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The Bat Bomb Invention and Other Odd Facts from History and War

Khalid Elhassan May 10, 2020 33 min

2. A Catholic Fighting For a Protestant King

By the time he returned to England in 1640, Sir Arthur Aston was a grizzled and highly experienced professional soldier during the war. He commanded a regiment for King Charles I in the Second Bishops’ War against the Scots, but his Catholicism became an issue. Catholics back then were legally prohibited from a variety of public positions, and expressly barred from serving as army officers. The outcry forced Aston to resign, but as consolation for his efforts, Charles knighted him.

When the English Civil War erupted in 1642 between the king and his royalist supporters, pitted against the forces of Parliament, Aston, now Sir Arthur, sought to join Charles’ forces, but was initially rejected because of his Catholicism. As the royalist cause deteriorated, however, desperation and the intercession of Prince Rupert, the king’s nephew and main military commander, finally convinced Charles I to commission him into the royalist army.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.