The Causes of the English Civil War (Ford Lectures)

The origin of the English Civil War is one of the historiographic morasses of the last 50 years. The English Civil War resulted in the execution of Charles I for betraying the British people, establishment of parliamentary supremacy followed by an authoritarian republic, and generated an important body of political thought that persisted for over a century and formed the backdrop of the American Revolution. Because of the importance of the Civil, it attracted a large number of prominent historians, leading to a plethora of conflicting interpretations. These included fairly standard Marxian interpretations (RH Tawney), inverted Marxist interpretations (HR Trevor-Roper), and a host of others. This book, by the distinguished historian Conrad Russell, is a much more modest effort. Russell carefully specifies that he is interested in the outbreak of the Civil War per se and not in the war itself or its long term consequences. This leads to a much more focused discussion of causes of specific events such as the successful invasion of England by the Scots Covenanter army and the failure of Charles to dismiss or prorogue the Long Parliament. This is not, however, a detailed narration. Russell is primarily concerned with identifying structural features that made possible the outbreak of the Civil War. The first is the problem of multiple Kingdoms. Britain, composed of the Kingdoms of England/Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, were unified only by the Monarchy. The political, social, and religious problems in each Kingdom were different and sometimes contradictory. This meant that policies in one Kingdom could have adverse consequences in another with the result that factions in different Kingdoms could work with each other. This actually happened with the Scots-Parliamentary alliance on the eve of the Civil War. Another structural feature was the ambiguous nature of the Elizabethan religious settlement that left the nature of reformation of the English church unclear. Again, this had contradictory ramifications throughout Scotland and Ireland as well. Finally, the early 17th century was period where inflation and the costs of warfare greatly eroded royal financial capacity and made the King increasingly dependent on parliamentary provision of funds, which led to confrontation. A final structural cause was Charles' personality. His rigidity and personal religious convictions made it impossible for him to manage the demands of this situation, though it may have been beyond the capacity of anyone. Implicit in Russell's analysis is that there is some dissociation between the proximate causes of the Civil War and its major revolutionary consequences. In this implicit model, the War itself had a radicalizing effect, which is creditable. While this is a very good book, written with a high level of erudition and close attention to logic, it is really aimed at fellow scholars and primarily at others interested in early modern Europe. If yo

You need to be familiar with the names, dates, places, etc of the English Civil War before you try to read this. Russell's "Multiple Kingdom" thesis is good, but he seems to overlook population and economic causes -I don't know for sure because I may have slept through those pages...not that I SHOULD have slept though them of course! It would have been a much more engaging book if I loved the English Civil War with all my heart.

This is easily the best book I've ever read on the immediate circumstances of the English Civil War. Russell has proven himself consistently to be a brilliant Civil War scholar, and doesn't fail to do so here. In this slim volume, he ties together the unrest in all three kingdoms of Great Britain, religious conflicts and ambitions, the character of Charles I, and royalist and parliamentary ideals to explain the Civil War in its immediate context. Although he goes as far back as the Reformation to establish some long-term background, Russell pretty much concentrates on the events of 1642. Combine this with his Fall of the British Monarchies (a larger, more expansive, and ultimately much less readable book) and you have a pretty good coverage of all the angles in explaining the Civil War.