50 Fun Facts About English Civil War

In which years was the war fought?

Historians often split it into First, Second and Third wars, all part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Supporters of the king were nicknamed what?

The word shares a root with the Spanish caballero and had been an Elizabethan insult implying pro-Spanish sympathies.

Parliament's supporters got which nickname from some Puritans' cropped hair?

Generals on both sides actually wore their hair at much the same length.

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

The 59 commissioners had judged him a 'tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy'.

In which year was Charles I executed?

The Second Civil War of 1648 had convinced the Army that no settlement with him was possible.

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

His son Richard inherited the post but the Army had little confidence in him and removed him within months.

What name was given to Parliament's reorganised national force of 1645?

Its disciplined pikemen stood their ground against cavalry charges that had scattered earlier Parliamentary forces.

Who commanded Parliament's new army of 1645, with Cromwell as his second-in-command?

A constitutional monarchist, he refused to have anything to do with the king's trial and resigned as head of the army.

Which June 1645 battle, followed by Langport, effectively destroyed the king's armies?

Within a year Charles had given himself up to a Scottish army at Southwell.

What was the first pitched battle of the war, fought on 23 October 1642?

Both sides claimed victory; the stand-off at Turnham Green soon after pushed Charles back to his base at Oxford.

Rupert's first victory, a cavalry skirmish on the River Teme in 1642, was fought where?

About 1,000 Royalist horse beat Colonel John Brown's detachment in the first major skirmish of the war.

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

He had about 2,000 cavalry with him and used the archaic Commission of Array to build an army around the flag.

Which city served as Charles I's base for the rest of the First Civil War?

At one point more members of the Commons and Lords sat in the king's parliament there than at Westminster.

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

Cromwell's conduct there first marked him out as a serious military and political leader.

Which German-born nephew of Charles I commanded the Royalist cavalry?

He used a Dutch tactic: charge at full speed and fire pistols just before impact.

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

Unlike Rupert's horsemen, who chased stragglers after a charge, they were trained to fight as a single unit.

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

Cromwell was the conspicuous exception, staying on as Lieutenant-General of Horse.

Critics called Charles I's rule without Parliament from 1629 a tyranny of how many years?

To avoid calling Parliament he had to avoid war, so he made peace with France and Spain.

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

Seven judges to five found for the king in 1638, but the fines on refusers caused widespread anger.

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

He replaced wooden communion tables with stone altars and had Puritan critics arrested.

What happened to Prynne, Bastwick and Burton in 1637 for pamphlets attacking Laud?

It was a rare penalty for gentlemen and caused real anger.

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

The riot may have started in St Giles' Cathedral; within months the Scots drew up the National Covenant.

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

Framed as a 'loyal protest', it rejected any innovation not first tested by free Parliaments and General Assemblies.

What is the assembly Charles recalled in 1640 and dissolved within weeks called?

John Pym's majority wanted grievances aired before any money for a war on Scotland.

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

Charles had promised not to sign, then did so fearing for his family; Strafford was beheaded two days later.

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

They had been warned and escaped; the failed arrest turned more people against him.

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

Charles issued a warrant for his arrest as a traitor but had no way of enforcing it.

Whom did Parliament appoint to command its army of volunteers in June 1642?

His orders were to 'rescue His Majesty's person' from the desperate men around him.

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

Most of the fighting took place at Walton-le-Dale in Lancashire over 17–19 August.

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

The Scots undertook to invade England and restore him in return for church reform.

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

Troops arrested 45 members and kept 146 out; only 75 were let in, and then only at the Army's bidding.

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

It set up a High Court of Justice 'in the name of the people of England'.

How many commissioners judged Charles I guilty of high treason?

After 1660 nine of the surviving regicides were executed and most of the rest jailed for life.

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

Edinburgh had proclaimed him on 5 February; the news took until July to reach the colonies.

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

Nearly 3,500 people died, around 2,700 of them Royalist soldiers; the memory still shapes Irish-English relations.

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

Charles II had encouraged him to raise a Highland army, then abandoned him to win the Covenanters' crown.

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

Disease and short supplies had forced Cromwell to retreat from Edinburgh; Leslie tried to block him and lost.

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

Exactly a year after Dunbar; some 8,000 Scottish prisoners were shipped to New England, Bermuda and the West Indies.

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

He travelled between safe houses; the story gave hundreds of English pubs the name Royal Oak.

In which year did Charles II return from exile in what became known as the Restoration?

Londoners acclaimed him king on 29 May; his coronation followed at Westminster Abbey in April 1661.

In which Dutch town did Charles II issue his April 1660 declaration on his return?

Monck's Convention Parliament then declared he had been lawful king since January 1649.

Richard Cromwell succeeded his father, but the Army removed him after how many months?

The Rump was reinstalled, dissolved again, and the country drifted towards anarchy until Monck marched south.

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

He had been Governor of Scotland under the Cromwells and held Scotland's 30 seats in a united Parliament.

How many surviving regicides not in exile were executed after the Restoration?

Most of the others were sentenced to life imprisonment.

A conservative estimate of deaths in England, including disease, is how many?

That was out of a population of about five million; Scotland lost roughly 6 per cent of its people and Ireland far more.

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 conflict?

Hill called it a class war in which Parliament won by appealing to the trading and industrial classes.

Charles II rewarded which colony's Royalist loyalty by dubbing it the 'Old Dominion'?

Its population had swelled with Cavaliers during the war even as a Puritan governor answered to Cromwell from 1652.

Which colony was the first across the Atlantic to proclaim Charles II king, in 1649?

Its Independent Puritans were expelled and settled the Bahamas as the Eleutheran Adventurers.

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

He had been the famous refuser of ship money, losing his 1638 test case by seven judges to five.