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English Civil War
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As with most wars during the C17th, the English Civil War was not a long continuous war. Armies lacked mobility and the time taken to collect the most basic of equipment meant that there were long periods of time when no fighting was taking place despite England being at war at the time. The weather was ... a major determining factor in whether armies could fight or not. Roads were no more than tracks and the winter could cut them up to make them beyond use. Therefore moving any armies around would be very difficult.
The English Civil War was as much the response to the effects of the Reformation as it was a response to the needs of the rising middle classes, the landed gentry. The war itself involved the king, Parliament, the aristocracy, the middle classes, the commoners, and the army. The War tested the prerogative of the king and challenged the theory of divine right. War raged between Parliamentarians, Royalists, Cavaliers and Roundheads and every religious sect in England.
The First English Civil War had a much more extensive impact on people’s lives than was once thought. This is partly because the war was not only fought at major battles between the field armies of both sides, but ... in thousands of small skirmishes between local forces and garrisons as both sides sought to secure disputed territories. Many more men fought in the war than was once thought. One reliable estimate is that one in four of the adult male population of England and Wales fought in it. Moreover, it may be that 200,000 people out of a total population of around 5 million died in battles and skirmishes and from diseases carried by armies, a greater death rate than that inflicted on the English population by either of the two world wars of the 20th century. It is also now known, contrary to earlier accounts, that the war was fought with some brutality, if not on the scale of depravity that was reached in contemporary wars in Ireland or in the European Thirty Years’ War. Massacres of civilians were not unknown and garrison commanders often flouted the law in requisitioning men, money, horses, and goods.
Brother Against Brother: The English Civil War Raging from 1642 to 1651, the English Civil War pitted the Royalists against the Parliamentarians and divided family loyalties along religious and political lines. Through dramatized eyewitness accounts, historic images and reenactments of key battles, this documentary explores the turmoil that engulfed England. Expert commentary explains the complex military and political maneuverings that set the course of British history for centuries to come.
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The English Civil War was not, as is often portrayed, a war between dashing Cavaliers and sombre Parliamentarians, these are just typecast roles and are as false as modern stereotypes. It was a war between Englishmen; both armies contained the nobility, gentlemen, craftsmen and the common man. This was in essence a political war fought over constitutional issues between a King who claimed to rule by divine right and a Parliament that professed to have rights and privileges independent of the crown; defining the role of Monarch, Parliament and the military for centuries to come. Its effects in many areas can still be seen today; for example in the way that the military today swears loyalty to the crown (with the Monarch as its Commander-in-Chief) but is funded (on an annual basis) by Parliament.
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During the Civil War Liverpool was a divided town. The burgesses led by John, later colonel, Moore, were overwhelmingly Puritan. However, this was counterbalanced with Royalists having control of the Castle and the Tower; key strategic points in any civil conflict. Moreover, John Walker, the town’s mayor in 1642, was ... sympathetic to the Royalist cause and actually received a letter from Charles thanking him for his activity in support of the monarchy during the early days of the Civil War. Walker had problems within the town, however. John Moore, the key figure among the burgesses, threatened Walker with imprisonment and transportation if he did not relent in his support for Charles.
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