The Coming of War in Three Kingdoms

Week 4 H1613: Lecture Notes

The Coming of War in Three Kingdoms

The ‘Crisis of Three Kingdoms’ is a useful concept for understanding political and military developments between 1637 and 1651.  The end of the Personal Rule in England, and the course of the 1st and 2nd Civil Wars (1642-6, 1648) only make sense in a British context.  What is less clear is how useful a ‘British’ framework is for explaining the coming of the English Civil War in 1642.

Conrad Russell has observed that the English Civil War was the third and last of three major convulsions which shook Charles I’s kingdoms between 1637 and 1642: first, the Bishops’ Wars against the Covenanters (1639-40), and second, the Irish Rebellion (from October 1641).    What were the origins of each and how far are they linked?

War against the Scottish Covenanters

The protest against the introduction of the Scottish Book of Common Prayer was not simply religious in inspiration; behind it lay a desire for a re-direction of Charles I’s rule over his northern kingdom.  Political negotiations ensued, and it need not have ended in war.  The signing of the National Covenant (February 1638) alarmed Charles I, who saw his authority at stake.  Charles I failed to win the war of 1639, largely through a lack of political will; in 1640, the Covenanters struck early, winning the battle of Newburn (28 August 1640) and occupied NE England.

The Irish Rebellion

As Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland (1632-9), Thomas Wentworth Earl of Stafford had offended the significant groups of Old English, New English and Irish Catholics; from November 1640 the Irish Parliament were involved in Westminster politics, petitioning against Stafford’s government.  Though Charles I was later blamed for inciting the rebels, the most plausible explanation is that Irish Catholics and Old English rose in a pre-emptive strike to protect themselves from an anticipated anti-Catholic drive to be launched by the Parliament of England, which was claiming jurisdiction over Ireland.

Civil War in England

How far do events in Scotland and Ireland really explain war in England? Covenanters

had returned to Scotland in August 1641; and the Irish Rebellion was perhaps the

occasion not the cause of war in England.  Charles I had clearly alienated large bodies of

English opinion by November 1640, though no one was thinking in terms of war, since

Charles I was in a position of unprecedented weakness, and would have to make

concessions.  Two key questions, therefore:

• Why did this consensus collapse?
• How did the king find a royalist party and others throw off ingrained habits of obedience to oppose him?

Rival conspiracy theories – both popish and puritan – helped to deepen political tensions and ‘explain’ the behaviour of opponents.

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