ABSTRACT
The First Civil War is the decisive event in English history. The defeat of the King’s armies alone enabled Parliamentary institutions to triumph. As the war dragged on, neutrals were everywhere forced to abandon their neutrality by the particular attention they received from both parties. But the hired labourer in the field remained neutral to the end. In a few villages he enlisted under Puritan influence; in many he followed his landlord to war; in all he was the victim of the press-gang. This war, as compared to nearly all that preceded it and to nearly all that during two centuries followed it, was eminently humane. The end was only delayed because Charles was hampered at the crisis of his fate by want of munitions and engines of war, the result of want of money and of sea communication.
