49 Fun Facts About English Civil War

Which wider conflict includes the English Civil War?

Wars of the Three Kingdoms is the wider label because the fighting began with Scottish wars in 1639 and an Irish rising in 1641, before England's own war broke out in 1642.

Supporters of Charles I were nicknamed what?

Cavaliers started as an insult: the word, kin to the Spanish caballero, had meant a swaggering gallant since Elizabeth's day, and the king's men later adopted it for themselves.

What nickname did Royalists give Parliament's supporters in the English Civil War?

Roundheads mocked the close-cropped hair of some Puritans and London apprentices, so unlike courtly ringlets; in fact generals on both sides wore their hair at much the same length.

Charles I was beheaded on a scaffold in front of which Whitehall building?

Banqueting House has a ceiling by Rubens that Charles himself had commissioned to glorify his father's reign; he walked beneath it on his way out to the scaffold.

What title did Oliver Cromwell hold when he ruled from 1653 until his death in 1658?

Lord Protector was the title Cromwell kept in 1657, when Parliament offered to make him king: after agonising for six weeks he refused the crown.

What name was given to the force Parliament formed in 1645?

New Model Army troops could be sent anywhere in the country, where the county militias and regional armies before it had been unwilling to fight far from home.

Whom did Parliament appoint commander-in-chief in 1645, with Oliver Cromwell as his second-in-command?

Thomas Fairfax stayed away from the king's trial; when his name was called in court, his wife Anne is said to have cried out that he had more wit than to be there.

Which June 1645 battle, followed by Langport, effectively destroyed Charles I's field armies?

Naseby also cost Charles his private papers: Parliament captured his baggage and published the letters, which showed him seeking Irish and foreign troops.

What was the first pitched battle of the English Civil War, fought on 23 October 1642?

Edgehill was a draw, but the king's slow march afterwards let Parliament's army reach London first; faced down at Turnham Green, he fell back to winter quarters and the quick victory was lost.

Where did Royalist horsemen win the first significant clash of the English Civil War, in September 1642?

Powick Bridge was a small fight, but it shook the confidence of Parliament's cavalry and gave the king's horsemen a name for being unbeatable.

Where did Charles I raise the royal standard on 22 August 1642?

Nottingham did not stay the king's: soon after he left, the castle was fortified for Parliament, and Colonel John Hutchinson held it against Royalist attacks for the rest of the war.

Which city was Charles I's headquarters for most of the First Civil War?

Oxford housed the king's court at Christ Church, where in 1644 he gathered a rival parliament: most of the Lords came, but only about a third of the Commons.

Which July 1644 victory, won with Scottish help, gave Parliament York and the north?

Marston Moor made Cromwell's name as a commander: his cavalry routed the Royalist horse facing them, then wheeled round to break the rest of the king's army.

Which nephew of Charles I, a prince of the Palatinate, commanded the Royalist cavalry?

Prince Rupert rode to war with his white poodle, Boy; pamphleteers on both sides traded tales of the dog's magical powers until it was killed in battle in 1644.

What nickname was given to the disciplined cavalry troop Cromwell formed in 1643?

Ironsides started as a nickname for Cromwell himself, reportedly given by an enemy general whose charge could not break his ranks; it then passed from the man to his troopers.

Which 1645 measure made members of both Houses give up their military commands?

The Self-denying Ordinance removed aristocratic generals such as the Earl of Manchester, yet Cromwell, an MP himself, was kept on as indispensable.

Critics called Charles I's rule without Parliament from 1629 the Eleven Years' what?

Tyranny was his critics' word, but Charles could rule alone only while he stayed out of wars; the experiment ended in 1640, when he needed money to fight the Scots.

Which tax, extended to inland counties in 1634–36, sparked a famous test case?

Ship money had been a wartime levy on coastal towns; charging it inland in peacetime gave the king an income without Parliament, and the judges backed him by only seven to five.

Which Archbishop of Canterbury pushed High Anglican ceremony and was executed in 1645?

William Laud's drive against Puritan critics backfired: the punishment of three pamphleteers in 1637 won them huge popular sympathy, and the Long Parliament later had him tried and beheaded.

How were Prynne, Bastwick and Burton punished in 1637 for pamphlets attacking the bishops?

They had their ears cut off in the pillory before a supportive crowd, on top of fines and life imprisonment; the Long Parliament freed them in 1640.

According to legend, who began the 1637 Edinburgh riot against the new prayer book?

Jenny Geddes, a market trader, is said to have flung her stool at the dean's head in St Giles' the first time he tried to read the new service, and the congregation rioted.

What February 1638 document set out Scottish objections to Charles's religious policy?

The National Covenant was first signed at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh and then carried round the country; it professed loyalty to the king while rejecting his untried 'innovations' in religion.

Which Parliament met in April 1640, called by Charles I to pay for war against the Scots?

The Short Parliament sat for just three weeks: Charles dissolved it when John Pym and his allies insisted on airing grievances before voting any money.

Which royal adviser, Earl of Strafford, was executed by Bill of Attainder in May 1641?

Thomas Wentworth was abandoned by the king he served: Charles signed the attainder after anguished hesitation, and came to see his own later sufferings as punishment for that betrayal.

On 4 January 1642 Charles I entered the Commons with soldiers to arrest how many members?

The Five Members had been warned and slipped away by barge; asked where they were, Speaker Lenthall told the king he had 'neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak' except as the House directed.

Which governor refused Charles entry to Kingston upon Hull and its arsenal in 1642?

John Hotham later plotted to change sides, and it was Parliament, not the king, that had him beheaded in 1645, a day after his son.

Whom did Parliament appoint in 1642 as the first commander of its army?

The Earl of Essex was ordered to 'rescue' the king from the men around him, not to defeat him, and he proved so cautious that he never struck a decisive blow.

Cromwell's 1648 defeat of Hamilton's Scots at which battle ended the Second Civil War?

Preston was won against the odds: Cromwell marched over the Pennines and fell on the flank of a much larger army, catching it strung out on the march with its detachments too far apart to help each other.

What was the secret December 1647 treaty between Charles I and the Scots called?

The Engagement was struck in secret while Charles was a prisoner at Carisbrooke Castle: the Scots would send an army to restore him, and he would impose Presbyterian church government in England for three years.

The Army's expulsion of MPs in December 1648 is known by what name?

Pride's Purge is named for Colonel Thomas Pride, who stood on the steps of the Commons with a list while his soldiers turned away or arrested the MPs who still wanted to negotiate with the king.

What was the reduced House of Commons that ordered the trial of Charles I called?

Rump Parliament, named for an animal's hind end, outlived the king by four years, until Cromwell lost patience in 1653 and cleared the chamber with musketeers.

On what charge was Charles I convicted in January 1649?

High treason had always meant betraying the king; the court turned the charge round, holding that Charles had made war on his own people, and 59 commissioners signed the death warrant.

Charles II was proclaimed king in the Royal Square of which town on 17 February 1649?

St Helier, Jersey proclaimed him because the island's lieutenant governor, George Carteret, held it for the Crown; Carteret was later rewarded with land in America, which was named New Jersey after the island.

Cromwell's storming of which Irish town in September 1649 is remembered for the massacre that followed?

Drogheda's garrison had refused a summons to surrender, and by the laws of war of the day defenders taken by storm could be killed; Cromwell gave no quarter and called it a judgement of God.

Which Royalist marquess was beaten at Carbisdale in 1650 and hanged in Edinburgh?

Montrose was disowned by the king he fought for: while he was in the field, Charles II was bargaining with the Covenanters, and he disavowed Montrose days after the defeat.

Cromwell beat David Leslie's Scottish army at which battle on 3 September 1650?

Dunbar looked lost for Cromwell, his army sick and hemmed in beside the sea; but the Scots left their strong hilltop position, and a surprise attack before dawn routed them.

Which battle on 3 September 1651 ended the wars with the defeat of Charles II?

Worcester was, in Cromwell's words, 'a crowning mercy', and it proved his last battle; Charles II escaped the field and evaded capture for some six weeks before slipping away to France.

After his 1651 defeat, Charles II famously hid in what while escaping to France?

An oak tree at Boscobel hid the king and an officer all day while Parliament's soldiers searched the wood below; the Royal Oak is now among the commonest pub names in Britain.

Charles II's return to London at the Restoration fell on which day?

His thirtieth birthday was the day he rode into London; Parliament made 29 May a yearly public holiday of thanksgiving, and it stayed one until 1859.

In which Dutch town did Charles II issue the April 1660 declaration that paved the way for his return?

Breda's declaration offered a general pardon, religious toleration and the Army's back pay, while leaving the awkward details for Parliament to settle; within weeks he was invited home.

What became of Richard Cromwell after his 1659 fall?

A quiet old age awaited Oliver Cromwell's heir: he spent twenty years abroad under assumed names such as John Clarke, came home around 1680 and died in 1712, aged 85.

Which general marched south from Scotland in 1660 and organised the Convention Parliament?

George Monck had fought for the king, been captured, and then served Parliament and Cromwell; his part in bringing back Charles II earned him a dukedom.

What happened to Oliver Cromwell's body in 1661?

Exhumed and hanged on the twelfth anniversary of Charles I's execution, the body then lost its head, which was set on a pole above Westminster Hall and stayed there for more than twenty years.

Which country lost the largest share of its people in the civil wars of 1639–1653?

Ireland lost far more of its people than England or Scotland: estimates run from over 15 per cent to William Petty's 40 per cent, against roughly 4 per cent in England.

Which Thomas Hobbes work, written in 1668, gave an early history of the war?

Charles II refused it publication; it finally appeared in 1681 and has lived in Leviathan's shadow ever since.

Marxist historians such as Christopher Hill preferred which name for the English Civil War?

English Revolution was Hill's term because he read the conflict as a class war, won by Parliament through its appeal to the trading and industrial classes; earlier generations had called it the great rebellion.

By tradition, Charles II thanked which colony for its Royalist loyalty by calling it his 'Old Dominion'?

Virginia had proclaimed him king after his father's execution and gave way only when Parliament sent a fleet in 1652; the story of his thanks has no documentary proof, though he did call it one of 'our own Dominions'.

Which Royalist island colony expelled its Puritans in the late 1640s, who went on to settle the Bahamas?

Bermuda's Royalists drove out the island's Puritan Independents, who sailed south under William Sayle to the Bahamas as the Eleutheran Adventurers, seeking a place to worship freely.

Which Parliamentarian leader died of wounds received at Chalgrove Field in June 1643?

John Hampden rode out as a volunteer to chase a Royalist raiding party, was wounded in the skirmish and died six days later at Thame, a serious loss to Parliament.