In 1625 he married Henrietta Maria who was a French Catholic Princess. This was a cause of suspicion because England at the time was a Protestant country and Since Henrietta was Catholic she had her own chapel giving reason for people to believe that Charles was also secretly Catholic and if the parents were Catholic then the next rulers of the country were most probably to be brought up as Catholics, giving the idea that Charles was trying to convert England back to Catholicism. This was another long term cause.
When Charles had come to the throne he was only granted a year of custom duties, causing a problem for money. Parliament had done this because they thought it would force Charles to call on parliament regularly, however this plan did not work as Charles continued to collect custom duties. Later on in 1629 Charles dissolved parliament. This left Charles with an even bigger struggle for money, so he had to find new ways to raise money, but how?
In 1634 Charles decided to collect ship money from coastal counties in 1634. One year later in 1635 he was collecting ship money from both coastal and inland counties at a time when there was no need for the navy. This was very unpopular with the people of England at the time as Charles was taking their money for a cause that had no need for money. This takes us into the short term causes.
In 1637 Charles decided to change the Scottish prayer book and replace it with the English one. The Scottish were very much annoyed at this as they claimed themselves to be more protestant than the English and therefore said they had never accepted the English prayer book because it was too close to Catholicism. As Charles didn’t ask the Scots about this, when he ordered the English prayer book to be read at the services the Scottish were infuriated and soon rebelled. In 1640 the Scots defeated Charles’ army. Charles was now in great need of help as he was in desperate need of money. So he called back parliament.
Lastly, came the triggers. The first trigger was the Grand remonstrance in 1641. The grand remonstrance was a set of demands set by parliament. This reduced the power of Bishops and stated that Charles should employ trustworthy councilors and ministers (unlike the Duke of Buckingham who was Charles’ advisor. Parliament didn’t trust the Duke).This began dividing the commons. Further on in the year the Irish rebellion occurred. Catholics rose up against their protestant rulers. People thought that this was the first part of Charles’ plan to make England catholic again. A year later Charles brought the civil war closer upon himself, when he burst into the House of Commons with 400 soldiers and tried to arrest the five leading Mp’s. Charles however didn’t succeed as the Mp’s had heard of the attack and fled down the Thames where they were protected by the council of London.
In 1642 there were a lot of arguments. The first argument was to do with religious matters. It was between Parliament; some MP’s wanted get rid of all the bishop others wanted to get rid of Laud and others wanted to abolish the Church of England. Then when Parliament voted to throw the bishops out of the House of Commons moderate MP’s started to think about siding with Charles because if the church was abolished they believed there would be chaos. Then there were arguments about who would command the army that would fight against the Irish rebellion. The final trigger was when the Parliament passed a set of demands called the Nineteen Propositions. This was the point where war was inevitable because by doing so it divided the King’s supporters from his opponents. Later on in June each side ordered each county to organize an army and by August the war had began.
I conclude that overall there are many causes to the English civil war. I think that overall Charles 1 was responsible for most of them, however it was not entirely his fault as some of the causes getting closer to the civil war (triggers) Parliament or the House of Commons was to blame for e.g. the grand remonstrance.
The war finished in 1646, when the Parliamentarians defeated the royalists.
By Natalia Cerdan 8M
