Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex - Role in Starting The English Civil War: 1640-1642

Role in Starting The English Civil War: 1640-1642

When Charles convened the Short Parliament in 1640 he had ruled without Parliament for 11 years. He was forced to call another one to raise money to fight insurgencies in Scotland and Ireland. However many Parliamentarians sought to use the new Parliament to bring the King to account. Relations between Charles and his Parliament quickly broke down.

Essex was a strong Protestant and he had a reputation for being one of the puritan nobles in the House of Lords. He was friends with John Pym, one of the strongest critics of Charles in the House of Commons during the Short Parliament and its successor the Long Parliament.

In 1641, Parliament passed a Bill of Attainder against the King's minister Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford who was fiercely loyal to Charles. This resulted in Strafford's execution: of all Strafford's enemies Essex was perhaps the most implacable, dismissing appeals for mercy with the proverb Stone dead hath no fellow. In an attempt at reconciliation with Parliament, Charles gave royal assent to the Bill of Attainder and invited leading Parliamentary critics to join his Privy Council.

Essex supported the action against Strafford and was appointed to the Privy Council. He was made Captain General of the royal armed forces south of the River Trent in February and was made Lord Chamberlain in July. However the relationship between Charles and his Parliament deteriorated further.

On 4 January 1642, Charles went to the House of Commons to arrest Pym and four other members for their alleged treason. Essex had tipped off the five members about what the King was planning to do. Charles was humiliated when he entered the House of Commons only to find that the five members had fled. In that same month Essex began to absent himself from Charles's court. In April he was dismissed from the office of Lord Chamberlain when he failed to join the King at York. His position as Captain-General of the southern forces was deemed to have lapsed.

As the unprecedented prospect of a military confrontation between the King and Parliament grew, on 4 July 1642 Parliament voted to create a Committee of Safety consisting of ten Members of the House of Commons and five peers, of which Essex was one alongside the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Holland and Viscount Saye and Sele. Pym, John Hampden and Denzil Holles were the leading members of the committee from the Commons. This committee was supposed to act as a bridge between Members of Parliament and the armed forces supporting them in the field. At this point these armies primarily consisted of regional defence militias and city trained bands who were sympathetic to the Parliamentary cause.

On 12 July Parliament went one step further and voted to raise an army of its own. As one of the few English nobles with any military experience, Essex was chosen to lead it. The Parliamentary ordinance that was passed proclaimed Essex to be: "Captain-General and Chief Commander of the Army appointed to be raised, and of all other Forces of the Kingdom...and that he the said Earl shall have and enjoy all Power, Titles, Preheminence, Authority, Jurisdiction, and Liberties, incident and belonging to the said Office of Captain-General, throughout the whole Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales, in as large and ample a Manner as any other General of an Army in this Kingdom hath lawfully used exercised, and enjoyed." He accepted the commission.