The Road to War

The English Civil War did not begin on the ridge at Edgehill in October 1642. It began in the constitutional collision between a Stuart king who genuinely believed in the divine right of kings and a House of Commons that had spent forty years accumulating grievances and constitutional theories to match.

Charles I came to the throne in 1625 convinced, sincerely and unshakeably, that he was God's appointed sovereign — accountable to God alone, not to Parliament. He regarded Parliament not as a partner in governance but as an instrument to be used when needed and dismissed when inconvenient. He dissolved it three times in his first four years, and from 1629 to 1640 he ruled without Parliament at all during the period known as the Personal Rule or, to his enemies, the Eleven Years' Tyranny.

To raise money without parliamentary taxation, Charles revived ancient feudal dues and extended 'Ship Money' — a levy traditionally imposed on coastal towns in time of war — to inland counties in peacetime. It was legal, arguably. It was also a demonstration that the King could govern without Parliament indefinitely, and the country's lawyers knew it.

His religious policy was equally inflammatory. Archbishop Laud's High Church Anglicanism — with its elaborate ceremonies, its emphasis on priestly authority, its apparent flirtations with Rome — terrified Puritan England. When Charles attempted to impose the English Prayer Book on Presbyterian Scotland in 1637, he got a riot in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh. The Scots signed a National Covenant pledging resistance, raised an army, and invaded England. Charles, lacking funds for his own army, was forced to recall Parliament.

The Long Parliament, meeting in November 1640, was in no mood for accommodation. John Pym and his allies moved swiftly: the King's chief minister Strafford was impeached and executed, Ship Money was declared illegal, Parliament made itself impossible to dissolve without its own consent. Charles conceded each point — and schemed to recover each point.

The final break came on January 4, 1642, when Charles entered the House of Commons with soldiers to arrest five members he considered leaders of the opposition. Forewarned, all five had fled. The Speaker refused to identify them. Charles found only 'empty nests and birds flown.' He left the chamber to shouts of 'Privilege! Privilege!' — the violation of parliamentary sanctuary unforgivable. The King fled London. By summer both sides were raising armies.

On August 22, 1642, Charles I raised his Royal Standard at Nottingham Castle in a ceremony of medieval formality. The standard-bearer was so nervous he dropped it. A storm that night blew it down. England's first civil war in nearly two centuries had begun.