English Civil War

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") principally over the manner of England's governance and part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The first (1642–1646) and second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651.
Unlike other civil wars in England, which were mainly fought over who should rule, these conflicts were also concerned with how the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland were to be governed. The outcome was threefold: the trial and execution of Charles I (1649); the exile of his son, Charles II (1651); and the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then the Protectorate, which as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland unified the British Isles under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658) and briefly his son Richard (1658–1659). The execution of Charles I was particularly notable given that an English king had never been executed before. In England, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship was ended, while in Ireland the victors consolidated the established Protestant Ascendancy. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was only legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.
==References==
 
Category:Charles I of England
Category:Civil wars in England
Category:Wars involving England
Category:Wars involving Scotland
Category:Wars involving Ireland