English Civil War

"During the interregnum the navys role was far more spectacular. The rulers of continental Europe were horrified by the execution of the king in January 1649 and all repudiated the new Commonwealth. The navy was thus needed to protect England from possible invasion and to force foreign powers to recognize the new regime. Over the next eleven years, it was almost continuously in action, both defensive and offensive."

"The parliamentary navy had played a significant, if secondary, part in the civil wars; the civil wars played a still more significant part in the navys history, accelerating its evolution and fitting it for the primary role it was to play in the imperial ages ahead."

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

"The Story of the Second English Civil War is short and simple. King, Lords and Commons, landlords, merchants, the City and the countryside, bishops and presbyters, the Scottish army, the Welsh people, and the English Fleet, all now turned against the New Model Army. The Army beat the lot."

"What really weakened the royalist war-effort was the fact that the conflict had a greater impact on its territories than on those of Parliament and thus the financial machinery could not be managed properly. In particular, the war impinged closely on some of its most prosperous areas, creating a general sense of insecurity there and affecting the amount of revenue received. This, in turn, necessitated the introduction of various expedients to obtain money and essential supplies, including special levies, free quarter, and requisitioning. As final defeat stared them in the face, royalist units engaged in ever more self-destructive activity just to keep themselves alive. They started a vicious circle by robbing their own shires. Looting engendered hatred from civilians; it also rendered the countryside incapable of paying the tax upon which the soldiers pay depended; this in turn drove the soldiers to more frantic looting. As long as the royalists had an army it could be used to coerce the population but the catastrophe of Naseby in June 1645 took away even this."

"In the summer of 1642 the First Civil War between King and Parliament had broken out in England. Initially both sides were confident of victory, but after the first campaigns ended in stalemate they began looking for allies. The Scots government was willing to assist the English Parliamentarians, and even before a formal treaty was signed the raising of troops got underway."

"William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle (1592-1676) commanded the Royalists in northern England, and during 1643 made heavy work of defeating a small parliamentarian army. In 1644 he faced the invading Scots, and his tardiness in joining Prince Rupert before Marston Moor may have cost the Royalists victory. After the battle he fled to the Continent, where he wrote a book on horsemanship which remains his chief claim to fame."

"The musket in common use was a heavy matchlock, which even a trained soldier could not hope to fire more than once a minute. Though it might kill or main at 200 yards it was not likely to hit the target at a range of more than 50 yards. The reason for this inaccuracy was that the bullet did not fit the smooth-bore barrel at all tightly, and therefore, when propelled towards the target, it tended to wander. The disadvantages of match were all too obvious: by night it could betray the position of the musketeers, and in foul weather it simply went out."

"The rate of cannon-fire was very slow. The process of sponging-out and reloading was deliberate and complex. Powder was kept in small budge barrels near the guns, which were fired by the application of linstock to the touch-hole. The risk of premature explosions was very great, and it is doubtful whether it was possible to fire more than one round every three minutes. By the time of Waterloo it was possible, using grapeshot, to get off as many as three rounds a minute for short periods. With grape-shot the recoil was reduced and it was not necessary to run the guns up between rounds. But by 1815 all sorts of improvements had been made, with guns lightened and means of traction improved."

"One comes across another form of musket during this period: an early flintlock known as the snaphance or firelock. It was comparatively rare, and soldiers so armed were usually employed to guard the train of artillery. There was less chance of unfortunate accidents if its escort consisted of men armed with flintlocks rather than with matchlocks."

"Winning control of the navy in 1642 represented a financial as well as military coup for Parliament. It ensured that in the struggle ahead the commercial life of the capital retained some degree of normality and that customs revenues flowed into parliamentary not royal coffers. Had Charles retained control of the fleet and a major port, the course of events would have been very different. He would then have been able to bring in munitions and supplies from the continent without obstruction. More importantly, a blockade of the Thames, cutting off Londons food and fuel supplies and strangling its economic life, would have triggered mass demonstrations by the hungry and unemployed, and intense pressure from the merchant community. In all probability, Parliament would have been forced to sue for peace on almost any terms the king cared to offer."

"The English Civil War occupies a strange niche in contemporary memory. To all official appearances, no episode of the country’s modern past is so parenthetical. Leaving no reputable trace in common traditions or public institutions, it looks in established retrospect like a blackout in the growth of the collective psyche. Our only republic remains under ban, a historical freak. Rosebery could raise a statue to Cromwell outside Parliament: eighty years later, Benn could not even get him onto a postage stamp, at a time when Rosa Luxemburg adorned ordinary West German mail. Such treatment, it might be argued, is not without all justice. For in a comparative perspective, did not the English Civil War – however traumatic at the time – prove in the end to be the least significant of the political upheavals that accompanied the birth of the leading nation-states of the capitalist world? Set beside the Dutch Revolt, America’s War for Independence, the French Revolution, Italy’s Risorgimento, the unification of Germany, let alone the Meiji Restoration in Japan, the overthrow of the English monarchy seems of a different order: not a modern starting point of institutional development, more an exotic intermission. If this is so, however, there remains a paradox. For what would be the most barren convulsion has produced the most fertile literature. The volume of modern writing on the French Revolution – the only possible rival – is larger than on the English. But intellectually it is thinner."