Civil War, Republic and Restoration
Charles I and Personal Rule 1629–1640
Charles I became king in 1625 and quickly clashed with Parliament over money and religion. Charles believed in the divine right of kings — the idea that his authority came directly from God, not from Parliament. Parliament, increasingly influenced by Puritan MPs, distrusted his religious policies (suspecting a Catholic drift) and his reliance on unpopular royal advisers such as the Duke of Buckingham.
In 1629, after Parliament passed a motion condemning his religious and financial policies while MPs physically held the Speaker in his chair, Charles dissolved Parliament and refused to call another. From 1629 to 1640 he governed without Parliament — a period known as the Personal Rule (also called the Eleven Years’ Tyranny by critics).
Charles I revived ship money in 1634 (for coastal towns) and extended it to inland counties in 1635. Without parliamentary approval, this was seen as an illegal tax. When John Hampden refused to pay in 1637, the resulting court case attracted national attention even though Charles technically won.
The Collapse of Personal Rule
Personal Rule ended when Charles’s attempt to impose a new Prayer Book on Scotland in 1637 provoked a Scottish rebellion (the Bishops’ Wars). To fund an army against the Scots, Charles had to call Parliament. The Short Parliament (April–May 1640) refused to grant money without addressing its grievances, so Charles dissolved it. The Long Parliament, called in November 1640, was determined not to be dismissed so easily.
The Long Parliament, led by John Pym, immediately moved to limit royal power: it abolished ship money, outlawed the Personal Rule’s courts, passed the Triennial Act (requiring Parliament to meet at least every three years), and — most remarkably — passed the Attainder of Strafford, forcing Charles to execute his own chief minister. By 1641, Charles had accepted more constraints on royal power than any previous English monarch.
Civil war erupted in 1642 when negotiations between Charles and Parliament broke down completely. In January 1642 Charles attempted to arrest five Members of Parliament for treason — including John Pym — but they had been tipped off and escaped. The attempt to use force against Parliament’s members was a constitutional outrage that alienated many who had previously supported the king.
The Civil War was not a simple conflict between royalists and parliamentarians. Religious, regional and social divisions cut across political ones. Many people tried to stay neutral. The Parliamentarians ultimately won because of the superior financial resources of London and the south-east, and the military reorganisation of their forces — culminating in the creation of the New Model Army in 1645.
Regicide and the Commonwealth
Charles I was captured, tried and executed on 30 January 1649. The trial was a constitutional revolution: a king charged by his own Parliament, convicted of making war on his own people, and executed publicly at Whitehall. The act of regicide shocked European courts and large parts of English opinion. Yet it also established, in the most dramatic way possible, the principle that monarchy was accountable.
Between 1649 and 1660 England was governed as a Commonwealth and then Protectorate. Oliver Cromwell served as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death in 1658. Parliament without a king proved unstable: Cromwell dissolved Parliament himself in 1653, ruling through a written constitution (the Instrument of Government) — ironically replicating some of the personal-rule problems he had fought against.
The execution of Charles I in 1649 was the most dramatic assertion that monarchy was accountable and could be removed. Even though monarchy was restored in 1660, no subsequent British monarch could ignore this precedent: the king could be killed if he governed tyrannically.
After Cromwell’s death, the various factions could not agree on a successor and General George Monck marched south to restore order. Charles II was invited back from exile in the Declaration of Breda (April 1660), in which he promised a general pardon, religious toleration, and to leave the settlement of disputed questions to Parliament. The Restoration was conditional — Parliament had dictated the terms.
The restored monarchy was constitutionally weaker than Charles I had claimed to be. Ship money was gone; the prerogative courts were gone; the Triennial Act was in force. Parliament expected to be consulted on taxation. The execution of Charles I had permanently altered what was politically possible: no Stuart king after 1660 could plausibly claim to govern without Parliament for long, as the crisis over James II would shortly demonstrate.