English Revolution Story
They declared that the people were the source of all power & that kings & governments existed only for & by the consent of the people. It is true that for plenty of of them "the people" meant the people with property: that is a point to which I shall must return later. My present point is that by putting Charles on ,trial & executing him by due technique of law the new ruling class overturned all the elderly conceptions of kingship & put in its place the revolutionary idea that the king is merely an element of the equipment of the State, who may be tolerated or dispensed with according to their needs & wishes. In 1649 the king was inconvenient to this class, & monarchy was abolished. In 1660, when it appeared likely to be a useful weapon against the danger of a rising of the masses, it was restored -- on conditions.
In 1688 the person of the monarch was changed by Act of Parliament and still more stringent conditions were imposed. And today, a corrupt and decaying capitalism finds it convenient, while not, of coursework, allowing the monarchy any actual power; to glorify and refurbish it, to give it a new halo of bourgeois sanctity, so that it may act as a rallying point for reaction and a bulwark against the rising power of the working class. In this the bourgeoisie denies its own revolutionary past, but it cannot undo it. They themselves destroyed the sanctity of kings and it cannot be recreated. Meanwhile the work they began remains to be done by others. The object of this leaflet is to tell the story of the English Revolution, to show what was done and how, and to indicate something of what, still remains to do.
THE BRITISH CIVIL WAR
The English Civil War started in 1642 when Charles I raised his royal standard in Nottingham. The split between Charles and Parliament was such that neither side was willing to back down over the principles that they held and war was inevitable as a way in which all issues could be solved. The country split in to those who supported the king and those who supported Parliament the classic ingredients for a civil war.
As with most wars in the work of the C17th, the English Civil War was not a long continuous war. Armies lacked mobility and the time taken to collect the most basic of equipment meant that there were long periods of time when no fighting was taking place despite England being at war at the time. The weather was and a major determining factor in whether armies could fight or not. Roads were no over tracks and the winter could cut them up to make them beyond use. Therefore moving any armies around would be hard.
There were only major battles in the English Civil War Edge Hill (1642) Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645).
While it is difficult to give an exact breakdown of who supported who as there were regional variations, at a general level the nobility, landowners and Anglicans supported Charles I while those in the towns and cities supported Parliament. However, this is a generalization and there were noblemen who supported Parliament and there were towns such as Newark that supported Charles.
The first major battle of the English Civil War was at Edge Hill. While both sides claimed success, there was no decisive result from this battle. The following year, 1643, saw a series of smaller battles that were equally as indecisive in the sense that neither side dealt a deadly blow to the other. In 1643, Oliver Cromwell came increasingly to the fore together with his desire for a New Model Army. This new force was to have a decisive impact on the coursework of the English Civil War.
In 1644, Charles lost control of the north of England due to a major defeat at the Battle of Marston Moor. The combined armies of Parliament and the Scots heavily defeated the Royalists.
In June 1645, Cromwell's New Model Army inflicted a deadly blow to the king's army at the Battle of Naseby. Charles did not recover from this defeat and his cause was lost.
In 1646, Charles surrendered to the Scots than to Parliament. They hoped to take advantage of the fact that the Scottish and Parliamentary alliance was fragile and could collapse at any time. In fact, the Scots took advantage of Charles and sold him to Parliament for £400,000 in January 1647. The issue Parliament now had was what to do with Charles. The king actually helped in his own downfall. In November 1647, they fled to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight and in 1648 the short-lived second civil war broke out. The supporters of the king were defeated at Preston. All that Charles had proved to Parliament was that they could not be trusted.
Charles was tried at Westminster Hall in January 1649, and found guilty that they had traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament and the people therein represented.
When the executioner, holding the head of Charles Stuart high above the crowds thronging Whitehall, pronounced the ancient formula: "Behold the head of a traitor!", a icy shudder ran down the backbone of every constituted authority in Europe. That was on January 30, 1649--three hundred Years ago--but they have seldom been properly warm since. For that moment marked of the turning points of history, the positive & unqualified emergence in to full daylight of a revolution whose consequences are still by no means exhausted.
It was not merely that a king had been put to death by his subjects: that was not an unusual happening. In England, , kings had been deposed & afterwards killed, as were Richard II, Edward II, & Henry VI. But here was a brand spanking new class coming to the front, demanding political power & challenging in the most decisive & symbolic way an order of society & a conception of authority that had existed unchallenged for a thousand years.
It was feudal England that perished that day on the scaffold in the person of England's last feudal king. For the monarchy had a double character: practically the king was the effective head of the feudal State. They commanded its armies, they presided at its Council, the judges & officers of State were his servants. But besides all this they was in a sense a sacred figure. " Such a divinity doth hedge a king ", Shakespeare had written only half a century earlier. In 1649 the king still retained a number of his divinity, a relic of times far older even than feudalism, when the king was actually both god & man. So Charles, in his last words, scornfully declared: "A subject & a sovereign are tidy different things." Yet the act of his execution was already making his belief a thing of the past. For the new class, the merchants & manufacturers & gentry, with the yeoman farmers & craftsmen behind them, stood for a different conception.
In 1688 the person of the monarch was changed by Act of Parliament and still more stringent conditions were imposed. And today, a corrupt and decaying capitalism finds it convenient, while not, of coursework, allowing the monarchy any actual power; to glorify and refurbish it, to give it a new halo of bourgeois sanctity, so that it may act as a rallying point for reaction and a bulwark against the rising power of the working class. In this the bourgeoisie denies its own revolutionary past, but it cannot undo it. They themselves destroyed the sanctity of kings and it cannot be recreated. Meanwhile the work they began remains to be done by others. The object of this leaflet is to tell the story of the English Revolution, to show what was done and how, and to indicate something of what, still remains to do.
THE BRITISH CIVIL WAR
The English Civil War started in 1642 when Charles I raised his royal standard in Nottingham. The split between Charles and Parliament was such that neither side was willing to back down over the principles that they held and war was inevitable as a way in which all issues could be solved. The country split in to those who supported the king and those who supported Parliament the classic ingredients for a civil war.
As with most wars in the work of the C17th, the English Civil War was not a long continuous war. Armies lacked mobility and the time taken to collect the most basic of equipment meant that there were long periods of time when no fighting was taking place despite England being at war at the time. The weather was and a major determining factor in whether armies could fight or not. Roads were no over tracks and the winter could cut them up to make them beyond use. Therefore moving any armies around would be hard.
There were only major battles in the English Civil War Edge Hill (1642) Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645).
While it is difficult to give an exact breakdown of who supported who as there were regional variations, at a general level the nobility, landowners and Anglicans supported Charles I while those in the towns and cities supported Parliament. However, this is a generalization and there were noblemen who supported Parliament and there were towns such as Newark that supported Charles.
The first major battle of the English Civil War was at Edge Hill. While both sides claimed success, there was no decisive result from this battle. The following year, 1643, saw a series of smaller battles that were equally as indecisive in the sense that neither side dealt a deadly blow to the other. In 1643, Oliver Cromwell came increasingly to the fore together with his desire for a New Model Army. This new force was to have a decisive impact on the coursework of the English Civil War.
In 1644, Charles lost control of the north of England due to a major defeat at the Battle of Marston Moor. The combined armies of Parliament and the Scots heavily defeated the Royalists.
In June 1645, Cromwell's New Model Army inflicted a deadly blow to the king's army at the Battle of Naseby. Charles did not recover from this defeat and his cause was lost.
In 1646, Charles surrendered to the Scots than to Parliament. They hoped to take advantage of the fact that the Scottish and Parliamentary alliance was fragile and could collapse at any time. In fact, the Scots took advantage of Charles and sold him to Parliament for £400,000 in January 1647. The issue Parliament now had was what to do with Charles. The king actually helped in his own downfall. In November 1647, they fled to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight and in 1648 the short-lived second civil war broke out. The supporters of the king were defeated at Preston. All that Charles had proved to Parliament was that they could not be trusted.
Charles was tried at Westminster Hall in January 1649, and found guilty that they had traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament and the people therein represented.
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