Charles I and the Puritan Revolution

Charles with Parliament, then Without

Accession

Charles, born in 1600 in Scotland, was altogether very different in character from James. He was austere, reserved, moralistic, and pious in the new Anglican mould (see below). However, because of an attack of polio in youth, from which he recovered, he spoke with a stammer.

The next thirty-five years were to be a turbulent period: the arbitrary rule of Charles, the oppressions of Archbishop Laud, the Civil War, the Puritan Revolution, and the first Republican experiment. Even with the Restoration of monarchy in 1660 English society was never to be the same again.

Marriage to Henrietta Maria:

Although the Spanish match with Maria Anna failed, Charles still married a Catholic, much to the consternation of the Puritan Parliament. Henrietta Maria was a child of the French court, reared as a virtual orphan in its Catholic atmosphere, and she married Charles by proxy in May, 1625, then in person the following month. The relationship initially was cold, and arguments were frequent. She despised Buckingham, and there is some evidence that she was in some way complicit in his murder. After this the marriage improved, and they eventually formed a deep bond of love. She bore ten children to Charles, six of whom survived into adulthood. However, she was passionately Catholic and this brought her into conflict with both the Puritans and Archbishop Laud.

Changes in Society: trade was expanding, coal mining and other industries were developing, London had become a vanguard of progress. In the country the landed gentry acquired close associations with the new trade and industry, and in turn they supplied many of the members of Parliament. Moreover, these gentry were largely on the side of Puritanism and further reform in the Church of England.

The Duke of Buckingham under fire

This flamboyant popinjay, who had been the favourite and homosexual partner of James I in his later years, now advanced his cause, quite successfully, with Charles.

(i) Expedition to Cadiz: In October, 1625 Buckingham tried to do a Drake by destroying Spanish ships in the Cadiz harbour, but it came to nothing. He was no Francis Drake! Parliament was outraged, and refused to allow any more money for this incompetent minister. However, by this time Charles had dissolved his first Parliament to head off a mounting attack on his friend and favourite.

(ii) Attempted relief of La Rochelle: This port city was a stronghold of French Protestantism, and enjoyed several privileges under the Toleration Edict of Nantes (1598). However, Cardinal Richelieu, the Chief Minister under Louis XIII, was determined to crush it, and in 1627 his troops blockaded the city from both land and sea (the Île de Ré). Buckingham, at Parliament’s bidding, led a force in June 1627 to help the embattled Huguenots, but through mismanagement and blunders it failed dismally. Richelieu’s attack was successful, after its population diminished from 27,000 to 5,000 due to the privations of the siege. Following the debacle Parliament moved, successfully, to impeach Buckingham.

(iii) Impeachment: Frightened that Parliament would impeach Buckingham for a second time Charles called a second Parliament, but manoeuvred to exclude the opposition members such as Coke and Wentworth. At this time the forced loans matter arose. Parliament wanted a Bill of Rights which would outlaw any levy or tax without Parliament’s approval. Charles would not have this at all.

(iv) Murder: Just as the Duke was about to embark on a second attempt at a relief of La Rochelle an assassin murdered him (23^rd Aug., 1628), thus ending any hope of relief of the French city from England.

• Rising Restiveness in Parliament

(i) Forced Loans:

In need of money Charles summoned his first Parliament in 1625 (really the last Parliament of James continued). With the Duke of Buckingham now Charles's adviser the Parliament refused to vote enough money for the Spanish war, knowing how incompetently it was being carried on by the king and the duke. The traditional tonnage and poundage, normally granted to the king for the lifetime of the monarch, was given for one year only.

After the Cadiz debacle royal finances worsened, so in 1626 he summoned his second Parliament which promptly attacked Buckingham, blaming him for the disastrous failure of the Spanish adventure. Parliament was also furious that English ships should have been sent to the French (on hire) to put down a rising of Protestants at La Rochelle. Parliament, under Sir John Eliot, started the impeachment of Buckingham, and refused to supply the king with money until he was dismissed. Meanwhile, Charles now resorted to more dubious methods of raising money: he pawned the Crown jewels, and sold off most remaining Crown lands to pay off royal debts. However, it was the forced loans which landed him in trouble, since when important nobles refused to pay he threw them into prison. This action brought about the Petition of Right. Charles consequently dissolved his second Parliament.

(ii) Petition of Right:

When Charles imprisoned the “Five Knights”, the Commons under the leadership of Sir John Eliot and Sir Edward Coke drew up a list of grievances, the Petition of Right, condemning what they saw as innovatory methods of raising finance, in particular the forced loans. The king, they insisted, should not levy taxes without the consent of Parliament. They also objected that no man should be imprisoned without fair trial; and that the king should not rule by martial law in time of peace. . This they presented to Charles in March, 1628, the third Parliament. Here the antiquarian work of Coke and Selden came to the fore: the Commons believed that they were now the champions of the “ancient liberties” of English people. To this Petition Charles unwillingly agreed and he was at last granted the money he required, in the form of subsidies. However, after Charles accepted the Petition he promptly ignored it.

But Charles, being involved with a war with France, needed money even more than before, so in 1628 he called his third Parliament, one which reached a new level of aggression over not only finances such as tonnage and poundage, but religious issues, i.e. the growing Romanising of the English Church. The result was another impasse; the Lord Treasurer, Richard Weston, was denounced as a Papist, and an illegal tax collector. The Commons drew up a Remonstrance with another list of objections, and the Speaker, on side with the king, was held down until the Remonstrance was declared carried. Thereupon the members left the

Sir Edward Coke Came from a legal family, and his fame is that of a barrister and judge. In his early days he staunchly defended royal authority, and rigorously prosecuted both the Earl of Essex and the Gunpowder conspirators. After 1606, however, when he became Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, he changed his views and championed the right of Common Law over the decrees of the king. He did much to resurrect Magna Carta, and his famous dictum was “Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no sovereign.” This idea annoyed James. During his time as Chief Justice he arbitrated many cases which laid the foundations for later British and American law, and indeed for the American Revolution. His lasting monument was the Petition of Right (1628) in opposition to the king, and which was the forerunner of later charters of rights.

chamber.

At this rancorous break-up Charles now decided that he could rule quite well without a parliament at all. Thus began the period of Personal Rule for the next eleven years. However, Parliament had scored a vital principle: the Executive government could not imprison a man, no matter what rank, for reasons of State.

Opposition to Arminianism:

The Reformation protest had been about Church authority and Sacraments, but underlying it was the doctrine of salvation. The Reformation was thoroughly “Calvinistic” in that it held that Divine grace alone brought one to a state of salvation, without the mediation of a priesthood, a process in which man was entirely passive. The Roman position was that of synergism, that man’s will and exertions played a (considerable) part, along with Divine grace mediated through the ministrations of the priesthood. This combination of roles brought man to a state of salvation. A mediating position now appeared in the Protestant camp, which taught human co-operation with divine grace in similar vein to the Roman view, a position associated with the Dutch theologian Jacob Hermandszoon (Latinised to Arminius), but having its roots in the philosophy of Ramus.

This type of view first appeared in England in 1595, when the bishops drew up the Lambeth Articles against it, but now it gained many more adherents, in particular Lancelot Andrewes, and William Laud.

Arminianism, especially with its ritualistic accompaniments, the Puritans saw as undoing the Protestant character of the English Church. The new ritualism reinstated the Communion table from its Elizabethan position among the congregational pews to a railed-off sanctuary as an altar, and brought back the pre-Reformation vestments, bowings to the altar, candles, and crucifixes. In addition, the new mood saw the English Church as a branch of Christendom in its own right, co-ordinate with Rome and Orthodoxy but independent of both those and Geneva. It was, in fact, a “high church” movement, and the phenomenon is known as “Caroline High Churchism”.

Puritanism viewed this whole development with alarm. The old objections of the Elizabethan period to rites and ceremonies were of course still maintained, but now doctrinal issues came to the fore. Since Parliament was now filling with Puritans, who were all Calvinists, they saw the growing Arminianism as a compromise of the Reformation and a step toward Rome. Hence there was a distinct religious component to the rift between King and Parliament, which cannot be discounted. For his part, Charles was definitely on the side of the new Anglicanism.

Charles Rules without Parliament, 1629-1640

It had become clear that Parliament and King could not work together. Hence Charles realised that as long as there was no crisis or war he could rule without Parliament. On the other side, there was little Parliament could do. However, to maintain personal rule he needed the support of Parliamentary leaders. One in particular attracted Charles: Thomas Wentworth, who had worked with Eliot and Coke but now became the king’s favourite, and whom Charles later created Earl of Strafford. This defection to the royal side earned Wentworth the opprobrium of Parliamentary colleagues, who dubbed him “the lost archangel” and “the Satan of Apostasy”. Thereafter he was a particular target of hate, even more than Buckingham. But Wentworth was not the only defector: Sir Henry Savile and Thomas Digges were sufficiently pliable. During this time Charles also gained a champion to implement his religious programme: Archbishop William Laud.

The Slide into Civil War: 1630 – 1642

Summary

The decade of the 1630s saw on one hand a period of relatively peaceful rule, but of increasing unrest. Taxation was one issue, but religion was another, and in the latter the new Archbishop Laud was to play a large part. However, as the decade drew to a climax, it was not the activities of Puritans in England but Scottish Covenanters north of the border which brought matters to a head.

Meanwhile, the new commercialism made London, with a population of around 350,000, into a consumer society. Because the court, the government, and the law were now firmly fixed in London, the gentry now acquired town houses there, while the lot of families in the country improved despite a severe recession (the government had little money, so there wasn’t much around anywhere!). However, there was widespread unemployment, hence a drift to London and other major cities. Landless paupers ballooned in numbers, leading to civil unrest, and increased emigration to America.

Education, driven by the Puritan impulse, was now more available. By 1640 more than a third of the male population was literate. Most towns had a grammar school, and scholarships for the gifted became plentiful.

John Hampden and the Ship Money

Charles gradually ran out of money. One measure was to revive mediaeval forest laws whereby newly enclosed properties which encroached on to royal lands would incur heavy fines. But there was another tactic: during the Middle Ages port towns supplied either ships, or money in lieu. Charles proposed to extend this throughout the land. The new tax fell very hard on the poor, sending many more to the New World. Puritan gentry resolved to fight the tax through the courts, and the issue ultimately fell on John Hampden to plead before the judges for refusal to pay the tax. Five judges eventually decided for the king, but one dissenter, Sir George Croke, gave it as God’s direction and according to his conscience in favour of Hampden. Although the final decision of 7 to 5 went against him, he had won a moral victory, such that sheriffs encountered stiffening resistance in trying to collect the tax. Hampden was now a national hero in what was seen increasingly as a threat to the constitution of the kingdom. Wentworth, for his part, made him and his Puritan brothers into marked men. Likewise for Laud, who looked with dismay at their growing influence.

John Pym (1583-1643)

A Somerset man, and Parliamentarian from 1621, he became treasurer of the Providence Island Company in 1630, which sought to open trade with Spanish America. The company became in turn a gathering point for Puritan Parliamentarians who led that party in the 1640s, and joined opposition to the Ship Money during the late 1630s. Pym led a group which sought to force the king to accept a government in which Parliament had a regular and trusted role. Wentworth, Charles’ principal advisor, stood in the way of this plan, and it was Pym who led the attack on him in the early days of the Long Parliament, climaxing in a successful prosecution, whereupon Wentworth was executed in May, 1641. Pym also forced Charles to accept acts forbidding personal government and finance, and the dissolution of Parliament without its consent. Charles only agreed to these with the personal resolve to overrule them at the earliest opportunity. Pym was no democrat, and certainly no republican, yet for him the king reigned, but his power was balanced between him and Parliament.

Pym was one of the five members whom Charles tried to arrest in Jan. 1642, an act which helped bring on the Civil War. During the early phases of the War he imposed excise, raised loans, formed Committees for the running of the country, and organised an arrangement with the Scots, albeit with concessions to Presbyterianism which went further than he wished. The whole burden of responsibility, however, exhausted him, and he died of cancer, 8^th Dec., 1643. He was irreplaceable, and in the wake of his death Parliamentary support split into various wrangling groups, leading to the army’s emergence as the real power in the land. However, Pym’s work established the framework of the England which would survive the turbulent century.

Wentworth in Ireland

This Parliamentarian Charles wooed to his side during the personal rule, and Charles made him Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1632 – 1640. His methods, while despotic, were efficient: he cleared the sea of pirates, bolstered trade and industry, established a sound financial base, and proceeded to reform the Church in Ireland along English lines. However, his ruthless methods and (proposed) use of an Irish army to fight the Scots, and even against Charles’ English opponents, earned him the wrath of the Long Parliament who moved his impeachment, and then passed a Bill of Attainder for his execution, which Parliament forced Charles to sign. Now the Earl of Strafford, Wentworth was led to Tower Hill on 12^th May, 1641 and beheaded.

Laud and the Star Chamber

William Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury after the death of George Abbot in 1633, determined to root out Puritanism and change the face of the Church of England to the Caroline High Church model. During his provincial visitation in 1634-6 he attempted to enforce uniformity, without regard for conscientious scruples, and this began the infamous “Star Chamber” inquisitorial trials.

Under his direction every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant and minute inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked down and broken up. Even the devotions of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies.

Foremost among these courts in power and in infamy were the Star Chamber and the High Commission, the former a political, the latter a religious inquisition. Neither was a part of the old constitution of England, but both had been created under Henry VII. Now, however, free from the control of Parliament, and under Laud’s intolerance they displayed a rapacity unknown to any former age. They imposed fines, imprisonment, pillory sentences, and mutilations. A separate council sitting at York, under the presidency of Wentworth, was armed with almost boundless power over the northern counties. Clarendon informs us that there was hardly a man of note in the realm who had not personal experience of the harshness and greed of the Star Chamber. (adapted from Thomas Macaulay)

One notorious case was that of William Prynne, a provocative writer who opposed Laud’s religious policies, and who wrote a treatise, Historiomatrix, against “lewd stage plays” (he was not opposed to all theatre, especially not music). Because it was taken as treasonous he was tried, sentenced to mutilation (1633), and imprisoned. Later when he continued his pamphleteering from prison, he was further mutilated and branded with the letters S L (for “Seditious Libeller”).

Attempts to impose Anglican Practice in Scotland

(i) Riot at St Giles:

Wentworth had carried through Charles’ religious reforms in Ireland, but Scotland was to prove very different. For one, it was much more thoroughly Protestant than either England or Ireland; for another, Charles had no administrator of the calibre of Wentworth. Charles wanted uniformity, and sought to impose a service book similar to the 1549 English Prayer Book on the country, without consulting either the Scottish Parliament or the Church Assembly. For the Scots this was the next thing to a Mass book, and when on 23^rd July, 1637 a solemn ceremony of ecclesiastical and civic dignitaries introduced the new book it provoked a riot, and the whole service broke up in tumult. (The Jenny Geddes stool-throwing incident is disputed by some historians, but over all its historicity seems likely.)

At this event a leader emerged in Scottish affairs, Alexander Henderson. His answer was a National Covenant to unite the nation under the one banner to adhere to and maintain the Reformed cause in Scotland. Apart from the provision to “extirpate all Popery and superstition” this document laid down the principle that there should be no innovations in church and state without being first tested by free Parliaments and General Assemblies. They professed loyalty to the king, but the king must yield to the higher authority of Divine law. It was thus a direct challenge to the principle of the Divine right of kings. A great gathering took place in the churchyard of Greyfriars on 28^th Feb., 1638 when the Covenant was signed (shown above), thereafter sent to every parish in Scotland. Charles was furious when the covenant arrived at his palace in London. He refused even to read it. Charles’ foes, who signed the Covenant and upheld its principles, were now known as “Covenanters”.

(ii) Two “Bishops’ Wars”: Charles resolved on war, but he first sent the Marquis of Hamilton to try to influence the nobles to renounce the Covenant. His mission, always viewed with suspicion by the sullen Scots, was a failure. By 1639 the mood was for war, and in May the English and Scottish armies faced each other near Berwick, but no battle ensued. Instead a treaty averted hostilities, and the six Scottish Commissioners who helped to draft this document were to exercise a profound influence on English affairs over the next few years.

However, in the next year, 1640, the Scots crossed the Tweed when it became clear that the Pacification of Berwick had achieved nothing, and that it was only a device for Charles to buy time. Charles, caught at a disadvantage, sued for peace. These events forced the recall of Parliament at Westminster.

The Long Parliament

Charles now summoned a new Parliament but only because his options had run out. All went well as long as there was no war, but Charles had provoked a war in Scotland, and he had only a poorly equipped army to prosecute it. Because of the resultant Scottish invasion from across the border he was now forced to deal with the Puritans he disliked so much. It was Wentworth who advised him to do what he had for 11 years avoided doing: calling Parliament. However, much had changed since 1629, and the new Parliament, with its many new faces, was in no mood to be conciliatory to the king: there were the oppressions of Laud, the taxation measures widely held to be illegal, and the general use of arbitrary power. The new Parliament, called the “Short Parliament”, because it lasted a mere three weeks (13^th to 25^th April 1640), soon gave way to another Parliament in Nov. 1640, known as the “Long Parliament” (because it lasted so long), which had much business on its agenda:

(i) “Root and Branch” Petition: The Scots were in close touch with the Puritan Parliament and clergy, and gave advice on their demands regarding bishops, liturgy, and doctrine so as to eradicate “Popery”. The populace, tired of petty ecclesiastical by-laws which inhibited free worship even in private homes, and angered at the Star Chamber trials, stirred up the Commons to present a Petition for the total abolition of Episcopacy “root and branch”, with 15,000 signatures. This also had the approval of the Scots. Others moved for a less radical alternative of curtailing the power of the bishops without their actual abolition. In line with this, popular agitation, firmly on side with Puritanism, called for a new evangelical church which majored on the Bible and not ritual and form.

(ii) Trial of Wentworth: After the oppressions of the personal Rule Parliament was in no mood for compromise. The recall opened the floodgates to the many grievances. Pym struck first at Strafford, and opened a blast of fury at this turncoat and “wicked earl”. Archbishop Laud was also caught up in the fury, and transported to the Tower, from which he eventually took the familiar journey to the block on Tower Hill, 10^th Jan. 1645.

(iii) The Affair of the Five Members: Charles desperately sought for an exit strategy from the storm he had created. He even invited Pym to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, but in the end he knew he had to eliminate his five principal opponents in the Commons, including Pym and Hampden. To this end he took an armed contingent to the House on 4^th Jan. 1642 to arrest these five, but they had been tipped off by a message from the Lady of the Queen’s Bedchamber, and they were safe among friends in the City. Charles, sitting in the Speaker’s Chair, sullenly admitted, “I see the birds are flown”, and then departed in a rage, to the chants of “Privilege” from the members.

This interference in the due process of Parliament angered the populace to fever pitch, and precipitated the Civil War. London was now irretrievably lost to the king, and he soon departed from his palace at Whitehall, only to see it again on the day of his execution 7 years later. The “Five Members” episode in particular gave visible focus to the popular resentment against arbitrary royal power. For all this, many even on the Puritan side still baulked at war, but they were inexorably drawn into it.

War between King and Parliament

Charles raises his Standard at Nottingham

When the Long Parliament first convened in Nov. 1640 there was no thought of war, but the obstinacy, bad grace, and deviousness of Charles had poisoned the climate. See Oxford History, p.359.

Having left London in January, Charles, on 20^th Aug. 1642 raised his standard at Nottingham Castle, to formally declare war and echo the old Mediaeval call to arms. However, the event was largely symbolic: few rallied as hoped, and while the Earl of Essex had already been successfully raising a parliamentary army, royalist commanders took rather more time to raise their own forces. Charles’ cousin Prince Rupert became commander of the cavalry and in effect the commander of all the forces loyal to the king.

Charles I raises his standard at Nottingham.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) Born at Huntingdon in East Anglia, he belonged to lower level gentry. After education at Huntingdon Grammar he made his living in early life by farming and collecting rents. Elected MP for Cambridge in 1640 he rose to prominence during the Civil War as a very capable soldier and cavalry officer. Because of reverses in the Parliamentary campaign during 1643 Cromwell reorganised the Army along lines that endured in the British Army thereafter. His brilliance brought victories at Marston Moor and Naseby, with the final defeat of royalist forces in 1646. Cromwell had become the major power broker by 1648, and though initially opposed to the execution of the king he became a firm supporter. With the king’s execution Cromwell became effective ruler of the realm, receiving the title Lord Protector from 1653. When he died in 1658 his republic collapsed, since his son Richard was incompetent to rule.

Early Parliamentary Reverses

After a preliminary skirmish at Powick Bridge, the first major battle at Edgehill on 23^rd Oct ended in stalemate, but with the king at a slight advantage. In general the campaign went better for Charles in both 1642 and 1643: Parliament held Coventry, Warwick and East Anglia in the countryside, while the king held Banbury, Oxford, and much of the West Country. However, Parliament retained its hold on London, guaranteeing funds and lines of credit. A royalist assault on London came to nothing, when the Earl of Essex, leading the Parliamentary forces, repulsed their attack at Turnham Green. However, in 1643 a series of reverses in the West (Lansdowne) and the North (Adwalton Moor) brought Parliament to its knees. When Essex marched from Gloucester, seeking to head off another royalist push on London the two sides met at Newbury, and once again the result was a stalemate. So far, while Parliament had achieved some success the campaign as a whole had so far gone well for Charles.

 Solemn League and Covenant, 1643

Pym, desperate to seek help, now entered negotiations with the Scots, while the latter sought a union of the two kingdoms under one national Church, Presbyterian in structure and Calvinistic in doctrine. To achieve this Parliament entered into a Solemn League and Covenant for the establishment of such a church. Furthermore, Parliament established the Westminster Assembly to draw up a Confession, Catechisms, and a Directory for Worship to form the constitution of the new Church. The result was the famous Westminster Confession, “the last great creed utterance of Calvinism”, and the Shorter and Larger Catechisms, completed by 1647.

Hereafter the parliament and the Scots were in alliance, one which lasted to the conclusion of the first civil war, but which fell apart thereafter because of the duplicity of Charles, and the naïve loyalty of the Scots to the Stuart dynasty.

The New Model Army

Oliver Cromwell, member for Cambridge, had triumphed in a small engagement at Gainsborough, and was seen as Parliament’s best officer. As an Independent he also stood out against the Presbyterian push among the members, led by the Scots commissioners, for a national Presbyterian Church. Meanwhile, Sir Thomas Fairfax (left) had also won fame in battle, and after a battle in Oct. 1643 he came to Cromwell’s side. The two commanders were then inseparable: Fairfax as the general commander and Cromwell as the Lieutenant-General of the Cavalry. The third member of this military triumvirate was Henry Ireton (right), the Army’s brain.

After the victory of Marston Moor (below) the entire Parliamentary army was remodelled according to the principles Cromwell had used so successfully in the training of his Ironsides in East Anglia: 11 regiments of horse, 12 regiments of foot, each 1200 strong, and 100 dragoons. Uniforms (red) were introduced, and conscription was also used to fill the ranks. Importantly, promotions were strictly according to performance and merit, and not nobility and privilege.

Marston Moor and Naseby

In early July, 1644, royalist forces advanced on Marston Moor near York, but late in the day, after Fairfax’s cavalry had been routed and the Scottish and Parliamentary infantry had taken a pounding, Cromwell and his Ironsides, having checked Rupert’s charge on the allied left, attacked the opposite flank of royalist forces from behind. A near defeat became a complete victory, despite the fact it was fought in fading daylight and under the light of a harvest moon. Cromwell had saved the day and won this victory which turned the course of the war.

In June 1645 Charles met Fairfax and Cromwell at Naseby, south of Leicester. Fairfax lined up his dragoons behind a thicket, while the main body of his troops and cavalry arrayed in conventional formation with infantry in the centre and cavalry on each flank. Although Rupert fought with distinction and routed Ireton’s horse on the allied left flank, inflicting some casualties and giving chase, Cromwell from the right swept all before him such that the king withdrew with barely 4000 of his troops. It was the decisive battle, and from here on the New Model Army swept up the royal cause with a series of sieges, notably at Newark.

Cromwell Victorious

Negotiations with Charles

By 1646 all royalist resistance was crushed, and with the capture of Newark the last bastion of resistance collapsed. The king was now a prisoner, closely guarded but well treated. Now began the endless wrangles: Parliament sought for a monarchy hedged around with constitutional and religious constraints; Charles tried to play off one faction against another. Here he had some advantage, as the Scots were devoted to the Stuart dynasty, but they handed him over to the Parliament for a fee and returned home. The populace wished for an agreement with the king but were relieved that the war was over.

The “Engagement”

Parliament believed that the war having been won they no longer needed the Army. The latter had other ideas, if only because their pay was in arrears. Hence they refused to disband, and furthermore set out to gain control of the defeated king. Though the circumstances are obscure, a central committee of the Agitators sent Cornet George Joyce to do just that, and thus Joyce’s regiment abducted the king from Holmby House in Northamptonshire and conveyed him to Cambridge, and finally to Hampton Court. Here negotiations took place to try to work out a post-war settlement wherein the king would have limited powers and Parliament’s rights and privileges be written in law, with religious freedom for all guaranteed. In these negotiations Charles seemed to be accommodating, but all along he was playing a double game. Some Parliamentary representatives were taken in by his charming manner and seemingly sincere promises. Others were deeply suspicious.. After long and tortuous negotiations had failed and the king was adamant, it was Cromwell, no less, who persuaded Parliament to offer a fresh set of terms more amenable to the king, while still acceptable to Parliament. However, these too came to nothing.

In November 1647 Charles escaped from Hampton Court to Carisbrooke on the Isle of Wight. His bargaining power with the Parliament was gone, while real power was slipping inexorably to the Army. Meanwhile, in December, some Scottish commissioners visited Carisbrooke, anxious that the king be restored and equally anxious to head off any deal with the Independent-dominated Parliament. Thus Charles entered an agreement with the Scots, a secret “Engagement”, to ally royalism and Presbyterianism. It was foolish for both parties, since the Scots risked a hopeless conflict with Cromwell’s all-powerful Army, while for Charles it only exacerbated his standing with Parliament.

Debates at Putney: the Levellers

While these developments proceeded the Army was in ferment. Fearful that Parliament was willing to restore the king with his veto intact the officers issued a paper setting out their demands. Then in late October 1647 at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in Putney, Surrey, a series of debates took place to voice the views and grievances of a now-influential group in the Army, the Levellers, and its unofficial leader Col. John Lilburne. They believed that the present laws of England were a relic of “the Norman Yoke”, and with the last of the Conqueror’s successors defeated it was time to start again from scratch, including scrapping the present Parliament. However, while not all of them were republicans, most were. They asserted the natural right to political equality, the extension of the electoral franchise to all men in the country, a decentralised democratic and republican state, and naturally, complete religious freedom (for all except Catholics) to practise any form of Christianity they desired.

Cromwell, although desiring to keep his peace process alive, was also willing to give them a hearing, but their ideas proved too radical even for him. However, it was for them the political outcome of Independency in local church polity. A tide of ill-feeling toward the king now arose in the Army, mostly composed of Independents, when they found themselves in conflict with both Royalists, and Presbyterian Puritans. Meanwhile, Leveller ideas spawned an upsurge in mutinous sentiment: Cromwell had to restore discipline, and ringleaders of the plot were arrested, court-martialled, and one eventually shot.

The Second Civil War

Charles’ intrigues with the Scots convinced him that he could launch a second war and win. This time all major sections of English society, fearful of the growing power of the Army, combined against what they saw as the growing power of a centralised military rule (although the early months of 1648 saw much slimming down of the Army). The new Presbyterian settlement was resented in many parts of England, and royalists stirred up nostalgia for the old Anglican rite. However, by now Cromwell’s army was invincible, and this second round of conflict was very soon over: the Royalists were finally crushed at Preston (17^th & 18^th August, 1748), and Cromwell was now supreme. Somewhere here Cromwell, having all along been a firm supporter of a limited monarchy, now became convinced that Charles was unfit to be king, and that the very office of king should be abolished. Thus for the next eleven years he was to rule over a Commonwealth which was in essence a military junta.

Pride’s Purge

In the aftermath of the second war the Army’s anger descended on the hapless king: he was taken from Carisbrooke and closely confined, first at Hurst, then at Windsor. Meanwhile, when Parliament convened late in 1648 it was still looking for some sort of rapprochement with the king, while refusing the more radical Leveller demands. Colonel Pride then posted his regiments around the parliament house, and ticked off those who had tacitly supported the Scottish invasion the previous August, and also those generally not likely to conform to the Army’s wishes. By this time many in the Army were baying for the king’s blood, and by Pride’s action non-compliant members were forbidden entry. Those remaining were the regicides, now known as the “Rump Parliament”, consisting of a mere 200 or so members from the original assembly. Only at this time Cromwell returned from campaigning in the north, but was now in favour of placing the king on trial, a change of mind whose process remains obscure.

Trial and Execution of Charles

Getting a jurist to lay formal charges against the king was no easy task, nor a bench which could try him. Eventually a Dutch lawyer manufactured the charge of “High Treason against the Nation”, while the Rump Parliament set up a court of 135 Commissioners to put the king on trial. Charles never recognised the court (when challenged on this point Charles dryly conceded, “I perceive I am before a power”), but the result was a foregone conclusion. He was condemned to death, and was beheaded at the Banqueting House in Whitehall on 30^th Jan. 1649. His calm demeanour as he faced death, his royal dignity at the scaffold, and his speech – “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world” - became enshrined in an aura of apotheosis: “King Charles the Martyr” assumed the status of an Anglican saint, and the doleful event was celebrated by the Anglican Church until the Victorian period.

For the cause of Puritanism the execution was a disastrous mistake. It divided the Puritan party: the Presbyterians for the most part were outraged, while Independents either supported it or were indifferent. As to indifference a case in point is the Independent John Owen, outstanding Puritan theologian and a little later Cromwell’s chaplain, who preached a long sermon to Parliament the following day, entitled, “Righteous Zeal Encouraged by Divine Protection”, which sounds like a commentary on and justification of the events of the day before, but Owen said not a word about it!

For the majority of Englishmen, the display of their king’s severed head provoked a massive groan from the throng of onlookers, while afterwards resentment against the Puritan party grew until Charles’ son was restored to the throne in 1660 as Charles II. In fact it was the Presbyterian Puritans who negotiated the restoration in the naïve belief that Charles would grant them all they wished. Thus the Puritan party, which had enjoyed widespread popular support in 1640, became a house divided against itself, and also by this single act overreached itself and lost much of that popular goodwill. It was to lose even more during the Commonwealth rule.

Summary of the Revolution

1. Although at first glance it appears to be a religious struggle of Anglo-Catholic versus Puritan, in similar vein to the religious wars which had rent Europe apart (the devastating Thirty Years’ War was still raging on the Continent), closer inspection reveals that the conflict was basically political. Religion was involved, to be sure (the two were intertwined in that age), but at root the issue to the fore was a free and unfettered Parliament versus the doctrine of Divine Right. Then the Scots, who sought a national Presbyterian Church and for whom religion was an even bigger factor than for some Puritans, deposed the bishops within their realm, not only as ecclesiastical figures but also in their capacity as officers of the crown.

In this light, attempts by some historians to trivialise the conflict as the old “Free-will versus Grace” controversy translated to the battlefield are utterly superficial and misguided.

The views and demands of the Leveller party have provoked considerable interest in recent times. Col. Thomas Rainborough’s affirmation at Putney both encapsulated their own principles and have attracted many moderns, “that the poorest that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest, and therefore…that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.” These words are on prominent display today in St Mary’s, Putney. Various modern writers and groups have tried to enlist them as forerunners of their cause: British Marxists such as Christopher Hill saw them as representing the English petty bourgeoisie; William Haller praised John Lilburne as a forerunner of free enterprise; the Left in general sees them as anticipating the ethical ideal of socialism. But these attempts to impose modern agendas on a C17th movement are merely amusing; they must be seen in their own terms, as an offshoot of Puritanism, and although some Levellers were not devoutly Christian, most were. The Putney debates were surrounded with prayer, while the Levellers themselves were acutely conscious of Divine Providence in a way that of course modern Marxists and leftists are not.

What can be asserted is that Leveller ideas in many ways anticipated by nearly two centuries the movement for democratic reform in the 1820s and 1830s, and the aims of the English Chartists.

2. Puritanism became a house divided during the 1640s, but a fundamental cleavage had already taken place much earlier. The movement which in Elizabethan times sought for further reform of the English Church, and became a refining fire of spirituality through preaching and parish-based evangelism, in turn became politicised during the 1620s and 1630s. In opposition to the doctrine of Divine right of kings, which motivated Charles much more than his father James, Puritans asserted that Christ alone is King; He alone has supreme rights and powers. The King is but a man, and under the Law of God, not above it. These ideas came to clear expression in the treatise Lex Rex (“The Law is King”) from the Scottish Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford in 1644, and fairly consumed by Covenanter and Puritan alike.

Hence while the political Puritanism produced such outstanding statesmen as Eliot, Hampden, and Pym, the more spiritually-minded stream of the movement remained moderate royalists – and basically non-political - until the upheavals of the 1640s and 1650s. One can see this disparity in their respective works:

John Hampden drafted an Act against the Ship money, and authored many parliamentary writs;

Sir John Eliot (1592-1632) is remembered for his oratory in Parliament, and political treatises such as The Monarchie of Man and De jure majestatis;

John Pym likewise drafted the Grand Remonstrance of grievances, presented to the king in 1641, and helped draft the Solemn League and Covenant.

While acknowledging the above, it should not be thereby imagined that these Puritans were not in their own way just as spiritually-minded as their counterparts among the Puritan pastors. However, their interests were elsewhere and they expressed and applied their Puritan principles in other ways. Certainly some, probably many, of the Puritan ministers disliked the direction in which the movement had gone during Charles’ reign.

Peter Lewis sums it up: “…if the Puritan minister could be incomparable in the pulpit, the Puritan politician could be insufferable in the Parliament!” [The Genius of Puritanism, p.17]

By contrast Puritan ministers have left a mountain of theological and devotional material, virtually nothing of which is the least bit political:

Thomas Watson: three-volume work on the Shorter Catechism, plus other works [Watson rebuked the Rump for their planned execution of Charles].

Thomas Manton: five volumes of collected works, including some 190 sermons.

John Owen (Vice-Chancellor of Oxford during the Commonwealth): 16 volumes of collected works, plus a seven-volume commentary on Hebrews.

John Bunyan, who fought in the Parliamentary army, but famous for his Pilgrim’s Progress, The Holy War, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and other works.

Richard Baxter, famous for The Saints’ Everlasting Rest. Baxter would be of all these the one who most engaged in the political upheavals of the time, yet his sermons, devotional works, and pastoral work in Kidderminster abide as his supreme monument.

As for the regicides, they are almost without exception lesser lights, or even mere names: John Bradshaw (President of the Court which tried Charles); Col. John Jones (Cromwell’s brother-in-law); Col. John Hutchinson; Adrian Scroope; Thomas Harrison; Hugh Peter; Daniel Axtell; Francis Hacker et al.

Meanwhile, by the 1640s the so-called Presbyterians were not really that at all, but modified Anglicans, quite happy to work within the Establishment on a “reduced episcopacy” model similar to that proposed by James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, in his The Reduction of Episcopacy (publ. 1656). Thus while the ‘Presbyterian’ sector of Puritanism sought a rapprochement with the episcopal settlement, Independents veered towards radicalism, as seen in the Putney debates, and in their own sectarian offshoots: Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, and Fifth Monarchists (these last three not discussed above).

Both sides of the Puritan movement have nevertheless bequeathed an invaluable legacy to later generations. The principles of Lex Rex abide in our modern democracies (until secular democratic socialism perverted them); the doctrine of Divine right received a fatal blow with the execution of Charles (despite its inherent immorality); the religious freedom for which they contended has gone into the entire Western world (i.e. until the post-modern “tolerance” ethic began to erode it). Finally, the legacy of Puritan theology, sermons, Biblical commentary, devotional works, has enriched English-speaking Christianity in every place where these writings have gone. They being dead, still speak.

3. The Commonwealth as a political experiment was way ahead of its time and thus doomed to failure: republicanism in an age of royal absolutism (witness contemporary despots such as Louis XIV, Ferdinand III) was a glaring and hopeless contradiction and anachronism! [Although the Netherlands, having just then concluded a treaty with Spain to end a long war, was now a republic, that country had no long tradition of monarchy as had England.] From a biblical standpoint, however, the experiment was wrong-headed: Christians are pilgrims and strangers in this world. They work for the welfare of the city and country where they reside (Jer.29:7), but their ultimate citizenship is Heaven itself (Phil.3:20), not this present world. The Church’s task is not to build Christian states, however conceived. When Jesus replied to Pilate’s question, “Are you a king?” His answer was direct, “My Kingdom is not of this world; if it were my servants would fight.” (John 18:36).

4. Charles himself was not evil in any sense of the word. In fact, of all the Stuarts he was the most genuinely devout and sincerely motivated. This became painfully obvious as he went to the scaffold, when many saw his real dignity. True, he was obstinate and devious, willing to play a double game, but this was hardly a reason for cutting off his head. One can wryly remark that if the radical Puritans were concerned to remove royal heads then more suitable candidates were available! However, his presence in the country at the close of 1648 did constitute a dilemma for the Parliament, even after the Purge, for which a comfortable exile to a place sufficiently far away would have been appropriate and could have been arranged.

In conclusion, the Church historian Philip Schaff, writing in 1877, assesses the Puritan movement:

“Puritanism did not struggle in vain. Though it failed as a national movement, owing to its one-sidedness and lack of catholicity, it accomplished much. It produced statesmen like Hampden, soldiers like Cromwell, preachers like Howe, theologians like Owen, dreamers like Bunyan, hymnists like Watts, commentators like Henry, and saints like Baxter, who though dead yet speak. It lives on as a powerful moral element in the English nation, in the English Church, in English society, in English literature.”

[Creeds of Christendom, Vol.1., repr. Harper & Row, 1977, p.735]

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