الحرب الأهلية وحدود الملكية
History · Key Stage 3 · The School
Money, religion and authority
The wars of the 1640s grew from an argument about who held ultimate authority. Charles I believed he ruled by divine right and governed for eleven years without calling Parliament, raising money by disputed means. Parliament held that taxation needed its consent. Religion sharpened everything, with deep suspicion of Charles's church policy and his queen's Catholicism.
A king tried and executed
Parliament won the wars, and in 1649 Charles I was tried and executed — a monarch killed by his own subjects after a public trial, which was unprecedented in England. England was a republic for eleven years under Oliver Cromwell and then the monarchy was restored in 1660. The republic failed, but the precedent that a king could be held to account did not disappear.
The settlement
In 1688 James II was replaced by William and Mary in what supporters called the Glorious Revolution. The Bill of Rights of 1689 fixed that the monarch could not suspend laws, raise taxes or keep a standing army in peacetime without Parliament. That is the point at which sovereignty in England moved decisively towards Parliament, and it has not moved back.
The Verney family of Buckinghamshire: Sir Edmund Verney carried the King's standard at Edgehill and died there, though he had told friends he disliked the King's cause. His son Ralph sat in Parliament and supported the other side. Both were gentlemen, both were English, and they were on opposite sides. This was not king against people — it was a constitutional argument that cut through families.