ABSTRACT

In the late summer of 1642 Charles I resorted to war in an attempt to enforce his royal will on his recalcitrant parliament, and for the next four years England experienced a fullscale and increasingly bitter civil war. Few parts of the country remained entirely untouched by the damaging consequences of this ‘war without an enemy’, and many thousands of men and women experienced at first hand the destructive effects of the fighting. In addition to the large numbers of deaths and injuries resulting from the numerous pitched battles, sieges and sackings, the war created widespread economic dislocation and major disruption to social and familial relationships. One particularly telling indicator of the scale of its impact is the suggestion of the historian Charles Carlton (1992) that a higher proportion of English males saw active military service during the 1640s than during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. This chapter will outline the major events of the civil war, before deciding how much responsibility Charles himself should bear for his military defeat in 1646.