final years of James I's reign. But though many Protestants support a firm stand against the great Catholic power of Europe, that doesn't mean they're happy to fund seemingly endless, badly managed, and poorly explained campaigns.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  War is also expensive, but the new King can't simply tax at will. To raise money to continue fighting, Charles needs Parliament's agreement. But in return, Parliament increasingly expects a say in how that money is used and what kind of policies it is funding.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  At the same time, religion is a source of deep and growing anxiety. England is officially Protestant, but many of Charles's subjects fear the country is still vulnerable to Catholic influence from abroad and to religious backsliding at home.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Charles comes to the throne with a powerful belief that he has been chosen for the role by God, known as the divine right of kings, as well as a deep sense of the dignity and authority of the Crown. Intelligent and serious, he is also rigid, proud, and stubborn. For Parliament, that already makes him singularly difficult to work with.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Mark Stoyl is professor of history at the University of Southampton and specializes in the English Civil War.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  Parliament, it's been said famously at this time, is not an institution, it's an event. And so parliaments can be called or dissolved by monarchs at their will. The idea was that Parliament would advise when summoned and would supply money. But gradually, during 100 years before Charles came to the throne, the role of Parliament had expanded in some ways. And increasingly, some MPs felt that they should have more of a say on particular affairs, foreign affairs, and particularly the question of religion.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  The war with Spain is not the only problem. Charles has also inherited a separate conflict with France. And soon, military failure abroad draws criticism from MPs at home, who are increasingly reluctant to pay for it. As Charles clashes repeatedly with Parliament over funding, foreign policy, and the limits of royal power, it quickly becomes clear that he sees compromise not as a necessary part of government, but as a form of surrender. That alone is troubling enough, but Charles brings a couple of other problems to the throne with him.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  The first is a political burden in the shape of his father's favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Believed by many at the time to have been the late king's lover, Buckingham is widely blamed for wasteful spending and the recent humiliating military failures. Many MPs and ordinary people perceive Buckingham as being greedy and arrogant, not to mention dangerously incompetent.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  I think a lot of people expected that, like most royal favourites, when the old king died, his favourite would disappear from the picture. But on the contrary, what happens is that Charles remains extremely close to Buckingham. By this time, Charles had lost almost all the members of his family, either dead or gone, and so Buckingham is almost like a brother to him. And that closeness between Charles and Buckingham very much unsettles people. They didn't expect it, they don't like it, that makes people uneasy.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  When there is a move to impeach Buckingham in 1626, Charles protects him, confirming fears that the new king will defend an unpopular favourite against Parliament. But that's not the people's only worry.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  And the second thing that worries people is Charles's marriage. So as soon as he arrives on the throne, he marries a French Catholic princess. And at a time when England's extremely Protestant and it's almost impossible to overstate the degree of anti-Catholicism that exists at this time, that makes people very worried too. So almost from the beginning, there's this idea that Charles is far too close to two people that most of the British public just don't like.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Alongside the suspicion about his marriage to a Catholic, Charles's support for more ceremonial forms of worship and his hostility to the most zealous Protestants, the Puritans, makes many fear he is steering the church in a dangerous direction.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  When Charles first arrives on the throne, there's a great deal of joy amongst Protestants. They're very hopeful for this new youthful young king. And what happens over time is that, like his father, Charles is very worried about the Puritans, the radical zealous Protestants within the English Church. And he makes increasingly clear that he is not prepared to move any further down the path of religious reform. Elizabeth I had set up a Protestant church that was very much a middle way between Catholicism on one hand and ardent Protestantism on the other. And both James and Charles constantly reiterate their determination to stick to that middle ground. But by this time, Puritanism, radical Protestantism, is becoming much stronger in England.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  And there are many who see Charles's attempt to sort of hold to the middle way as actually moving back towards Catholicism.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Charles's dislike of the Puritans escalates, and they in turn become increasingly suspicious of him. And since many MPs are also Puritans, religious distrust soon sours into political conflict, and a vicious cycle begins. Unable to get his way, Charles repeatedly dissolves Parliament. To him, they are less colleagues and more a nest of godly agitators bent on defiance. But the way many MPs see it, Charles is a ruler who cannot be trusted to defend Protestantism. In 1629, the relationship reaches a dramatic breaking point.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Charles's most bitter opponents in the House of Commons actually hold down the Speaker of the House and they pass a series of resolutions, three resolutions, against the king's religious policies, against his financial policies. And essentially, there is a kind of feeling at this point that Parliament might be seeking to take control, which it had never had before. And the king is terrified. He sees these people as rebels, as seditious, very, very dangerous. He feels it's getting out of control, and it may be trying to seize power.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Charles does not accept the resolutions as a legitimate check on his authority, seeing them instead as evidence that Parliament has become too big for its boots. So he dissolves it and embarks on an 11-year period that becomes known as the Personal Rule, in which he governs without calling Parliament at all. On one level, these years appear calm, and Charles's government continues to function. But running a country still costs money, from administration and justice to coastal defence and the navy. Without Parliament, he no longer gets the taxes and subsidies that MPs normally grant a king to keep the state functioning.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  What he is worried about, of course, is money. Because although early modern England is not an absolute estate as France was, there's very much a convention that kings should not tax their people without Parliament's consent. So obviously, with no Parliament, the king cannot get parliamentary subsidies. So what he resolves to is essentially two things. First of all, he withdraws himself completely from foreign wars, and instantly, the cost of government tumbles downwards. And then he and his advisers, his ministers, come up with various ways of raising money that don't involve parliamentary consent.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Among the controversial financial devices to which Charles turns is a tax known as ship money. Traditionally, this is a levy charged on coastal towns and counties in time of war, requiring them to provide ships, or money for ships, for the defence of the realm. Importantly, ship money doesn't have to be voted through Parliament. Charles can present it as an old royal right, tied to national defence. But he now stretches that argument by reviving it in peacetime and extending it far beyond the coast, demanding it from inland counties too. To his disgruntled subjects, he's clearly using an old emergency measure as a way of raising national taxation without involving Parliament.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  And that is a dangerous precedent. Yet, while ship money is unpopular, the navy it helps fund is in dire need of support.

• 15:08Speaker 03

  It's bitterly ironic because one of the reasons that there were so many problems in the 1625 to 30 period, those early years of wars at the beginning of this reign, is because England is so humiliated in this series of foreign wars. One of the reasons is because the fleet is so weak. And you're also getting increasing numbers of attacks by pirates, taking away English ships, taking away English mariners, selling them into slavery in the North African ports. Obviously, this is incredibly humiliating for the English, and there are many cries of rage about this. So the money that Charles raises for ship money, all of that money does go into the fleet, and in many ways, it's a very, very good thing. And there are lots of people in England who are very pleased

• 15:51Speaker 03

  to see our maritime power finally getting back to the sort of level that people thought it should be at.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Even so, resentment continues to build. Charles revives other archaic laws to generate income: fining gentlemen for failing to take up knighthood and penalising landowners under ancient forestry laws. And though it's evident he's scraping the past for any device that lets him raise money and enforce obedience without parliamentary consent, anyone voicing those concerns runs the risk of reprisal. Detractors of the king and his bishops are hauled before special royal courts like the Star Chamber, where the penalties can be harsh and public. In 1637, three prominent critics are fined, pilloried,

• 16:42Speaker 02

  have their ears cut, and are sentenced to life imprisonment. Across the board, opposition is strongly disciplined and criticism often brutally stifled. At the same time, religious fears intensify as the Church of England, of which Charles is the head, moves towards a more formal and ceremonial style of worship. Many Puritans see it as a step back towards the old Catholic ways. Yet Charles sees their desire for more radical Protestant reform as dangerous dissent.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  In a way, what you have is two different conspiracy theories now beginning to take root in England, a kind of Anglican loyalist one and a Puritan disloyalist one in some ways.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  But the system begins to unravel properly when Charles turns his attention to religion in his other kingdom of Scotland.

• 17:43Speaker 04

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• 20:28Speaker 02

  In 1637, Charles tries to introduce a new, English-style prayer book to the Scottish Kirk, the Presbyterian National Church of Scotland. The reaction is explosive.

• 20:41Speaker 03

  At this time, Scotland is a completely independent kingdom, and it just so happens that Charles is king of England, Ireland, and Scotland. And I think in England, his religious policies actually have quite a lot of support. But in Scotland, the attempt to impose a more sort of conservative form of Protestantism on the Scots—Scotland's a much more radically Protestant country than England is—this is a much bigger change than the changes that the king is trying to impose in England. And it's seen by the Scots as an attack, not just on their church, but on their whole national identity. And as a result, the huge majority of Scots rise up against the king's religious reforms.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  In a direct challenge to Charles's authority as their king, in 1638, thousands of Scots sign the National Covenant, pledging to defend their religion against the reforms. What follows are the bishops' wars, two short conflicts in 1639 and 1640, fought over whether the king can impose his religious settlement on Scotland by force. Charles wants to crush the Covenanters militarily, but war is expensive, and after more than a decade of ruling without Parliament, he is forced into the very step he has spent years avoiding.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  There is no way that the king can subdue the Scots by force, which is what he essentially decides to do, without money. And to get money, he has to call a Parliament and to make sure that the country is behind him. So he is indeed forced back into a political arena which he had hoped to leave behind him as a result of the Scots' intervention.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  The first of these new Parliaments meets in April 1640. It will later be known as the Short Parliament, because it lasts only a matter of weeks. Charles wants money for war, but the MPs first want to address the grievances that have been building up during the personal rule. When it becomes clear they are more interested in airing complaints than voting for funds, Charles shuts them down once again.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  So he dissolves that Parliament, attempts to fight the Scots with his own means, without parliamentary support. That's a humiliating failure. He's unable to defeat the Scots. He is forced to go back to Parliament again with a kind of begging bowl.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Scottish forces now cross into northern England and occupy territory there, leaving Charles with little choice but to summon another Parliament in November 1640. Known as the Long Parliament, when it meets, years of anger over taxation, religion, and arbitrary rule come surging once more to the surface.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  By this time, it's clear that the king's opponents are in the ascendant. He's a very, very weakened figure by this time, and essentially, once the Long Parliament meets, appears an MP sort of take control of the agenda.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  The Long Parliament moves quickly against the men and institutions that sustained Charles's personal rule. MPs target leading royal advisers, most dramatically Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Stratford, who is impeached and eventually executed, while measures are introduced to curb the king's ability to govern without Parliament.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Royal courts, like the Star Chamber, which exist outside of the ordinary common law system and have been used by the king to punish critics, are abolished. With these gone, Parliament can reassert powers that Charles has trampled on for years.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  People are becoming much more involved in political affairs, you know, quite ordinary people, quite low down the social scale than they had been in Elizabeth's time. And when the personal rule is essentially toppled and Charles loses control, one of the most significant things that happens is that he loses control of the censorship of the press, which he and his father and Elizabeth before him had always enjoyed. And the result of that is to turbocharge publication and discussion of political affairs in England. Suddenly, you have literally thousands of pamphlets pouring off the London presses, spreading all sorts of new and radical ideas. And there's no doubt that that really helps to entrench the process of political and religious division in England itself.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Those printed pamphlets spread rumor and accusation at unprecedented speed. Petitions circulate and crowds gather to protest. London's streets become part of the political theatre, with ordinary people drawn into disputes that were once the domain of kings, councillors, and MPs. The question of how England should be governed has become a national discussion, argued not just among the elite, but also in churches, homes, taverns, and public squares. And clear lines of division are emerging.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  By mid-1641, the king has almost been reduced to a shadow of what he'd been before, and it looks as if his opponents in Parliament kind of sweeping all before them. And what changes that is religion. What essentially happens in 1641 is that the Puritans begin to move to radicalize the church. That creates a lot of resentment amongst conservative men and women in England and Wales. And as a result, the king gradually begins to build up a party of supporters, which he hadn't really had at the beginning of the Long Parliament.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  The king's support comes largely from those fearful that the Puritans are trying to overturn not just the church, but the established structures of monarchy and government. Then, in October 1641, news arrives of a new rebellion across the Irish Sea, and the urgency of the crisis rises yet again.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Ireland is a bitterly divided place, bitterly divided along ethnic lines. It's essentially ruled by English and Scottish Protestant settler class, but the majority of the population are Catholic, very much hostile to what's been done in Ireland over the last sort of few hundred years. So these terrible massacres and atrocities, rumors and stories about these soon arrive back in England, and soon all sorts of Protestants are fleeing from Ireland and bringing these terrible tales of what's going on there into England itself.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Reports spread of Protestant settlers being attacked and killed by Irish Catholics. And although many of the earliest accounts are exaggerated, they unleash a wave of panic that is impossible to contain.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  For English Protestants, the rebellion confirms their worst suspicions about Catholic violence and conspiracy. The king's Puritan enemies are quick to seize on that fear and weaponise it against him.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  They suggest that the king and his Catholic wife are actually behind the Catholic rebellion in Ireland, that Charles and Henrietta are in secret alliance with the Catholic Irish. That terrifies many English people. And it also heightens the stakes in another way, that obviously with Ireland going up in flames, everyone in England is united in sort of feeling something must be done. And what everyone wants to see done is essentially a large English army being sent to Ireland to reconquer it. But once you start to talk about raising a large army in England, who's going to command it?

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Parliament doesn't want the king in charge of an army, in case he uses it against his opponents at home. Charles, meanwhile, rejects their attempts to strip him of his military authority.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  But then, at the end of 1641, a new threat comes to light, which proves the final straw for the king.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  I think the tipping point is that around Christmas 1641 to 1642, rumours begin to circulate that John Pym, who's the leader of Charles's opponents in the House of Commons and a group of his closest allies, that they are planning to pass an act of attainder against Charles's wife, Henrietta Maria, essentially blaming her for having started the Irish rebellion in the first place. And an act of attainder can be passed and means that someone can be executed with no trial. So at this point, there is actually a threat to the life of Charles's wife.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Charles and Henrietta Maria are unusually close for a royal couple, and the idea that Parliament's leaders might move against her so treacherously terrifies him. For years, he has believed that his enemies are growing bolder and more dangerous. Now he has proof. So in January 1642, Charles makes the most dramatic and disastrous gamble of his reign. He enters the House of Commons in person, accompanied by armed men intending to arrest Pym and four other leading MPs on charges of treason.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Though he is unsuccessful, it is nonetheless an extraordinary breach of parliamentary protocol, and it backfires immediately.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  I mean, it's one of the worst miscalculations of his whole reign. If he had managed to arrest them and had executed them, who knows what might have happened? But as it is, he gets the worst of all worlds. He moves against them, he is shown to sort of intervened in Parliament in a threatening way, but he doesn't manage to get the parliamentary leaders. They slip away, they make their way into London, and the king is left baffled and confounded, failing to have taken out his chief opponents, but at the same time to have raised a storm of opposition to what he's done.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  The scene is humiliating for the king, but its importance goes far beyond personal embarrassment. Charles has just shown that he is willing to use force against his political opponents and violate the protections on which English government depends.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  Parliament, as you'd imagine, takes full advantage of this. The king eventually flees from London at this point because he's raised such a sort of outrage in the capital, and in no time at all, Pym and his allies are back in Parliament and announcing that the king's attempt to arrest them with his troops at his back was proof that what they'd been saying all along was true, that there is a Catholic plot against Parliament and that the king is determined to take power by force. And they claim that the whole of Parliament was on the point of being massacred when Charles arrived, and had it not been for divine aid, you know, he would have killed all of the MPs there and then. I mean, there's no evidence at all that that was the case, but it is gold dust from their point of view. It's like a massive propaganda victory.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  By the summer of 1642, the breach between king and Parliament is too wide to mend, and all of England stands divided. From Westminster, it is easy to assume that Charles has overplayed his hand so badly that he must now either submit or flee. But in much of the country beyond the capital, it's a different story.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  And in fact, in large districts of sort of provincial England, the king and the more conservative English church is very popular. And as a result, it gradually becomes clear that the king is actually able to raise much more support in the provinces than people had originally imagined.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Yet the nation is not neatly split in two along purely religious lines. Allegiances are also shaped by region, local loyalties, or personal interest.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  There wasn't a single community in the country that was holy on one side or the other. There are always exceptions, and families are absolutely divided. We know of, you know, husbands and wives actually supporting different sides. But there are also quite clear general patterns as well.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Broadly speaking, Parliament's support is strongest in London, the South, and the East, where wealth, trade, and stronger networks of godly Protestantism help sustain its cause. Backing for the royalist cause is greater across much of the North and the West. In Wales and Cornwall especially, endorsement of the king is connected to strong local identities and a mistrust of a Puritan movement that seems culturally alien and politically dominated by London.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Those who rally to the Parliament are, above all, the Puritans, the most ardent Protestants, and those who rally to the king are essentially those who are in favour of the old, more traditional form of church in England. And this is tied up with culture as well. The Puritans are seen by their enemies as killjoys, who want to sort of destroy the old festive culture, who want to sort of force everyone into this very, very pious form of religion. And the Puritans, for their part, say, well, they describe the king's allies not so much as conservative Protestants, but rather as semi-Catholics, as quasi-papists.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  These are only rough patterns, not hard borders. But when Charles raises his royal standard at Nottingham in August 1642, formally signalling that the kingdom is now at war, those patterns harden into military and political allegiance.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Across England and Wales, people are forced to make a choice, based on their religion, loyalty, and kinship, as well as a decision about the kind of country they want to live in. What emerges are two rival armies, with two competing visions of authority, each claiming to defend the true constitution of the kingdom.

• 34:34Speaker 05

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• 37:08Speaker 02

  It is the morning of Sunday the 23rd of October 1642, near Edge Hill in Warwickshire.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Across the fields, below the ridge, the day begins in a strange, suspended quiet.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  In the parliamentarian line stands a young soldier. Except, until a few days ago, he was a baker’s apprentice, and the hands with which he clutches his pike are more used to flour and dough than wood and iron.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  He has marched out, believing that one hard battle might beat the king’s men back and return England to order.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  The air is cold and damp, the ground heavy underfoot, and a thin autumn haze lies across the field. Distant drums roll through the gloom as officers call for order above the murmur of thousands of men trying to master their fear.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Out beyond the haze, the king’s army is forming too. It’s vast, far bigger than the young baker expected. Though these ‘royalist cavaliers’, as they are known, are derided for their fancy ways, the only difference he can see between them and his own fellows is their use of red sashes to distinguish them from the parliamentarians’ orange. He knows the royalists mock their enemy in turn as ‘roundheads’ in reference to their short, cropped hair and the plain godliness of their Puritan zeal. But in truth, as he looks around, they look less like a religious cause than a crowd of frightened Englishmen waiting for the guns to begin.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  When the first shots fire, the sound seems to tear the day apart. The young man feels it in his chest and his hands instinctively tighten around his pike. A horse to his left rears, whinnying.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  But the men know better than to show their terror. As smoke drags across the field, the cry goes up to charge.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Whatever organisation existed in the parliamentarian line immediately dissolves into noise and confusion. Orders are shouted and lost as cavalry surges forward in a thunder of hooves, vanishing into the chaos. Muskets crack and cannon answer. The apprentice is pushed forward with the line, his pike clutched tight in sweating hands, boots slipping in the mud. He halts, braces, lurches on again. The men who had stood steady beside him moments before suddenly drop, convulsing to the ground. Others stumble forward as if unable to understand what has struck them. He hears someone crying out for God,

• 40:00Speaker 02

  another for his captain, another still for his mother.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  The field becomes a kaleidoscope of horror with flashes of steel, gun smoke, torn standards, men shouting to lost friends, blood and gore at every turn.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  By afternoon, the battle is a series of violent collisions spread across the land. And when darkness begins to fall, there is no great triumph to mark the end of it and no clear victor emerging from the smoke. Only exhaustion, wreckage, and death.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  For this soldier, standing amid the churned earth and the cries of wounded men, the truth settles heavily. This will not be the one sharp encounter followed by a return to order that they had been expecting. England is at war with itself now. Whether it will be able to find a way back to peace is anyone’s guess.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  The bloodshed at Edge Hill is not the first of the civil war, but it is the first major battle. It brings a sudden, brutal end to any lingering illusion that this conflict might be settled quickly.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Edge Hill is a really interesting encounter because Parliament had not expected that the king would be able to raise an army at all. I think the plan was that they would simply be able to scoop him up with their own troops. So they’re surprised and obviously very worried and alarmed that he’s been able to raise large numbers of troops in the North, in Wales and the Midlands. But I think from the point of view of people watching, of course, most people didn’t know at this time, well, nobody knew that they were on the brink of a prolonged civil war.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  As a battle, Edge Hill demonstrates the uncertainty and improvisation of the early stages of the war with poorly coordinated attacks and uneven discipline from both sides. Above all, it shows that neither is strong enough to crush the other quickly.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  As the war goes on, Parliament starts turning its early advantages into more concrete gains. It holds London, the political and financial heart of the kingdom, giving it access to greater wealth and the machinery needed to sustain a long conflict.

• 42:20Speaker 03

  London has always been the centre of English administration or British administration since Roman times. All the main roads converge on it. It’s by far the biggest city, it’s by far the wealthiest city, it’s the centre of trade and governance. As soon as Charles loses London, he’s given a huge advantage to his opponents.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  In addition, in 1642, most of the navy sides with Parliament and accepts the Earl of Warwick as its commander, denying Charles one of the strongest weapons of the state. Ironically, this is the same navy strengthened by all that contentious ship money. Now it helps hamper the king’s war effort as well as securing his enemy’s supply lines.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  So having lost control of the navy, which has always been perhaps the most powerful sort of military force for the English, there is no way of blockading London or starving it out.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  With London in its hands, Parliament can build a war machine using the country’s richest region, its main administrative centre, and its most powerful presses. The king, by contrast, has to improvise. Setting up a rival court at Oxford, he tries to create new systems of government and struggles to coordinate supporters spread across the North, Wales, the West Country, and the Midlands. Parliament’s strength is concentrated and well-supplied, while the royalists are scattered and harder to unify. And yet Charles is still far from beaten.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Nobody would describe Charles as a coward. He’s a courageous man, he’s a brave man, you could argue he’s a foolish man, but you know, he doesn’t lack the stomach for a fight. And also, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of the name of the king.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  In fact, as 1643 wears on, Charles begins to recover. At this point, the royalists control more territory than their enemies, and there is a real possibility that the king and his cavaliers might yet turn the war decisively in his favour. From his position in Oxford and with royalist strength in Wales, the West Country, and the North, there is potential for a pincard movement towards London. For a time, Parliament’s position looks far less secure than it had hoped.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  But those in the capital prove better at building vital alliances.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  John Pym’s greatest triumph, the sort of de facto leader of the parliamentarians, is that towards the end of his life in 1643, he makes this alliance, a solemn league and covenant with the Scots. And as a result, they agree to send in a large and powerful army into England to help Parliament. Now, that’s something like 20,000 men that advance over the English-Scottish border in late 1643, early 1644. And that’s a disaster for the king. You know, the northern royalists, they’re some of his most important supporters, they’re now caught in a vice between the Scots advancing south and parliamentarian troops pushing northwards.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Thus reinforced, Parliament now learns how to fight more effectively.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Commanders like Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell can see that local, poorly coordinated armies are not enough to win a national war. Even identifying who is fighting whom is chaotic at this time, with armies wearing whatever uniforms their colonels give them, often leaving them unable to tell friend from foe. Indeed, in one battle, both sides disastrously choose the addition of something white to their headgear to help them distinguish one side from another. And even the same code word of ‘God with us’. But it’s not just about uniforms. What is needed is a more disciplined, unified force. Out of this understanding, in 1645, the new model army is born.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Under Fairfax and with Cromwell as one of its most formidable leaders, this new force is organised, better trained, and shaped by a sense of common purpose. It gives Parliament the military edge it has previously lacked. And it’s not just that Parliament has more money or more men, it’s that it is getting better at turning those advantages into victories.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  By this time, Parliament is increasingly promoting men on merit, if you like, rather than social status. So a lot of the soldiers and the officers in the parliamentary army, they’re kind of hardened by war. And the officers in particular are now rising up through the ranks not so much because they’re gentlemen, but rather because they’ve shown that they’re good soldiers.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  As the balance of the war shifts, its effects are felt far and wide.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  It is late October 1644, in Chester, near the English border with Wales.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  In a public house in the heart of the city, the landlord stands behind the worn timber of the taproom.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  He listens as another dull boom sounds beyond the walls, followed by the rattle of a building fallen in the street.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  The inn is full, but not with travellers. Royalist garrison soldiers crowd the benches where merchants once sat over ale and mutton. Their boots muddy, their tempers short.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  A local woman in the corner tries to hush a child. A man near the hearth asks, not quite quietly enough, whether the parliamentarians will overrun the city before help comes. No one answers.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  Since the Roundhead forces began closing around Chester, the city has felt less like a safe, royalist stronghold, and more like a shutting trap.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  Roads that once carried merchants and travellers have been blocked, and carts seized as enemy troops tighten their stranglehold. The siege is still new, but already the pinch is beginning to show, with soldiers and civilians locked in together as fear and shortage settle over the city. Every day, the publican draws ale thinner than the day before, and counts every loaf before it is cut.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Upstairs, rooms meant for paying guests are crammed with the displaced and the waiting. Below, in the cellar, the barrels stand fewer than they should, and each time he lifts the hatch, he wonders not just how long the beer will last, but how long any of them will.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  When a pounding comes at the door, the whole room stills. For a second, all that can be heard is the hiss of the fire, the wind in the chimney, and the far-off thud of guns.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  The hammering comes again, harder this time. The publican slides the bar free, and opens to a messenger rushing in wild-eyed, carrying news of another breach of the city's defences, and another street now too dangerous to cross.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Under siege, Chester is turning in on itself. Food is short, rumours are everywhere, and every setback brings fresh blame. People whisper about hoarding, defeatism, and who can still be trusted. Neighbor watches neighbor almost as closely as the enemy beyond the walls. This is what the war has become, and the publican is no longer sure whether to fear the army outside more, or the desperation growing within.

• 50:05Speaker 06

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• 50:08Speaker 06

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• 51:00Speaker 02

  By now, the balance of the war has decisively shifted in favour of the parliamentarians. At Marston Moor, back in the summer, their forces shattered royalist strength in the north, weakening the king's hold on that part of the kingdom.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  But interestingly, although the northern royalists are defeated at Marston Moor in 1644, the king himself wins a superb victory in Cornwall during that same summer, and manages to recapture much of the south of England for his cause. So at the beginning of 1645, he's still surprisingly confident, and he too has built up a very strong and powerful army, very experienced, with hundreds of very, very experienced officers, and thousands of very, very committed and experienced troops as well.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Then, the conflict comes to Naseby, a small town at the centre of England.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  Fought in June 1645, it is the battle that effectively destroys Charles's main field army, and lays bare the weakness of his cause. The new model army proves its worth in devastating fashion.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Not only is he defeated by the parliamentarians, but his entire veteran infantry force is surrounded and captured, and the parliamentarians ship most of those captives off abroad after they've got them, so that they can never rally to the king again.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  From this point on, royalist resistance crumbles. One stronghold after another falls. And in May 1646, with defeat closing in, Charles gives himself up to the Scots, hoping he can still bargain his way back into power.

• 52:38Speaker 03

  This is not a completely foolish idea, because although the Scots come in to help the parliamentarians in 1644, by 1646, when the king decides to throw himself on the Scots' mercy, if you like, the relationship between the two has soured. There's a lot of English people, Oliver Cromwell included, who are very hostile to the Scots. They don't like the fact that there is now a Scottish army in England.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  It is a sign of how fractured the victors already are. Parliament has won the war, but it is far from united about reaching a peace. The Scots want a settlement that protects their interests. Many in Westminster want to reach terms with the king, and rising figures in the army, among them Oliver Cromwell, are increasingly distrustful both of Charles and of the Scots.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  But though he is now effectively a captive king, no one can agree what should be done with Charles.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  In the end, unfortunately for him, the Scots are tired, they're weary of war, they certainly don't want to fight the parliamentarians. They just simply want everything to be settled on terms that they can agree on. So they eventually sell the king to Parliament in return for quite a large sum of cash, and then they disappear back into Scotland again, and so then the king is left in the hands of Parliament.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  And still, the deeper question that has haunted the kingdom from the beginning remains unanswered. What kind of peace is now possible, and on whose terms?

• 54:12Speaker 02

  Even though Charles has been beaten, he has not been silenced. For now, as the fighting gives way to negotiation, division and mistrust remain, and England edges into an even more dangerous chapter.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  I think first of all, we should remember the terrible impact it has on everyone living here in England, and Wales, and Cornwall. For everyone who lived through the Civil War, it was the biggest event of their lives, and for the rest of their lives, they would refer to it as "the war", or "the wars", just as our grandparents referred to the Second World War as "the war", you know, this was the big event. Nobody ever forgot it, so its impact on its own time is enormous. To me, it's probably the single most important conflict we've ever been involved in, for all sorts of reasons, apart from possibly the Second World War and the defeat of Hitler.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  That's next time, in part two.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of Right Now, without waiting and without adverts, by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Just hit the link in the episode description, or head to www-noiser.com/subscriptions to unlock more episodes today.

• 55:29Speaker 06

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• 55:32Speaker 06

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• 55:35Speaker 06

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• 55:44Speaker 06

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• 55:50Speaker 06

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