Jump to content

Talk:English Civil War/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Talk:English Civil War
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Aurevilly (talk | contribs) at 14:13, 18 December 2004 (→British Civil Wars: spelling "Britain"). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The new introduction by Isis is interesting. I'm not sure how many people are likely to be confused into thinking that the term English Civil War could mean the Wars of the Roses or the war between Stephen and Matilda (which is usually called "the Anarchy" - is there already an article on that?) Anyone else got an opinion? Deb

That information in the first paragraph is unnecessary and clutters up the article. A person who comes looking for information on the English Civil War should not have to wade through a bunch of references to wars that took place centuries earlier.

I was thinking of writing an article at English Revolution, which would discuss the English Civil War of 1640 from a revolutionary perspective, drawing on Christopher Hill's work, for example. I don't know where that fits in with the above question, but I thought I'd mention it here anyway! -- Sam

That sounds interesting, too. I assume you would do something to differentiate it from the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Deb

Does the American Revolution deserve mention as an English Civil War? (Or do civil wars where the secessionists win not count?)

Interesting point. But America was a colony, no? Not part of England itself, really. Otherwise we would call all the rebellions in colonies "civil wars" -- no I don't think it does count. Not because of who won, but the fact that it didn't happen in England. -- Sam
Read The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, and the Triumph of Anglo–America, by Kevin Phillips. His thesis is that the English Civil War, the American Revoultion, and the American Civil War are all one long drawn-out war with the same combatants. -- Zoe

It seems conspicious that the only modern historian mentioned by name in this article is Christopher Hill. It seems like a stretch to draw Marxist allusions into the English Civil War, especially considering that it's given more than twice the real estate and more credence here than the Puritan theory or any other theories.


I don't like this artice, as it's got plenty of serious deficancies. I'm probably going to rewrite the article sometime this week. Just so you know. Alun Ephraim 13:31, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. While Christopher Hill was a brilliant historian, he was, well, mostly wrong about everything (In fact, the most brilliant historians usually tend to be mostly wrong about everything - odd how that works out). Bringing in other (less discredited) views is certainly to be welcomed. john 18:46, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What needs to be added to it is more stuff on the Religious tensions of the period, and also putting it into the context of the Thirty Years War. I might do a seperate article on the English Revolution though Alun Ephraim 14:44, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

English Civil War?

I know that "English Civil War" is a common name for this conflict, but I think it's misleading because properly speaking there were two English Civil wars (1642-1645 and 1648-1650) during the conflict and simultaneous connected wars in Scotland and Ireland. Is there a better overall title for the whole conflict? [Yes, see below] If so, we should think about moving this article there. (Note: Google gives 52,900 for "civil+war cromwell" but only 15,300 for "english+civil+war cromwell" so I don't think I'm alone in this unease about the name.) Gdr 09:51, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)

I've never heard any other term used. People in England are likely to say just "Civil War" unqualified, just as Americans do for their ACW, and you can see that from looking at some of the pages Google finds. To actually have 1/3 of the hits be qualified with "English" is actually a ringing endorsement. Some people will pluralize, but I think that looks like a blanket term covering previous conflicts. Stan 12:57, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'd say English Civil War is fine. Of course, there were various specific conflicts which can have their own articles - First English Civil War, Second English Civil War, and the various Scottish and Irish conflicts that were associated. But I think this is fine for a general article. john k 15:16, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Anything else would cause more confusion than it resolved. Deb 17:03, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Royalists call it the 'Interregnum' - Latin for 'between rules'

You may be slightly confused. The war itself was not "between rules" - the interregnum was the period between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the Restoration in 1660, also known as the Commonwealth. Deb 18:20, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There have been very significant developments on this in recent years. The English civil war is now often seen as just one conflict in a series of conflicts accross the whole of the British Isles (see my comment on the 'History of Scotland' discussion page) These series of interelated conflicts are now often referred to as the 'British Civil Wars' or even 'The Wars of the three kingdoms'. These theories on the civil war argue that the civil war in England cannot be understood in isolation to events in other parts of Britian and Ireland. The role of King Charles I is still crucial, but not just as the king of England. The causes of the civil wars have been suggested as being a consequence of the problems of one king ruling over multiple kingdoms. For eg. trying to impose a uniform religion on all his kingdoms (which caused the Scottish covenanters to rebel), and then having to deal with rebellion in Ireland from the Confederates. Also events in one kingdom had a knock on effect in another, (eg. having to raise taxes in England to quell the rebellion in Scotland) leading to an escalation of the conflict which became increasingly difficult to control. This is not to say that there were not specific reasons for conflict in each country, just that the king had to juggle all these different conflicts at the same time. see http://www.historybookshop.com/articles/commentary/civil-wars-of-three-kingdoms-ht.asp --Cap 15:10, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC) I've now added some of this information onto the "theories relating to the civil war" section which previously said that revisionist historians had not come up with any new theories. --Cap 23:56, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Here's a proposal for how the articles about these conflicts should be structured: an overview article somewhere like Wars of the Three Kingdoms and then detailed articles on the individual wars. The detailed history of the conflict of 1642–1645 should stay here at English Civil War as it is the most well-known of the conflicts, with First English Civil War redirecting here. (I'm not keen on Wars of the Three Kingdoms because of the more famous Three Kingdoms of ancient China. But I don't like British Civil Wars either because some of them weren't British.) Gdr 12:08, 2004 Aug 30 (UTC)

I've now created a page called Wars of the Three Kingdoms and have produced a time-line of the conflicts (1639-51) although this needs more work after 1642. I was basing it on the section in Norman Davies' Book The Isles: A History which has a good overview aswell as the timeline which is linked to on the webpage quoted above. This includes the Bishops' Wars and Covenanters in Scotland and the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the subsequent conflicts in Confederate Ireland 1642-9 and Cromwells conquest of Ireland in 1649 as well as the 2 (or 3?) English civil wars. There does seem to be some confusion about the labelling of the non-English conflicts. they are not given simple overall titles like the English Civil War is, there does seem to be somthing called the Scottish Civil War (1644-5)[1] although on James Graham, 1st_Marquess_of_Montrose#The_English_Civil_War this is referred to as part of the English Civil War. Also there appear to be no wikipedia entries on any of the Irish conflicts. --Cap 12:03, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've always thought that the Scottish fighting that occurred between 1642 and 1645 was so closely tied to the fighting in England as to be considered essentially the same war. Obviously, in addition to this war (or wars), you have the 2nd English Civil War, the two bishops' wars, the various wars going on in Ireland, and some later Scottish action (Notably the 1650-1651 rebellion where Charles II got crowned). But yeah, a lot of it doesn't really have clear names. I do wonder about the faddish nature of the name Wars of the Three Kingdoms. This is something of a neologism, and I'm not sure it's appropriate to discuss the idea as though it is fact - I would imagine that there are still at least a few historians who would dispute such a designation on the merits, and certainly there are many who would dispute the use of such a designation as the generic term for the conflict. (That is to say, for aesthetic, or traditionalistic reasons, rather than out of a sense that there was not actually a series of conflict occurring in the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland). Anyway, I think we ought to be careful about this, and not dismantle the current English Civil War article. john k 22:35, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

British Civil Wars

User:Philip Baird Shearer cut the phrase "these conflicts are also known as the British Civil Wars" with the comment "Britain did not exist at the time of the English Civil war". I restored the comment as (1) Britain did exist: "Britain" is not identical with the Kingdom of Great Britain and (2) the conflicts are commonly known as the British Civil Wars: a Google search for "british civil wars" returns more than 3,000 hits, the top hits clearly referring to the 1638-1651 conflicts. Gdr 12:14, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

Many Irish people would dispute that Ireland is part of the British Isles geographically. They would argue that the term implies political connections because it is used exclusively for those islands ruled by the British monarchy and Ireland (which used to be). Why include the Shetland islands and exclude the Faroe islands; or the Channel islands and ignore French controlled islands; if it is not a geographical representation of a political creation?
As Britain was not a political entity to use the term is misleading. There can not have been a "British Civil War" at that time any more that "World War I" was a "European Civil War". Once you go down that line you will have to include all the wars between England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland since at least 1066 as British Civil wars and that would be silly. If you were to start arguing that 1715 and 1745, and the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-1921 were British Civil wars you would be technically correct by they are never referred to as that. Philip Baird Shearer 12:48, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The term may be misleading but it is in common use so I think the article should reflect that. I adjusted the lead section to explain why the term is misleading. How is it now? Gdr 13:04, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

They were British civil wars in the sense that there were civil wars in Scotland (between Covenanters and royalists) in England (between parliamentarians and royalists) and in Ireland (between Catholics, Protestant royalists, and Protestant supporters of the (English) parliament). john k 21:53, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See British Isles#Subsequent political history and British Isles#Problems with modern usage. Many Irish people would argue that wars in Ireland were (are) not British civil wars (they were (are) Irish civil wars). With the wars in Scotland and the Wars in England by the logic you are using, one could also call them European Civil wars. Britain did not come into existence as a political entity until the Act of Union 1707, it is disengenious to use the term, and just like calling them European Civil wars it does not bring clarity to the subject. Philip Baird Shearer 22:19, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The Irish problem with the term "British" is modern, the civil wars all took place in the geographical area of the British Isles - misleading is a fair description, "incorrect" projects modern politics backwards. dave souza 00:24, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The lead section looks fine now. Gdr 23:25, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

The introduction now defines the term "English Civil War" as a synonym for the term "Wars of the three kingdoms", the series of conflicts in Scotland and Ireland aswell as England. Is this article about the Civil War in England or throughout the British Isles? I know it is difficult to separate the two as they are so related and that the term English Civil War has been used to include conflicts in Scotland and Ireland; but this does need clarifying. This article should focus on the Civil War in England only, and only include events in Scotland and Ireland in terms of how they affect the English Civil War. There should be separarate articles on the Civil War in Scotland and Ireland, and Wars of the Three Kingdoms should look at the overall view, looking at the interrelation between all three of Charles' Kingdoms. What does everyone else think? --81.153.61.200 12:21, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That sounds about right to me, although the Scottish war, in particular, is tied in very closely with the English conflict. john k 18:57, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The evidence from British Isles and IONA is that the term "British Isles" was used as a geographical term for the isles including Ireland in the 17th century, but in the 20th century became politically unacceptable to Irish nationalists. Thus "British Civil Wars" is geographically accurate, but in addition to treading on current sensibilities it has the misleading suggestion of a British state at the time and civil wars could be held to exclude the Bishops Wars, so the Wars of the Three Kingdoms is much preferred. The "English Civil War" title is well established in English histories, but is obviously a daft term for Montrose, for example, when all his fights were in Scotland. Keeping this article with an English focus makes sense provided there are suitable links to fuller descriptions of the intertwining conflicts elsewhere. dave souza 21:51, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Important People.

hi i'm cool_girl_needs_info, i think that this site needs the most important people of the civil war on it, like Oliver Crommwell, and Prince Rupert. Becdause when people like me are trying to do homwork we cn't find the info i need


Important People.

hi i'm cool_girl_needs_info, i think that this site needs the most important people of the civil war on it, like Oliver Crommwell, and Prince Rupert. Becdause when people like me are trying to do homwork we cn't find the info i need

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:English_Civil_War/Archive_1&oldid=8557243"