III.

Civil War

In August 1642 Charles gathered his army at Nottingham. The first battle, fought at Edgehill on October 23, was indecisive. In general, the king controlled the northwest, and Parliament controlled the southeast—including London. The king’s followers were called Cavaliers; those of Parliament were called Roundheads.

In 1643 Parliament secured the support of the Scottish army by promising that the recently convened Westminster Assembly would make the Anglican church conform to the Presbyterian church of Scotland. Meanwhile, Cromwell, an outspoken member of Parliament and a military genius, was perfecting his regiment of cavalry, which soon earned the name Ironsides. Parliament won the crucial Battle of Marston Moor on July 2, 1644. The following year, the Scots suffered a setback when James Graham, marquis of Montrose, rallied the Highland clans on behalf of King Charles. Cromwell, now second in command of Parliament’s New Model Army, destroyed the king’s army at the Battle of Naseby (June 14, 1645). In September the king’s Highland partisans were overcome by the Scottish army and Montrose fled to the Continent. The first civil war ended in May 1646 when Charles surrendered to the Scots, who, in June 1647, turned him over to Parliament.

The king rejected Parliament’s conditions for his return to power; his intransigence aggravated the divisions among the victors. The Scottish forces soon departed. The army, more independent in religion and radical in politics than the Presbyterians who dominated Parliament, seized the king. During the ensuing political debate, Charles escaped. He made an alliance with the Scots, who pledged to restore him to the throne if he promised to make Presbyterianism the official religion of both kingdoms. The second civil war took place in 1648, with the army and Parliament fighting against Scotland and the king. A Scottish army invaded England, but was defeated by Cromwell in a battle at Preston, August 17-19, 1648. Other Royalist opposition was soon suppressed.