Third English Civil War

The Third English Civil War (1649–1651) was the last of the English Civil Wars (1642–1651), a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists.

The Preston campaign of the Second Civil War was undertaken under the direction of the Scots Parliament, not the Kirk, and it took the execution of King Charles I to bring about a union of all Scottish parties against the English Independents. Even so, Charles II in exile had to submit to long negotiations and hard conditions before he was allowed to put himself at the head of the Scottish armies. The Marquess of Huntly was executed for taking up arms for the king on 22 March 1649.

The Marquess of Montrose, under the direction of Charles II, made a last attempt to rally the Scottish Royalists early in 1650. But Charles II merely used Montrose as a threat to obtain better conditions for himself from the Covenanters. When Montrose was defeated at the Battle of Carbisdale on 27 April, delivered up to his pursuers on 4 May, and executed on 21 May 1650, Charles II gave way to the demands of the Covenanters and placed himself at their head. Charles II now tried to regain the throne through an alliance with his father's former enemies in Scotland, who intended to impose Presbyterianism on England. He dismissed all the faithful Cavaliers who had followed him to exile.

As the Royal army was mostly Scottish, and as the invasion was not accompanied by any major rising or support in England, the war can also be viewed as being primarily an Anglo-Scottish War rather than a continuation of the English Civil War.

Read more about Third English Civil War:  Cromwell in Ireland, English Invasion of Scotland, Operations Around Edinburgh, Dunbar, Royalism in Scotland, English Militia, Inverkeithing, Third Scottish Invasion of England, Worcester Campaign, Battle of Worcester

Famous quotes containing the words civil war, english, civil and/or war:

    During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.
    —Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    He utters substantial English thoughts in plainest English dialects.... Indeed, for fluency and skill in the use of the English tongue, he is a master unrivaled. His felicity and power of expression surpass even his special merits as historian and critic.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    ... as a result of generations of betrayal, it’s nearly impossible for Southern Negroes to trust a Southern white. No matter what he does or what he suffers, a white liberal is never established beyond suspicion in the hearts of the minority.
    Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 10 (1962)

    He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.
    Mario Puzo (b. 1920)