The Wars of the three Kingdoms

Wars of the Three Kingdoms

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in Scotland, Ireland, and England between 1639 and 1651 at a time when these countries had come under the Personal Rule of the same monarch. The best known of these conflicts is the English Civil War. The wars were the outcome of tensions between king and subjects over religious and civil issues. Religious disputes centered on whether religion was to be dictated by the monarch or the choice of the subject, who had a direct relationship with God. The related civil questions were to what extent the king's rule was constrained by parliaments - in particular his right to raise taxes and armed forces without consent. In addition, the wars also had an element of national conflict, as Ireland and Scotland rebelled against England's primacy within the Three Kingdoms. The victory of the English Parliament — ultimately under Oliver Cromwell — over the King, the Irish and the Scots helped to determine the future of Britain as a constitutional monarchy with power centred on London. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms also parallelled a number of similar revolts at the same time in Europe — such as the Fronde in France and the rebellions of the Netherlands, Catalonia and Portugal against Spanish rule. Some historians have seen this period as one of General Crisis in Europe, characterised by the rebellion of conservative societies against centralising Absolutist monarchs.

The Wars included the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640, the Scottish Civil War of 1644–5; the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Confederate Ireland, 1642–9 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649 (collectively the Irish Confederate Wars); and the First, Second and Third English Civil Wars of 1642–6, 1648–9 and 1650–51.

These linked conflicts were named the Wars of the Three Kingdoms by recent historians aiming to have a unified overview rather than treating some of the conflicts as background to the English Civil War. Some have described them as the British Civil Wars, but this can be misleading as the kingdoms did not become a single political entity until the Act of Union 1800.

Background

The unity of the Three Kingdoms under one monarch was quite a recent development. Since 1541, monarchs of England had also ruled the Kingdom of Ireland through a separate Irish Parliament, while Wales was made part of the Kingdom of England. With the Reformation, King Henry VIII made himself head of the Protestant Church of England and Roman Catholicism was outlawed in England and Wales, but remained the religion of most people in Ireland.

In the separate Kingdom of Scotland the Protestant Reformation was a popular movement led by John Knox. The Scottish Parliament legislated for a National Presbyterian church, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate in favour of her son James VI of Scotland. He grew up under a regency disputed between Catholic and Protestant factions, then took power and aspired to be an "universall King" favouring the English Episcopalian system of bishops appointed by the king. In 1584 he introduced bishops, but met vigorous opposition and was forced to concede that the ...

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Religious Confrontation in Scotland

James remained Protestant, taking care to maintain his hopes of succession to the English throne, and duly also became James I of England in 1603 and moved to London. His diplomatic and political skills were now fully engaged in dealing with the English Court and Parliament at the same time as running Scotland by writing to the Privy Council of Scotland and controlling the Parliament of Scotland through the Lords of the Articles. He stopped the General Assembly from meeting, then increased the number of Scottish Bishops and in 1618 held a General Assembly and pushed through Five Articles of Episcopalian practices which were widely boycotted. In 1625 he was succeeded by his son Charles I who was less skilful or restrained and was crowned in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, in 1633 with full Anglican rites. Opposition to his attempts to enforce Anglican practices reached a flashpoint when he introduced a Book of Common Prayer. Charles' confrontation with the Scots came to a head in 1639, when Charles tried and failed to coerce Scotland by military means. In some respects, this revolt also represented Scottish resentment at being sidelined within the Stuart monarchies since James I's accession to the throne of England. See Also Bishops Wars

England

Charles shared his father's belief in the Divine Right of Kings and his assertion of this led to a serious break between Charles and his English Parliament. While the Church of England remained dominant, a powerful Puritan minority who made up around one third of the members of Parliament had much in common with the Presbyterian Scots.

The English Parliament also had repeated disputes with the King over such subjects as taxation, military expenditure and the role of parliament in government. While James I had held the same opinions as his son with regard to the King's Rights, he had enough charisma to persuade the Parliament to accept his policies. Charles did not have this skill in human management and so, when faced with a crisis in 1639–42, he was unable to prevent his Kingdoms from sliding into civil war. When Charles approached the Parliament to pay for a campaign against the Scots, they refused, declared themselves to be permanently in session and put forward a long list of civil and religious grievances that Charles would have to remedy before they approved any new legislation.

Ireland

Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Ireland which had been declared in 1541, but only fully conquered in 1603, tensions were also mounting. Charles I's Lord Deputy there, Thomas Wentworth had antagonised the native Irish Catholics by repeated initiatives to confiscate their lands and grant them to English colonists. He had also angered them by enforcing new taxes but denying Roman Catholics full rights as subjects. What made this situation explosive was his idea, in 1639, to offer Irish Catholics the reforms they had been looking for in return for them raising and paying for an Irish army to put down the Scottish rebellion. Although the army was to be officered by Protestants, the idea of an Irish Catholic army being used to enforce what was seen by many as tyrannical government, horrified both the Scottish and the English Parliament, who in response threatened to invade Ireland.

War Breaks Out

Modern historians have emphasised how the Civil Wars were not inevitable, but that all sides resorted to violence in a situation marked by mutual distrust and paranoia. Charles' initial failure to bring the Bishops Wars to a quick end also made other discontented groups feel that force could be used successfully to get what they wanted.

Alienated by British Protestant domination and frightened by the rhetoric of the English and Scottish Parliaments, a small group of Irish conspirators launched the Irish Rebellion of 1641, ostensibly in support of the King's Rights. The rising was marked by widespread assaults on the British Protestant communities in Ireland, sometimes culminating in massacres. Rumours spread in England and Scotland that the killings had the King's sanction and that this was a foretaste of what was in store for them if the Kings' Irish troops landed in Britain. As a result, the English Parliament refused to pay for a royal army to put down the rebellion in Ireland and instead raised their own armed forces. The King did likewise, rallying those Royalists (some of them members of Parliament) who believed that loyalty to the Legitimate King was the most important political principle.

The English Civil War broke out in 1642. The Scottish Covenanters, as the Presbyterians called themselves, sided with the English Parliament, joined the war in 1643, and played a major role in the Parliament's victory. The King's forces were ground down by the efficiency of Parliament's New Model Army - backed by the financial muscle of the City of London. In 1646, Charles I surrendered. After failing to come to compromise with Parliament, he was arrested and executed in 1649. In Ireland, the rebel Irish Catholics formed their own government - Confederate Ireland with the intention of helping the Royalists in return for religious toleration and political autonomy. Troops from England and Scotland fought in Ireland, and Irish Confederate troops mounted an expedition to Scotland in 1644, sparking the Scottish Civil War. In Scotland, the Royalists had a series of victories in 1644-45, but were crushed with the end of the first English Civil War and the return of the main Covenanter armies to Scotland.

After the end of the second English Civil War, the victorious Parliamentary forces, now under Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland and crushed the Royalist-Confederate alliance there in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. Their alliance with the Scottish Covanters had also broken down, and the Scots crowned Charles II as king of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell therefore embarked on a further conquest of Scotland in 1650-51. By the end of the wars, the Three Kingdoms were a unitary state called the English Commonwealth, ostensibly a republic, but having many characteristics of a military dictatorship.

Aftermath

While the Wars of the Three Kingdoms pre-figured many of the changes that would shape modern Britain, in the short term it resolved little. The English Commonwealth was neither a monarchy nor a real republic. In practise power was exercised by Oliver Cromwell because of his control over the Parliament's military forces, but his legal position was never clarified, even when he became Lord Protector. While several constitutions were proposed, none were ever accepted. Thus the Commonwealth and Protectorate established by the victorious Parliamentarians left little behind it in the way of new forms of government. There was religious freedom under this regime, but not for Roman Catholics. The Church of England was abolished, as was the House of Lords. The House of Commons was dismissed by Cromwell and there were no fresh election to it. Nor did Cromwell and his supporters move in the direction of a popular democracy, as the more radical fringes of the Parliamentarians, such as the Levellers wanted. Ireland and Scotland were occupied by the New Model Army during the Commonwealth period. In Ireland, almost all lands belonging to Irish Catholics were confiscated as punishment for the rebellion of 1641; harsh Penal Laws were also passed against this community. Thousands of Parliamentarian soldiers were settled in Ireland on confiscated lands. The Parliaments of Ireland and Scotland were abolished. In theory, they were represented in the English Parliament, but since this body was never given real powers, this was insignificant. When Cromwell died in 1659, the Commonwealth fell apart, without major violence and Charles II was restored as King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Under the English Restoration, the political system was restored to what it had been before the wars. Those responsible for the regicide of Charles I were themselve executed or imprisoned for life. Cromwell's corpse was dug up and symbolically hanged. There was also harsh repression against religious and political radicals who were held responsible for the wars. Scotland and Ireland were returned their Parliaments, some confiscated Irish land was returned and the New Model Army was stood down. However, the issues that had caused the wars - religion, the power of Parliament and the relationship between the Three Kingdoms had not been resolved, only postponed and they would be fought over again in the Glorious Revolution of 1689. It was only after this point that the features of modern Britain that were seen in the Civil Wars - a Protestant constitutional monarchy with England dominant and a strong standing army - emerged permanently.

By Jennifer Sanders