King Charles I

Lesson 3: English Civil War

The Civil War was a huge event in Charles's life - How did he cope being commander and how did he react in battle? Find out with this lesson.

Dual Role

The Commander and the King

‘Your king is both your cause, your quarrel and your captain. The foe is in sight. The best encouragement I can give you is this, that come life or death, your king will bear you company and ever keep this field, this place and this days service in his grateful remembrances.’ Charles speaking to his commanders on the eve of battle.

Charles was constantly faced with difficult decisions through his position as King. He had to defend the norm, the church as established by law, the law itself, his people, his role, his honour, Britain's trade and much more.

His difficulties were further increased when civil war broke out in 1642 between the King and his supporters and the Parliament and theirs, who wanted more power.

As a King, he was responsible for all of his subjects by his Creator, but as a commander in chief of the Royalist forces in England, he had the role of directing a war effort aimed against a large proportion of his people, (The Parliamentarians). The two roles crossed over each other totally and this plagued Charles to the end of his life. It is this difficult fact that caused many a bad decision by Charles and which stopped him winning the war outright countless times.

For Charles, the issue was clear; he was fighting to save his people from rebellion and traitors who wished to overturn the ancient laws and his position, together with the Church of England. All these things were committed to Charles’s care by his coronation oaths and by God, whom he believed appointed him, a view widely believed. So when Parliament began raising men of their own to serve them, he was left with little alternative but to follow. (It was he, though, who first formally declared war on Parliament).

Yet even when war was imminent, he tried to dispel it by attempting to take control of Hull, which had most of the country’s armoury within it. He arrived under a formal visit as King, hoping to convert the Governor or stay in the town once he had gained admittance. Instead the Governor refused to let Charles in, but as Pauline Gregg says in her excellent book about Charles, ‘Charles proclaimed him a traitor and withdrew, though it is likely enough that the citizens would have followed the king against their governor if they had been given a chance.’

This chance would not have been in Charles’s mind, for it demanded force and he was intent on establishing law and order with the minimum of force and casualties. Besides, he would not be the first side to cause casualties. Constantly throughout the war he showed clemency to his enemies, some of them who were violently opposed to him, (The extreme views by Parliamentarians of Charles and Henrietta can be seen through a quip in a letter from the Queen herself, ‘I’ll go pray for the man of sin that has married the popish brat of France, as the preacher said in London.’ -Referring to Charles and herself).

He also tried his best to control casualties. At Edgehill, for instance, Charles was visibly moved by the bodies of the dead and he stayed with his men all night. After the storming of Bristol, Charles wanted to take Gloucester, but to save lives of his soldiers and subjects, he ordered his colonels to besiege Gloucester rather than storm it. With time being short, a siege would considerably impede the Royalists' chance of success before a relieving party arrived. Sure enough, Gloucester held out and the relieving force got there in time.

Again with the Battle of Lostwithiel, which Charles personally commanded, he defeated the Parliamentarians fully, yet allowed thousands of them to march away free, rather than force them to his colours or imprison them.

After he won the battle of Edgehill, the way to Parliamentarian London was free. This was Charles’s one chance to take his capital and end the war, but it involved an assault against London and its citizens, overrunning Parliament and arresting his opponents.

Charles refused this course of action, seeing it as imposing his kingship by the sword. It would have involved civilian casualties which he was desperate to avoid, and would have achieved a peace under the wrong circumstances. Charles wished to win by the love of his people, to be invited back after people realised that the Monarchy offered the protection, stability, and tradition that the new force of a Parliament did not.

In summary, Charles simply hoped for peace by showing his enemies he would and could win and that he was committed to fair play, hoping it forced them to the diplomacy table. In a letter to his brilliant nephew Prince Rupert, who was General of the Royalist Horse, Charles wrote: “Have a care of spilling innocent blood…and hereof fail not, as you desire the good of us, who desire nothing more than the good, happiness and peaceable government of our kingdom and not the effusion of the blood of our subjects, mercy being the brightest attribute of a king.”

One of Charles’s finest moments was his actions when his mortal enemy John Hamden was fatally wounded after the skirmish of Chalgrove in 1643. Hamden had been one of the first to oppose Charles when he was at the height of his glory. When Charles imposed the legally questionable Ship Money tax to inland areas, Hamden refused to pay it and was charged for it. Now in the midst of war, Charles sent his own personal physician to this man to offer his medical services.

Charles wavered easily in the direction of his side’s war effort. Managing a war fought against people who were your own subjects but who were following traitors was difficult and especially so for someone lacking self confidence. Often his reliance on stronger men meant that imbeciles had a direct hand in the running of the war effort.

This reliance became one of the Commander in Chief of the Royalist forces and the King of Great Britain, Ireland and France’s major predicaments.

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