Causes Of The English Civil War (Causas De La Guerra Civil Inglesa)

Causes of the English Civil War
Guido Montesano

The English civil war was an event that was brought about by political, religious, social and economic factors. In a way the war was almost inevitable, the times were changing, new social classes were gaining power, not only in Britain, but also in the continent. However if both sides had a modicum of foresight the effects would have been muchless brutal for all the people involved.

For starters Charles I, the king at the time, was a very ineffective ruler. He inherited from his father James very few allies and a lot of enemies in the continent and his war policy didn't help either. He had the bad habit of changing his allegiances depending of who was on top, but what really drove the point home is that he couldn't actually go intobattle, at all. He was rarely able of raising an army, and when he did it was small, badly taken care of, unruly, untrained and usually unpaid. This last one is particularly important, they went unpaid because Charles was unable to collect taxes without the parliament's approval who hated his guts (more on that later). They animosity between the king and the Commons led him to closing theparliament for eleven years, suffice to say that the members of parliament didn't find this funny. During this time in which he could not get taxes he resorted to many clever but underhanded maneuvers to raise money both for arrears and for his own expenditures, which were quite high. He forced taxes on people, and those who could not pay were forced to give shelter and food to the soldiers, abused of hisright to levy ship money from coastal towns (and in one occasion from every town in the country) and he took advantage of obsolete laws that were never repealed like the distraint of knighthood and the forest boundaries. Charles fear of change led many industrialists and merchants astray. He like his father wanted to keep to the old ways, which were by this point obsolete and couldn't sustainBritain no matter how good the economic situation may have been. This did little but enrage the up and coming new social class.

While he has been blamed by history for almost everything Charles had to deal with a lot of problems which weren't at all his fault. His most important enemy was The House of Commons, which was composed of the gentry who while wealthy and economically powerful stilldidn't have the tools to administrate the government which was still largely controlled by the aristocrats, the clergy and the king. They were a thorn in Charles side from day one, always refusing his requests, specially those of taxes to make war. If the parliament hadn't been so unyielding Charles may not have had to resort to such measures as we mentioned above.

The Commons were in great partpuritan and had for Charles the same distaste and lack of trust they had for his father. They were critical of Charles intolerant views and weren't at all pleased with the idea of the divine right of the king, the idea that the king was appointed by God and therefore no other man could dare oppose him. They thought themselves to be more fit to govern as they were chosen by the people instead ofsimply inheriting power. In the eve of the war the parliament was fed up with the church and Charles friend the Arminian Archbishop Laud and wanted to dissolve it. While Arminian bishops lived luxurious lifes the puritans were persecuted during Charles personal rule. Charles religious crusade was to blame for the Bishop Wars, another grief for the population of Britain. He tried to continue hisfather's work to establish Anglicanism in Scotland, unlike him he did it very recklessly and fast. Such a jarring change put the Scottish people in an uproar and they rebelled against him.

On the eve of the civil war, the Commons caught wind of a plot to dissolve the parliament and crafted the Triennial Act which stated that parliament must meet once every three years at the very least and that it...