ABSTRACT
During the opening weeks of civil war Charles lurched from one emotional extreme to the other. These early weeks of the war were some of the most traumatic of Charles's life. Charles's method of raising an army was to issue commissions to local supporters to recruit regiments on his behalf. The manifesto that Charles issued to his army at Wellington on 19 September became a highly significant political event. In England, news of negotiations with the Irish Catholics was relentlessly exploited by parliament's propagandists and undermined support for Charles among Londoners at a crucial juncture in June 1643. Charles supported Hamilton and launched a northern propaganda offensive in which he circulated declarations announcing his hatred of popery and his determination to stand by the laws passed in Scotland in 1641. The direction exercised by Charles and the council of war was for the most part confined to the Oxford army.
