The English Civil War

The English Civil War, a brief history.

The English Civil War   was a series of armed conflicts and political problems between Parliamentarians   and Royalists . The first   and second   civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war   saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.
The English Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son, Charles II, and replacement of English monarchy with, first, the Commonwealth of England, and then with a Protectorate, under Oliver Cromwell's personal rule. The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although this concept was legally established only with the Glorious Revolution later in the century.
Terminology  
The term English Civil War appears commonly in the singular form, although historians often divide the conflict into two or three separate wars. Although the term describes events as impinging on England, from the outset the conflicts involved wars with and civil wars within both Scotland and Ireland; see Wars of the Three Kingdoms for an overview.
Unlike other civil wars in England, which focused on who ruled, this war also concerned itself with the manner of governing the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica called the series of wars the Great Rebellion, while some historians, especially Marxists such as Christopher Hill, have long favoured the term English Revolution.
Background  
The King's Rule  
War broke out less than fifty years after the death of Elizabeth I of England in 1603. Elizabeth's...