The
English Civil War (1641–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between
Parliamentarians and
Royalists. The
first (1642–46) and
second (1648–49)
civil wars pitted the supporters of
King Charles I against the supporters of the
Long Parliament, while the
third war (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of
King Charles II and supporters of the
Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the
Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.
The Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son, Charles II, and replacement of English monarchy with first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–53), and then with a Protectorate (1653–59), under Oliver Cromwell's personal rule. The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although this concept was established only with the Glorious Revolution later in the century.
The term English Civil War appears most commonly in the singular form, although historians often divide the conflict into two or three separate wars. Although the term describes events as impinging on England, from the outset the conflicts involved wars with and civil wars within both Scotland and Ireland; see Wars of the Three Kingdoms for an overview.
Unlike other civil wars in England, which focused on who ruled, this war also concerned itself with the manner of governing Britain and Ireland. Historians sometimes refer to the English Civil War as the English Revolution and works such as the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica call it the Great Rebellion. Marxist historians such as Christopher Hill (1912–2003) have long favoured the term English Revolution.
