First English Civil War - Motivations

Motivations

On the side of the King were enlisted:

• a deep-seated loyalty resulting from two centuries of effective royal protection;
• a pure cavalier spirit, foreshadowing the courtier era of Charles II, but still strongly tinged with the old feudal indiscipline;
• the militarism of an expert soldier nobility, well represented by Prince Rupert; and
• a widespread mistrust of extreme Puritanism, which appeared unreasonable to the Viscount Falkland and other philosophic statesmen, and intolerable to every other class of Royalists.

The first and last of these motives animated the foot-soldiers of the Royal armies. These sturdy rustics who followed their squires to the war, saw the enemy as rebels and fanatics. The cavalry, which was composed largely of the higher social orders, the rebels were, in addition, bourgeois, while the soldiers of fortune from the German wars felt all the regulars' contempt for citizen militia.

The other side of the war saw the causes of the quarrel primarily and apparently as political, but ultimately and really felt them as religious. Thus, the elements of resistance in Parliament and the nation were at first confused, and, later, strong and direct. Democracy, moderate republicanism, and the simple desire for constitutional guarantees could hardly make head of themselves against the various forces of royalism, for the most moderate men of either party were sufficiently in sympathy to admit compromise. But the backbone of resistance was the Puritan element, and this waging war at first with the rest on the political issue, soon (as the Royalists anticipated) brought the religious issue to the front.

The Presbyterian system, even more rigid than that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud and the other bishops, whom no man on either side except Charles himself supported, seemed destined for replacement by the Independents and by their ideal of free conscience. But for a generation before the war broke out, the system had disciplined and trained the middle classes of the nation (who furnished the bulk of the rebel infantry, and later, of the cavalry also) to centre their will on the attainment of their ideals. The ideals changed during the struggle, but not the capacity for striving for them, and the men capable of the effort finally came to the front, and imposed their ideals on the rest by the force of their trained wills.

Parliamentary party had the stronger material force. They controlled the navy, the nucleus of an army that was being organised for the Irish war, and nearly all the financial resources of the country. They had the sympathies of most of the large towns, where the trained bands, drilled once a month, provided cadres for new regiments. Also, by recognising that war was likely, they prepared for war before Royalists did.

The Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Manchester, and other nobles and gentry of the Parliamentary party, had great wealth and territorial influence. On the other hand, Charles could raise men without authority from Parliament by using impressment and the Lords-Lieutenant, but could not raise taxes to support them. Thus he depended on financial support from his adherents, such as the Earl of Newcastle and the Earl of Derby.