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A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 2 (of 6) cover

A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 60: BOOK IX. THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR. 1642-1646.
By Leopold von Ranke
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History - BritishHistory - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)

About This Book

The volume traces political developments in seventeenth-century England, focusing on periods when the crown governed without parliamentary consent, its fiscal and religious policies, and the growth of ecclesiastical and constitutional conflict. It examines diplomatic relations and military engagements with continental powers, the escalation of disputes with Scotland over church governance and covenanting resistance, and efforts at negotiation that repeatedly failed. The narrative follows the widening breach between royal authority and representative institutions, the reorganization of military forces, factional divisions at home, and the progression from political crisis into armed struggle culminating in the monarch’s downfall.

BOOK IX.
THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR. 1642-1646.

In the states of Western Europe constitutional rights from a very early date had contended for the mastery against the supreme executive authority: but this strife assumed a new character, as to the principles involved and the system on which it was waged, from the date when the spiritual questions raised by religious controversy came to be mixed up with those purely political. In this respect creed made no difference. Starting from the demand for ecclesiastical uniformity, the French earliest of all sought, under the impulse of Catholic fanaticism, to confine their government within the narrowest limits in the sphere of politics also. In the year 1576 the Estates at Blois asked the assent of the crown to the resolutions passed by them: they wanted to exclude from the Privy Council all members hostile to them. In 1585 the Guises at the head of the Catholic League proposed assemblies of the Estates, recurring regularly every three years, which should keep a reckoning between prince and people. The chief among several grievances which roused the population of Paris to insurrection against Henry III was the tolerance accorded to the Huguenots in contravention of the old laws of the land. In the assembly of 1588 the Estates formulated the demand that the King not only should administer the finances with their co-operation, but also should in future neither declare war nor conclude peace without them. In the assembly of 1593 they proceeded to dispose of the crown itself: the doctrine was, that if the King disregarded the fundamental laws of his kingdom, namely the spiritual laws, his authority reverted to those by whom it had been conferred, that is to say, the Estates. It was only the departure of Henry III from the capital, and the military exploits of Henry IV, that preserved the personal authority of the French kings.

We may perceive at a glance the manifold analogies between the English events of which we are now treating, and those which had taken place in France half a century earlier. Both began through a desire to make the recognition of the exclusive dominance of one religion effectively binding on a government not decidedly inclined to that party: in both the one-sided tolerance displayed by the princes formed one of the chief grounds of complaint against them: the demand was not only for the full execution of the ecclesiastical laws, but also for the unconditional validity of the resolutions passed by the assembly of the Estates wherein these opinions prevailed, for periodic meetings of the Estates, and the dependence on them of the highest officials and of the entire administration—with this difference, that what in the one kingdom was desired for the benefit of Catholicism, in the other was meant to aid the Protestant cause. The religious principles were opposed to one another, the political were to a large extent identical.

In England however all was more deeply rooted and more firmly established than in France. The preponderance of Parliament was far more a matter of historical usage than the power of the Three Estates in France: it had grown up in far more intimate union with the feelings and habits of men. Further, while in France the motives derived from foreign connexions occupied the whole foreground, and were as clear as daylight, in England such motives were weaker and more obscure: the movement assumed a prevailing national colour. When at last after long disputes every chance of a peaceful result had vanished, it was obvious that in England the war must involve far greater danger to the crown. From the different development of the contending principles in the two countries arose the divergence in their later history. At that time the English crown was not yet without military resources, and the example of France might serve as an encouragement to challenge the fortunes of war on the King’s behalf. The English capital had taken as active a part in favour of the Puritan Parliament as the French capital for the exclusively Catholic Estates. Charles I had been obliged to quit Westminster and London as Henry III had quitted Paris: since the successor of the latter had within a few years made himself master of Paris, and had brought about a reaction at least in politics, might not the same future be possible for Charles I also?