Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the context of "Whiggism"

The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Royalists and Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the struggle consisted of the First English Civil War and the Second English Civil War. The Anglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652 is sometimes referred to as the Third English Civil War.

While the conflicts in the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland had similarities, each had their own specific issues and objectives. The First English Civil War was fought primarily over the correct balance of power between Parliament and Charles I. It ended in June 1646 with Royalist defeat and the king in custody.

Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially as a senior commander in the Parliamentarian army and latterly as a politician. A leading advocate of the execution of Charles I in January 1649, which led to the establishment of the Commonwealth of England, Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death.

Although elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon in 1628, much of Cromwell's life prior to 1640 was marked by financial and personal failure. He briefly contemplated emigration to New England, but became a religious Independent in the 1630s and thereafter believed his successes were the result of divine providence. In 1640 he was returned as MP for Cambridge in the Short and Long Parliaments. He joined the Parliamentarian army when the First English Civil War began in August 1642 and quickly demonstrated his military abilities. In 1645 he was appointed commander of the New Model Army cavalry under Thomas Fairfax, and played a key role in winning the English Civil War.

In Welsh and English church history, Independents were a Puritan group who advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political. They were particularly prominent during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms as well under the Commonwealth and Protectorate. The New Model Army became the champion of Independent religious views and its members helped carry out Pride's Purge in December 1648.

Unlike their Presbyterian allies, Independents rejected any state role in religious practice, including the Church of England, and advocated freedom of religion for most non-Catholics. Their religious views led some to back radical political groups such as the Levellers, who supported concepts like Republicanism, universal suffrage and joint ownership of property.

The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1642 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell defeated a largely Scottish Royalist force of 16,000 led by Charles II of England and Scotland.

The Royalists took up defensive positions in and around the city of Worcester. The area of the battle was bisected by the River Severn, with the River Teme forming an additional obstacle to the south-west of Worcester. Cromwell divided his army into two main sections, divided by the Severn, in order to attack from both the east and south-west. There was fierce fighting at river crossing points and two dangerous sorties by the Royalists against the eastern Parliamentary force were beaten back. Following the storming of a major redoubt to the east of the city, the Parliamentarians entered Worcester and organised Royalist resistance collapsed. Charles II was able to escape capture.

The Irish Confederate Wars took place from 1641 to 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in Ireland, England and Scotland, all then ruled by Charles I. The conflict caused an estimated 200,000 deaths from fighting, as well as war-related famine and disease.

It began with the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when local Catholics tried to seize control of the Dublin Castle administration. They wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, to increase Irish self-governance, and to roll back the Plantations of Ireland. They also wanted to prevent an invasion by anti-Catholic English Parliamentarians and Scottish Covenanters, who were defying the king. Rebel leader Felim O'Neill claimed to be doing the king's bidding, but Charles condemned the rebellion after it broke out. The rebellion developed into an ethnic conflict between Irish Catholics on one side, and English and Scottish Protestant colonists on the other. These first few months were marked by ethnic cleansing and massacres in Ulster.

The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the Commonwealth of England, initially led by Oliver Cromwell. It forms part of the 1641-to-1652 Irish Confederate Wars, and wider 1639-to-1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Modern estimates suggest that during this period, Ireland experienced a demographic loss totalling around 15 to 20% of the pre-1641 population, due to fighting, famine and bubonic plague.

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 brought much of Ireland under the control of the Irish Catholic Confederation, who engaged in a multi-sided war with Royalists, Parliamentarians, Scots Covenanters, and local Presbyterian militia. Following the execution of Charles I in January 1649, the Confederates allied with their former Royalist opponents against the newly established Commonwealth of England. Cromwell landed near Dublin in August 1649 with an expeditionary force, and by the end of 1650 the Confederacy had been defeated, although sporadic guerrilla warfare continued until 1653.

The European wars of religion were waged in Europe during the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. Fought after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, the wars disrupted the religious and political order in the Catholic countries of Europe. Other motives during the wars involved revolt, territorial ambitions and great power conflicts. By the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Catholic France had allied with the Protestant forces against the Catholic Habsburg monarchy. The wars were largely ended by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which established a new political order that is now known as Westphalian sovereignty.

The conflicts began with the minor Knights' War (1522–1523), followed by the larger German Peasants' War (1524–1525) in the Holy Roman Empire. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation against the growth of Protestantism in 1545. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany and killed one third of its population. The Peace of Westphalia broadly resolved the conflicts by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. Smaller religious wars continued to be waged in Western Europe until the 1710s, including the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651) in the British Isles, the Savoyard–Waldensian wars (1655–1690), and the Toggenburg War (1712) in the Western Alps.

The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point between 1639 and 1653, while around 4% of the total population died from war-related causes. These figures illustrate the widespread impact of the conflict on society, and the bitterness it engendered as a result.

Conflict over the role of Parliament and religious practice dated from the accession of James VI and I in 1603. These tensions culminated in the imposition of Personal Rule in 1629 by his son, Charles I, who recalled Parliament in April and November 1640. He hoped by doing so to obtain funding that would enable him to reverse his defeat by Scots Covenanters in the Bishops' Wars, but in return Parliament demanded a greater share in government than he was willing to concede.