What Caused the Civil War?

On the 22 of August 1642 a civil war broke out in England. The war was Parliament against the King and the king ruling at the time was King Charles I. Though there were many small reasons why the civil war eventually broke out the main three reasons were religion, a highly regarded thing in the 1640’s when England had just become Protestant and was reforming itself, power was the other thing, everyone wanted power and the last large cause was money. Charles was always in need of money, but it seems so was everyone else. In this essay I’m going to show you more about these three reasons and last of all the smaller triggers just before the outbreak of the war. The civil war may have started as something that both the King and Parliament thought they could control and win and by doing that bring the other down, but they both soon learnt that what they had created was something beyond their control because when there is a war everyone is involved not just those who started it. It may then become clearer to you who were more to blame for the outbreak of the civil war in England, Charles or parliament.

In this paragraph I’m going to explain the role money had in causing the civil war. I think that money was one of the earliest complaints and disagreements between Charles and Parliament. From the beginning Charles liked to spend a lot of money and he ran very expensive household. As if this was not enough he also spent a lot on his favourites, he was also constantly giving expensive gifts to people. This cause Charles to slowly go into debt and it did not help that the previous King, James, had also been in debt. When his situation got too bad in 1625 Charles was forced to ask Parliament to give him some more money. When Parliament voted against giving Charles the money Charles became infuriated. So Charles collected the money anyway and sent Parliament home. Charles was happy, but he continued spending and soon all the money he had collected was gone. So in 1629 Charles made everyone pay the ship tax. Before that the only people legible for the ship tax had been the people who lived by the coast. The ship tax was a tax that went to pay for the navy. This tax was the only one Charles could bring in without consulting parliament, but in doing so he made himself more unpopular with the people and Parliament. Later in 1640prlaiment demanded that Charles raised no more taxes without their permission, although Charles did not agree to this he did compromise by making Ship Money illegal. Money was very much more of a problem for Charles as he was constantly running out. The reason money became an area of conflict was that Charles wanted to take the hard earned money of the people of England away through taxes. Many people thought this was unfair and I find it a bit unfair too because the people had to work very hard for the money just to have it taken away by a man who could easily do without some of the things he has. I think money was more of a problem of Charles, but an issue for the people and Parliament who were the people being taxed.

Then there was the issue of religion. In this area Charles made a mistake very early on in his reign by marring a catholic. This wasn’t the best move since England had just changed and reformed to have their own church, the Church of England which was protestant. When Charles married a Catholic many people began to question his faith and did he really believe in the Church of England. If he didn’t this would be a big problem as he was the head of the church, or as they called him, protector of faith. The ordinary people that objected the most to the marriage were a group of Protestants called the Puritans. These were in short the extreme Protestants. They looked down on all forms of fun and leisure. Parliament also had a problem with the Catholic queen because most of them were strictly protestant. After this religion became a problem and source of conflict between the Parliament and the King. During his reign Charles made a continuous effort to make the church more Catholic. One man helped him a lot and that was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Laud. With him Charles began the change the church ever so slightly so that it was slightly more Catholic, Parliament on the other hand were trying to make the church even more Protestant. In 1640 when Parliament made a list of demands one of them was that all the changes made to the church be reversed. The king again did not agree out right, but he did compromise by putting Laud in prison. The Scottish people had their own church and it was even more protestant then the English puritans. So when Charles tried to force them to use the English prayer book they were not happy especially after being neglected that long. When the Scots didn’t use the prayer book Charles began to try and find ways to forced them too. This upset many Scots and they got together and created the ‘Solemn league and covenant’ this was then signed by over 1,000s people. When Charles didn’t give in the Scots began to raise an army and then so did Charles. So you see religion played a key role because it is really one of the only reasons that the Scots got involved. The Scots were trying to stop the king from making more changes to their church.

Then there was power. Parliament wanted more power because they believed that Charles wasn’t running the country well and wasn’t listening to the sensible advisors. They were also often neglected and didn’t get much say as Charles often sent them home or just didn’t listen. Charles on the other hand didn’t want parliament to have that power, but he didn’t see that parliament wasn’t given any power so it made them thirsty for it and they thought that the only way they could get that power was by war. Charles took away parliament’s power bit by bit when he sent them home each time and didn’t call them back for meetings. At the beginning of his reign you could have said that Charles had a lot of power, but during his reign that power began to slip away a long with his reputation with the people. Instead all that power went to parliament. Before the civil war more people sided with parliament then the king as they thought that parliament would do the better things and help them. So in a way Charles lost a lot of power when he lost his people. He lost the ability to control his country and the people in it. Just before the civil war Charles had lost all trust any of his subjects had in him, the only people who still stood by him were those who would benefit from Charles still being in reign. For the reason that Charles lost the vote and trust of his people is one of the reasons why he lost the civil war. When he lost his people he lost many of his soldiers. Charles had trouble trying to gather up sufficient army and when he did many left again. But before the civil war he did manage to gather a reasonable army, but the parliament just took control of it. I think power played a role in the civil war because that was what the parliament was fighting for. They were fighting for more power and say.

Then there were the small triggers before the war actually broke out. Both sides made some. One of the mistakes made by the king was when he arrested 3 MPs. This did not go well with the rest of the Parliament. The king made several fatal mistakes, but in the years leading up to the civil war he was prepared to compromise to the parliaments wants. This is the time where parliament didn’t want to cooperate. Charles wanted more money, but parliament wouldn’t give it to him. Then when parliament made demands Charles didn’t actually agree straight out to them all but instead he made fairly good compromises. Then parliament became really angry and took control of the army that Charles had been gathering up for a little while. This meant that Charles lost all of his men apart from the few private soldiers that were on his side, but there weren’t enough of these to stop a civil war or to win it for him.

In conclusion I don’t think you can pin the blame of something as big as a war on one person. I think that there are many people to blame and rather than people I think the problem was the lack of communication on both sides meaning that neither knew quite what the other wanted. I think that both sides made mistakes, but I would have to say that Charles made the most. Although this may because he didn’t listen to others and did what he wanted, he was also ever so slightly big headed which may have caused him to do some things without thinking through the consequences they would have. But then parliament made some rash and silly mistakes. They were very stubborn and wouldn’t settle for less then they asked for. This was one of the reasons that the compromises that Charles tried to make failed and fell through. So I think that there are many people to blame for the civil war in England.