6. The English Civil War was a bloody affair that ended in Oliver Cromwell defeating the king.
As bad a king as Charles was, not everyone wanted him to be removed altogether. After all, England had had a king since the days of the great Anglo-Saxon Athelstan in the 9th century. Generally speaking, the North was Royalist and the South Parliamentarian, but whole families were split on the issue of whether they should support king or Parliament, and the bloody conflict that erupted over the next seven years left a lasting legacy. The first battle was at Edgehill, Warwickshire, in October 1642, and resulted in a rough draw. Parliament however had access to London, ports, and taxes.
We haven’t got space to go into the specifics of the English Civil War here, but the Parliamentarians, or Roundheads, were led by Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax to victory over the Royalists, or Cavaliers. Charles himself was taken prisoner at Newark in 1647, and the war ground to a temporary halt. He escaped, however, and from his hideout on the Isle of Wight he plotted to invade and retake England. The Battle of Preston in 1648 saw the end of Royalist hopes, and Charles was arrested after negotiations failed at the behest of Cromwell and his radical supporters.
