the english civil war a people's history

Not only did the men he sought manage to escape, but public opinion was outraged by his action. In January 1642 Charles strode into the Parliament house with a body of soldiers and demanded the persons of five MPs whom he had declared to be traitors. Charles thus found himself with a swelling political constituency and, emboldened by this change in his fortunes, he made a bold attempt to seize back the political initiative. As time went by, religious traditionalists became increasingly alienated from the more radical spirits and turned to the King for support. Friction was particularly apparent between religious conservatives, men and women who were happy with the Church of England as it had been established at the time of the Reformation, and more 'Godly' protestants', those who considered the Church to be 'but half reformed' and were determined to rid it of the 'rags and patches of Rome'.

By this time a split had emerged in Parliament - and, still more dangerously, in the country at large - between those who wished for further reform, and those who felt that the recent changes had gone quite far enough. In late 1641 this was no longer the case. In late 1640 Charles I had faced a political élite which was almost wholly united against him. The considerations which prompted men and women to choose the sides they did between 16 were infinitely more varied and subtle than the two-party labels suggest. There was more than a grain of truth in these stereotypes, but it would be wrong to conclude from them that the Civil War was primarily a class war, a punch up between 'toffs' and 'toughs'. As far as the Royalists were concerned, the typical Parliamentarian was a 'base mechanic': a low-born, lumpen townsman, inexperienced in judgment and inelegant in appearance.

In Parliamentarian eyes, the typical Royalist was a dissolute gentleman, possessed of a suspiciously foreign air and prone to acts of sudden violence. Both terms reveal a lot about what the two sides thought of each other. To the Royalists, the Parliamentarians were 'Roundheads' - a reference to the shaved heads of the London apprentices who had been so active in demonstrating their support for Parliament during the months before the fighting began. To the Parliamentarians, the Royalists were 'Cavaliers' - a term derived from the Spanish word 'Caballeros', meaning armed troopers or horsemen.

The english civil war a people's history