hello and welcome to lesson three so lesson one we looked at the world lesson two we looked at the whole issue of politics versus religion and how often times politicians will use religion as a means to an end and today we're going to look at the English Civil War now the thing is you say Civil War here and we automatically think of The Americans Civil War the late unpleasantness um but in England you say Civil War and it's the English Civil War and it's something that is it's not quite as raw as it is here but it still is an issue when I was um at Auburn one of my professors Dan SEI was uh he had been a English Civil War rean actor which is a little different and he was on the side of par Parliament and at his house he had all the medals from all the various battles and each time you participate in a battle you got a medal and I was at his house for dinner one time and his wife uh knowing the fact that uh I'm a royalist um said so Dan why don't you show him your all your medals and Dan's like well they're all up there on the wall and she's like no they're not what about the other one he like shh Qui right well it turned out that there's one most of of the uh battles there's a generic metal but for one in order to get the metal you had to be a royalist and to get the whole set he had done that but he used to hide it in the bathroom under the kitchen under the sink um and so for the rest of the time I was at alurn I would make fun of him about this so in the English Civil War somewhat like the American Revolution you have two sides you have the the side that supports the king you have the side that's against the king and then the rest of the population's kind of stuck in the middle uh supporters of the king uh well it's kind of hard to describe them but they tended to be land owners uh people living in rural areas small towns uh whereas the supporters of parli were much more tied to London much more TW tied to the financial issues and to shipping and much more religious they would in today's terms be referred to as fundamentalist Christians um one of their slogans was no King but King Jesus um they tended to be much more aere individuals uh these are the Puritans of New England from your US history books and the the people in the middle were just kind of you know whatever and uh they fluctuated depending on which side offered better pay um the problem was that Parliament had the money wealth whereas the king tended to have more kind of traditional land wealth and you can only get so far in paying people people with land more importantly for the nature of being from the Commonwealth of Virginia the forces that supported Parliament were known as the round heads whereas those who supported the king were known as Cavaliers um as you notice in the picture the Cavaliers are drinking they are slightly more flamboyant The Roundheads were boring individuals uh they were called Roundheads in part because they kept their hair cut crop short um now of course there's a whole another layer to this we'll get to um but when the civil war starts in 1642 the country is roughly divided between the forces of the king and the forces of parliament um Parliament controls the white section the King Controls the gold section obviously Parliament is meeting in London the king's Parliament met in Oxford and if you've ever seen any of the Harry Potter movies the room in which the Great Hall where they have their fancy dinner that in the first movie is actually the space where Parliament met and it's important to to mention that uh most of the House of Lords went with the King and England has a two housee system much like we do instead of the Senate they have the house of Lords House of Commons um a little over a third of the House of Commons met with the met with the King and other ones were elected and the rest of them stayed in London now of course in the colonies the split was you could see where this one is going um the Carolinas which is named for Charles supported the King Virginia supported the King this is part of the reason why UVA are known as the Cavaliers something that would drive Thomas Jefferson nuts because Thomas Jefferson was definitely a big fan of parliament uh the red section is the Dutch the Dutch at this time Control Delaware and New Jersey and modern day New York um they split the English colonies and then the northern colonies and yellow were the Puritan colonies Massachusetts Rhode Island New Hampshire and Connecticut they sided with the crown and so the English Civil War while it's not talked about as much in this country if is at all took place here too Virginia took the lead in supporting the king Massachusetts took the lead in supporting Parliament 1644 this this when all this started in 1642 there was a little known Member of Parliament by the name of Oliver Cromwell um now there were many members of parliament who took their hand at trying to lead troops and most of them were disasters but Oliver Cromwell was a talented tactician and his Cavalry was actually successful and in part because of this parliament in 1644 creates this thing known as the New Model Army what makes the New Model Army new and different is that instead of being raised for a specific event which is traditionally the way most armies had been raised in Europe this is going to be a permanent Army this is an army that is paid for annually out of taxes um Additionally the Army is funded by the people not by some Lord or Duke um th th they have a loyalty back to the crown supposedly um you are hired no matter what your religious affiliation I say supposedly because this was the army of Parliament and they made that very clear um and the New Model Army is the foundation on which the British army operates today interestingly enough as part of the reforms of the New Model Army basically all members of parliament were banned from being generals in this new Army with the exception of one individual and that individual would be Oliver Cromwell the King was defeated in 1646 and he was imprisoned by the Scots Parliament cut a deal remember there was the Five Guys who were you know angling with the Scots so the king is held by the Scots but and it's important to remember the king is King of England and Scotland and his dad was born in Scotland and the Scots really hate the English and so it didn't take too much for the king to convince the Scots toci side with him um and so in 1647 for about a year the king and his forces attempted to retake England from three main areas obviously invading from Scotland invading from Wales and also invading from Cornwell in the South it ended up being complete disaster and the King was captured again now at this point in time we have an issue um and that issue is how to deal with the King now most of parli was of the opinion that he should be exiled maybe his son the future Charles II should be brought in he was a teenager at this point in time some people said no King we're going to we're going to create something new and different and then there was a minority which had the opinion that the king should be executed par um Cromwell was in that Minority and he was determined that the king had to be dealt with but he recognized the fact that legally it could not be done correctly and so what he did was he hired one of his assistants a man by the name of Pride Captain Pride to basically stand guard at the entrance of Parliament and he gave him a list and anyone who was on the list would be allowed in those individuals are the ones that Cromwell was sure would agree to the king's execution we're talking a parliament of roughly 350 400 men will be cut down to about 90 it's known as Pride's Purge it happens in December of 1648 and with the purge complete and the thing about it is that um this was a huge deal because crom was in effect doing what the king would have never thought to do the king would have called Parliament or not Parliament but he would not sit there with a list and only allow the people in that he approved of and so in a sense the King has been not only usurped but Oliver crell is now taking on a role greater than the monarch January of 1649 the king of England is put on trial now according to the king he asserts that he cannot be put on trial because he is the king of England and God put him on the throne and Parliament cannot take him off the throne um it would be well I'm not sure exactly how to describe it I mean we have the we have impeachment in our system but it would be as if you could impeach and then execute the president um this had never happened before I mean going back thousands of years monarchs and Kings have been executed and overthrown but this is the first time in which a legislative body now it's important to re realize you're talking a quarter of a body which is elected by 5% of the population so a severe minority of the English people are technically involved in this process the King was found guilty and the execution was said for January 1st sorry January 30th 1649 now having one the forces that Cromwell had pushed decided to make an example of the king um on the day of the execution it was cold it was damp weather and knowing that the king stuttered when he asked to wear a coat out before his execution they said no you can wear two shirts and that's it so you're thinking about that this individual who already has a stutter is going to have to walk out and give his final speech on a cold day with absolutely no insulation their plan was to humiliate him because they figured um in cold weather a normal person will stutter imagine what will happen with this this is going to be fun to watch so Charles walks out and he gets ready to give his speech and he gives the speech of his life he does not stutter one bit but speaks perfectly and eloquently to the people in front of him and having given the speech of his life he is then executed now the people in Parliament especially crall figured that you know when the ax fell the people would cheer but no instead there is a moan that comes out out of the crowd and as the king's head rolls to the ground people in the crowd step forward one by one dipping their handkerchiefs into the blood at as somewhat as some people consider sacred souvenirs it's a little kind of maob but let me explain see the reason why Charles did not stutter was that he was a very religious individual and he had already made his peace with God and he knew exactly where he was going when he died he had no fear at all and the strength of his convictions had allowed him to give a speech which if he had been able to give that speech eight years before could have potentially prevented the Civil War and the people in the crowd recognized it and at that moment the English people became remorseful for what had happened and in fact within the Church of England January um 30th is known as um the feast day of King Charles King and Martyr now at this point in time Cromwell had a problem he basically had to now rule with this rump Parliament and he had to control not only England but Tred control Scotland and also the territories in Ireland very quickly he gets frustrated with that rump Parliament and it is purged again and becomes known as the barebones Parliament and even that Parliament will be too much for him um one of his first challenges is that uh in 1649 50 he has to go and deal with Ireland the Irish rise up against thing let say see this is an opportunity and if you listen to the song that I played before the lesson by the Pogues great Irish band from the 80s the Irish hate Oliver Cromwell and rightly so I mean what his troops did in Ireland um the raping the pillaging the murdering the senseless killing it was an attempt at genocide for the Irish people and the Irish don't necessarily forget about these things um what caramal creates is something called The Commonwealth and from 1649 till 1653 it is this barebones Parliament with Oliver Cromwell occupying the role of a chief executive the gentleman on the right there is the young Charles II um Charles in um 1650 a year and a half after his dad's execution will seek to re take the throne he comes into Scotland gets the Scots behind him moves into England the problem is that the English and Scots hate each other and the English fear the Scots which means they're not as welcoming to the king as they otherwise would be this is a mistake the stewards will make over and over again with every attempt to retake the throne um King Charles is defeated at the Battle of Worcester and he's forced to go into hiding at one point in time the king will hide in this very oak tree here there's not a lot left of it but there will be cromwellian troops wandering underneath him trying to find him and he's he's saved by the oak tree and as a result um the oak becomes the symbol of Charles and the oak Apple which we know is the acorn becomes the symbal of Charles and the day that he returns to England even today is known as Oak apple day um Charles will be basically smuggled out of the country by a young Noble woman now in order to get out of the country he has to play her servant think about this for a second this is a guy who was raised in palaces he is is a prince he is a king but for a brief few days into a few weeks he is forced to act like a working dude and this changes his perspective totally he gets to interact with his people in a way that potentially no one other than uh Sid Arthur did going back to first semester um and it makes him aware of his people and what they are like and it will make when he becomes king in 1660 it will make his Reign potentially one of the Golden Ages of English History in part because he gets his people in a way that most monarchs do not now from 1653 1653 Oliver Cromwell just basically says I have had it with you I totally get where Charles was coming from and he kicks his Parliament out and he call def declares himself Lord protector of England and as Lord protector he begins issuing orders he Outlaws gambling okay I can see that you know he's a good Christian man he wants to Outlaw gambling he Outlaws the theater because it is sinful and then to seal the Fate the third deed he outlaw Christmas yes he's a very religious man and he feels that Christmas is sinful Oliver cromal is the Grinch except he's not nice to the people of hille basically England becomes a police state not good by any sense of the means Oliver Cromwell dies in 1658 so we put up with this for 5 years interestingly enough when Cromwell dies they don't know what to do with him he's a lord protector they have no idea and so in death they treat him like a king they give him a crown they have a little statue that walks before is paraded before his body it's all very creepy um as proof that this is a completely failed experiment and that in fact uh Britain England is nothing more than you know a North Korean style um monarchy cromwell's son Richard is appointed as the new Lord protector the problem is that as with many children of very strong individuals Winston Churchill um en MacArthur um Franklin Roosevelt the kids just cannot live up to the reputation Richard Cromwell is not meant to be a leader a ruler on anything and after about nine months he flees he runs away and England becomes Lawless basically and the military is forced to step in and there becomes a battle between two major factions General John Lambert who's the individual at the bottom right and General George Monk and the debate becomes what do we do now lambath wants to to bring back the Commonwealth and basically rule by military District generals have various places where they're assigned monk thinking the Long View goes that's not going to work it is not feasible it is not realistic it is it's dangerous we need legitimate Authority and the only person who can give us that legitimate Authority is the king and so what happens is monk begins reaching out to Charles and he says your majesty Charles is like my what and he's like your majesty if you were to come back to England would you try to kill everyone who harmed or fought against your father and Charles goes no no would you be willing to be you know to live within your means and um be taller in Parliament yes I would and basically what monk does in the waning months of 1659 in the early days of 1660 is to negotiate secretly with Charles to arrange his return and then to seal the deal he chases Lamberth off because Lamberth was a general and a big talker but monk actually has a force to be reckoned with and as a result this Escapade what do you want to call it um the English Civil War the Commonwealth that comes after it will be Ended as a reward General monk is given the title of the first Duke of alaro and of course what county is pvcc in I think it's still in the county but the county that Sur Charlottesville is of course abaran it's named for this guy um what can we take from this there are many people on the side of parliament who use their religion for political means there are also members of parliament who are truly religious I believe that in his Hearts Oliver KL was truly religious I mean outlining Christmas because of your religious beliefs in this necessarily a popular thing to do but Parliament was able to maximize their kind of sense of religion and to paint the king into this box of being Catholic in order to win the support of the popular PE of the population the problem is that it backfired because after eight nine years of not being able to have any kind of entertainment not getting to celebrate Christmas not getting to enjoy a a a a church service with music the people are tired of the austerity they want the old ways back and Charles II offers that