Causes of the British Civil Wars (Radio Edit)

Summary

Summary of "Causes of the British Civil Wars" Episode of You're Dead to Me

You're Dead to Me is a BBC Radio 4 comedy podcast hosted by Greg Jenner, blending humor with historical insights. In the episode titled "Causes of the British Civil Wars (Radio Edit)", released on May 9, 2025, Jenner delves into the intricate web of factors that led to the British Civil Wars of the 17th century. Joined by historian Dr. Jonathan Healey and comedian Toussaint Douglas, the discussion navigates through political strife, economic turmoil, and religious conflicts that culminated in a decade-long civil war.

Introduction to the British Civil Wars

The episode kicks off with Greg Jenner setting the stage for the exploration of the British Civil Wars, also known as the English Civil War or the War of the Three Kingdoms. Dr. Jonathan Healey, an associate professor in Social History at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, provides academic depth with his expertise, while Toussaint Douglas brings a comedic perspective to the historical discourse.

Monarchical and Parliamentary Tensions (00:36 - 04:00)

Dr. Healey begins by tracing the origins of the conflict back to the reign of James I, highlighting the king’s financial struggles and strained relationship with Parliament. The crux of the issue lay in "tonnage and poundage," a tax on imports and exports traditionally granted to the monarch for life. Under King Charles I, Parliament renegotiated this agreement, limiting the royal prerogative to levy these taxes without parliamentary consent. Charles’s refusal to comply led to significant friction, setting the stage for broader conflicts.

Toussaint Douglas (02:31): "Don't wanna. Yeah, I'll leave it to him mostly. But just to say that I dipped my toes in some milk."

Religious and Social Strains (04:00 - 07:06)

Charles I’s marriage to Princess Henrietta Maria of France, a Catholic, exacerbated existing religious tensions. The rise of High Church Anglicans under Archbishop William Laud pushed for more ceremonial practices in the church, alarming Puritans and Calvinists who feared a slide back into Catholicism. Social pressures, including population growth leading to housing shortages and high food prices, further destabilized the era, culminating in riots and widespread dissatisfaction.

Greg Jenner (07:08): "What you're saying there is that one of the key reasons that caused Britain to plunge into civil war was a disagreement over interior design. Is that what we're saying here?"

Economic Pressures and Political Maneuvering (07:06 - 10:43)

Economic hardship, driven by inflation and poor harvests, intensified public unrest. Charles I’s attempt to rule without Parliament, known as the "Personal Rule," lasted eleven years but relied on controversial measures like ship money, an ill-received tax originally meant for naval defense but extended inland under Charles’s directive. This unilateral approach alienated Parliament, fuelling further discord.

Toussaint Douglas (08:29): "I love the idea of just the messenger just outside the door. Like, I can hear you. I know you're in there. Like, just open the door. Like, this isn't cool, guys."

Rise of Parliamentary Leadership and Key Figures (10:43 - 15:43)

As tensions mounted, John Pym emerged as a leading parliamentary figure, challenging Charles’s policies and advocating for greater parliamentary control. The execution of Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, further strained relations, especially after his administration in Ireland led to rebellion and violence. These events underscored the deepening divide between royalists and parliamentarians.

Toussaint Douglas (15:36): "20 years. This guy is so random. I don't. I wouldn't know where. If I was a parliamentarian, I just wouldn't know where I stand with him."

Escalation Towards Civil War (15:43 - 22:35)

The Long Parliament—a term reflecting its unprecedented duration of twenty years—introduced significant legislative changes, including the Triennial Act, which mandated regular sessions regardless of the king’s summons. This shift represented a constitutional revolution, diminishing the monarch's control over Parliament. Meanwhile, escalating violence in Ireland and the oppressive measures taken by Charles exacerbated the situation, leading to a polarized political landscape.

Declaration of War and Outbreak of Civil War (22:35 - 25:15)

By 1642, mutual distrust had peaked. Charles I’s attempt to arrest five members of Parliament, culminating in the dramatic event where "Charles had basically taken an armed gang down to Parliament and threatened to arrest them" (22:35), alarmed the political nation. Concurrently, Parliament’s efforts to raise militias without royal consent clashed with Charles’s use of Commissions of Array to muster forces loyal to the crown. The culmination of these tensions saw Charles raise the Royal Standard in Nottingham on August 22, 1642, officially declaring war.

Toussaint Douglas (24:12): "And it was a great base for raising troops in the Midlands and also possibly going over towards Wales, where Charles knew that he had a lot of support."

Humorous Interlude and Reflections (25:15 - 27:36)

In a comedic twist, Toussaint Douglas muses about which side he might have chosen, ultimately jesting his allegiance to the royalist cause for the sake of fun. This light-hearted banter provides a humorous respite from the heavy historical discourse.

Toussaint Douglas (25:12): "I think I might go, Charles, you know, I think I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna. I think I'm royalist. Yeah, it just sounds a little bit more fun. Just a little bit."

Nuance and Broader Context (27:24 - 28:18)

Dr. Healey emphasizes that while King Charles I played a significant role, the civil war was also a product of broader societal, economic, and ideological factors. The complexity of religious affiliations and regional differences across England, Scotland, and Ireland made governance exceedingly challenging. The historian cautions against attributing the conflict solely to Charles’s failings, highlighting the multifaceted nature of the underlying issues.

Dr. Jonathan Healey (27:24): "But it's important to think of other things that are going on. He's dealt a very, very difficult hand."

Conclusion and Final Thoughts (28:10 - 28:18)

The episode wraps up with Jenner thanking the guests and encouraging listeners to explore related historical topics in future episodes. Toussaint Douglas adds a humorous note before the episode concludes.

Key Takeaways

• Economic Strain: Inflation and population growth led to high food prices and housing shortages, causing widespread unrest.
• Political Conflict: Disputes over taxation and royal prerogative strained relations between the monarchy and Parliament.
• Religious Tensions: The imposition of High Church practices alarmed Puritans and Calvinists, fueling fears of a return to Catholicism.
• Long Parliament: The persistent parliamentary body enacted significant reforms, reducing the king’s influence and setting the stage for conflict.
• Outbreak of War: Charles I’s aggressive actions, including efforts to arrest MPs and raise an armed force, directly led to the declaration of civil war.

This episode of You're Dead to Me masterfully intertwines humor with historical analysis, offering listeners a comprehensive and engaging exploration of the British Civil Wars' causes. By balancing scholarly insight with comedic relief, Jenner and his guests make complex historical events accessible and entertaining.

Transcript

[Greg Jenner]

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[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

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[Greg Jenner]

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[Toussaint Douglas]

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[Greg Jenner]

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[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

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[Greg Jenner]

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[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Hello and welcome to you're Dead to me, the Radio Foil comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we're getting political. We're traveling back to the 17th century to discover the causes of the British Civil Wars. You might call them English Civil War. We'll explain later. And to help us separate the royalists from the radicals, we have two very special guests in History Corner. He's associate professor in Social History at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, where his research focuses on the social history of early modern England. You might have read his incredible book, the Blazing A New History of Revolutionary England. He's also the author of a forthcoming book, the Blood in Winter, all about the run up to the Civil War in 1642. It's Dr. Jonathan Healey. Welcome. John, Hi.

[Greg Jenner]

Hi, Greg. Lovely to be here.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Thank you for coming in. And in Comedy Corner, he's an award winning stand up comedian. You may have seen him on BBC3's Stand Up For Live Comedy or loads of Dave shows like Outsiders, Hypothetical Question Team or Late Night Mash. And you will remember him from our episode on Frederick Douglass. It's Toussaint Douglas. Welcome back to the show, Toussaint.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Hi. Thanks so much for having me, Greg. You also forgot to mention that just like John, I also have a connection with Kellogg's. I had corn flakes this morning, so I'm also very academic myself. Don't wanna. Yeah, I'll leave it to him mostly. But just to say that I dipped my toes in some milk.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

So, yeah, Tucson. Last time you proved yourself a bit of an American history aficionado. You knew quite a lot about Fred Douglas.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Well, he was one of my heroes. So someone. I. Yeah, and also I did study kind of American history at uni a bit, so I had a little bit of a help there. This one, not so much. So when you told me about the. It was the British Civil Wars, I did think it was like a British version of, like the Marvel kind of film, the Civil War film. I'm not sure if it's going to be that or not, but that's my starting point. So, yeah, I'll probably leave a lot of the history to John, but I'll chip in every now and then, I'm sure.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

So what do you know? This is the. So what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And as you've probably heard of the British Civil wars, or rather, you've probably heard of the English Civil War, that's not really a name we use that much anymore. And also, there aren't that many movies about it or pop culture about it. We've got King Charles popping up in To Kill a King. There was Blackadder, the Cavalier Years. Probably you're thinking of Roundheads vs Cavaliers, or Oliver Cromwell and his ugly wart, or Charles the First being beheaded. But how did a civil war actually start? And just how long is a long Parliament? Let's find out. The British Civil wars, or the War of the Three Kingdoms, or the English Civil War, or the. I mean, there's loads of names for it, but they started in 1642. They lasted about a decade. But today we're going to do the prequel. So, John, where do we start our story? Do we start with Charles?

[Greg Jenner]

Well, we're going to look at the period 1625 to 1642. So that's from the start of Charles's reign to the moment when it all falls apart and the Civil War begins in England. But we're going to start with James I as well, because some of the things that we'll be thinking about will date back to the predecessor of Charles, his father. So James I was very short of money, and that created an awful lot of problems, and in particular, it created a lot of problems in his relationship with Parliament, because the assumption was at this time that for the King to take people's money, they had to give consent to it in Parliament, which met when the King wanted it to. But the trouble is that when James called Parliaments, they tended to want grievances to be addressed. So there's that. He's short of money, there's Also a huge amount of kind of social stress in England at this period. There's been a long period of population growth. It means that people can't get on the housing ladder. Food prices are very, very high. There's a series of riots in 1607.

[Toussaint Douglas]

This sounds familiar.

[Greg Jenner]

And there's a lot of religious issues which have hung over from the Reformation.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

So Toussaint King Charles I comes to the throne, 1625. Do you think he learns from Daddy's mistakes?

[Toussaint Douglas]

I'm gonna go with no. I'm gonna go with he didn't have the greatest dad modeling in what he should be doing. So I'm thinking more of the same, Greg.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

I think that's a pretty good guess, John. Things just get worse for young Charles, don't they?

[Greg Jenner]

The issue of tax didn't go away and completely poisoned Charles's relationship with Parliament because he basically sort of says, well, you know, there's a war, I really should be able to just take your money. But Parliament says, well, actually we have to vote it to you. And before we do that, we want you to address these grievances that we have.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

One of the grievances is Charles has married Princess Henrietta Maria of France, who of course was a Catholic. This was a provocative move at the time where religious tensions were high. There's also a weird thing called Toussaint. Tell me if you've heard of this before. Tonnage and poundage.

[Toussaint Douglas]

This is radio 4, right? I'm gonna say no.

[Greg Jenner]

Tonnage and poundage. As funny as it sounds, it's a tax on imports and exports. And traditionally Parliament had always granted it to the monarch at the start of their reign for life. But under Charles I, Parliament says you can have it for a year and then we're going to kind of have another look and see if everything kind of tracks and everything's okay. And then it expired. So Charles was faced with a bit of a problem, which is that he suddenly lost this source of income. And he approached that problem in the most direct way you probably could, which is that he just collects it anyway. And they've had a recent controversy over something called the Petition of Rights, whereby Parliament basically says, non parliamentary taxation is illegal. Charles eventually gives his assent, but fudges it and eventually end up also fighting about religion. There's this group within the English Church which wants much more kind of high church ceremonial. They are very much in the ascendancy. Charles likes them very, very much. MPs within Parliament got very angry about that because they saw it as a return to Catholicism and they started to challenge Charles in Parliament.

[Toussaint Douglas]

What does high church involve? What would that be?

[Greg Jenner]

In, like, church, there's more sort of ceremony. There's a lot less focus on private pray, listening to sermons. One of the biggest things is that the communion table, which in the English church at this period was traditionally in the middle, so it's kind of accessible to everyone, gets railed off and put at the east end.

[Toussaint Douglas]

What you're saying there is that one of the key reasons that caused Britain to plunge into civil war was a disagreement over interior design. Is that what we're saying here?

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

We've got the third parliament of 1628 called, where again, he's trying to raise money because there's a subsidy bill, John, isn't there? And forced loans, there's martial law, the petition of rights. There's tonnage and poundage. Again, the subcommittee are in charge of the tonnage and poundage thing, and they just suddenly decide to be a subcommittee about Catholicism.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Oh, now we're getting into the nitty gritty subcommittee. Here we go.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

All right, Subcommittee. That's what he wants. And Charles is annoyed at this, and he demands an adjournment.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, he basically adjourns Parliament as a kind of prelude to dissolving it. But when he sends his messenger to the House of Commons, they basically bar the door so he can't get in. And they hold the speaker down in his chair for like an hour. And while they do that, MPs pass a series of resolutions, basically saying that if you support all this kind of stuff, you are a traitor. Very disorderly scene. Great fun.

[Toussaint Douglas]

I love the idea of just the messenger just outside the door. Like, I can hear you. I know you're in there. Like, just open the door. Like, this isn't cool, guys.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

And the King responds by imprisoning nine MPs. That's not good news, right, John, you can't imprison MPs, can you?

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, he can and he does. He basically decides that he wants to rule without Parliament. So from now on, he will try to rule England without calling another Parliament for as long as he can.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Toussaint, do you want to guess how long this personal rule no Parliament is?

[Toussaint Douglas]

This guy doesn't sound like a long and stable ruler. So I'm going less than five. Five years.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Sensible. Guess it's 11 years.

[Toussaint Douglas]

11 he managed to pull off for 11 years. Really?

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Is he raising cash just in his own way then?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. So, I mean, what he then tried to do was he tried to find new and creative ways of raising money. And in order to do this, the new ways are basically the old ways. And one of his civil servants, a guy called Sir John Burraugh, had been ferreting away in the 17th century equivalent of the National Archives, which was in the Tower of London, and he'd found all these kind of crazy medieval ways of raising money and, you know, everything from, you know, a tax on beer, for example, or attacks on death or attacks on lawyers, which I think would have been quite popular.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Something he does too. He turns to ship money. What is ship money?

[Greg Jenner]

Well, ship money is a well established, or was a well established way of raising ships for the navy. And basically what happened was that coastal communities were told, you need to provide a ship for the Royal Navy and that would protect the country. What Charles did was he kind of rolled it out to inland counties on the fairly, you know, sensible premise that basically they get protected as well. And it was very, very controversial because he was essentially doing a new tax and he was doing it without Parliament. But it seems to work. You know, he raises quite a lot of money through it.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

You can see the tensions rising here, Toussaint, I think, because the King is. He's just doing what he wants. So we've already mentioned tension between kind of the High Church Anglicans and the ones who sort of almost a bit Catholic and the Puritans. What is Armenianism? Is it this High Church thing you mentioned?

[Greg Jenner]

It comes to a Dutch theologian called Arminius, and he argued for essentially a form of faith where you're not completely predestined to heaven or hell. You have a certain amount of free will. And that then kind of ties into this English idea of ceremonialism. You know, again, interior design, putting the altar, putting the holy table at the. At the East End. And it's connected by this sort of clumsy guy from Reading who is sort of a bit like a kind of short version of Ricky Gervais, who just alienates everyone called Willie William Lord and he became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was very, very controversial because, you know, the Calvinists and the Puritans didn't like it very much.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

So William Lord. It's Lord L, A, U, D. And there's a. There's a vicar called Peter Titley who sounds fun not because of his name, although, I mean, maybe a bit because of his name.

[Toussaint Douglas]

It's a bit because of his name. Is it? Come on, let's.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

John, why is Peter Titley fun?

[Greg Jenner]

Well, because he liked to bow and do all this kind of stuff so much that he Would fall over and drop the prayer book and all this kind of stuff. And this was all in the name of decorum, of course.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Was he also drunk as well, though? Because I feel like just bowing isn't enough to make you fall over. Unless he was really top heavy on his head, like. I've got quite a big head sometimes, like. Yeah, I feel like. Been hitting the communion wine a little bit, surely.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

But we also then get the cost of living crisis again, John, why is this crisis happening? It's not inflation, is it?

[Greg Jenner]

Root cause? It is inflation. There's a big growth in population. That means that there's more mouths to feed. There's also a series of really bad harvests from about 1628 onwards that led to food riots. There's a sense in the 1630s that the social order is really kind of fraying. There's a lot of anger out there.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Now, earlier, Toussaint, you mentioned marvel, and I ring my marvel bell because we have Captain Carter show up, who is a lady who she sort of rallies the brave lads of Maldon in Essex. Do you know what she does, Toussaint, to rally them? Yeah. They go on a heist. They go to steal some stuff.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Oh, right, okay. What do they steal?

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Well, they're going after the grain. They carted it off. Captain Carter carted it off.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Not the sexiest heist, I'll be honest.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

No.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Stealing sacks of grain. Bit more ambitious. Go for the gold. Do you know what I mean? You get all the grain you want and then some with gold. Well, you're just stealing grain. You can only have grain. Grain only gets you grain.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

You can't eat gold, Toussaint. Come on, think of it. If they're hungry. This is a political act, John. Captain Carter. Oh, Ann Carter, as she is, she was executed for this heist. Was she rare, being a woman involved in protest?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. I mean, women were very much involved in protests, particularly about food, because that was seen as kind of in women's domain. And so you would often see women leading food riots. There's also people like Lady Eleanor Davis, who's a really interesting character. She was an aristocratic lady and she began making prophecies early in the 17th century. And then in the 1630s, she found herself angry about William Lord. And at one point she went into Litchfield Cathedral and she poured a vat of boiling tar over the communion table because she thought it was in the wrong place, for which she was sent to Bedlam, which was a mental asylum, and eventually the Tower, although she was released eventually. So yeah, women are very much involved in protest. Religion is one thing that women often end up protesting about. They're definitely part of the political nation in this period.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Wow. I mean, chucking molten tar onto a sort of sacred table in a holy building. That's quite bold, Toussaint. I mean, have you ever gone that bold with a protest?

[Toussaint Douglas]

No. It's always boiling tar, isn't it? It's never kind of lukewarm tar. Like, it always has to be bubbling, doesn't it? The tar? I feel like tar in itself is enough, but for some reason, people who use tar, it's always got to be 100 degrees, you know, boiling point. It's curious that, to be honest.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

We've spoken a lot about England so far, and I think it's really important in case listeners don't know, Charles I of England was king of Scotland as well. So these English reforms, these William Lord reforms, was he also pushing them north of the border up into Scotland as well?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, and Charles saw himself as having what he called an imperial crown. So it was his duty to impose his ideas, his religion on Ireland and on Scotland. In Scotland, initially, it ran into a lot of difficulty. In 1637, Charles tried to impose Lordianism on Scotland. And in 1638, the Scots, en masse, signed this thing called the Scottish National Covenant, where they basically said that they would protect their. Their church, their kirk. It led to a plan by Charles to invade Scotland, and it all went terribly, badly wrong.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

So Charles does the obvious thing here. He calls another parliament, and having had the short parliament for, he now goes on a parliamentary bender. It's called the long Parliament. He can't get enough. Toussaint, how long is the long Parliament?

[Toussaint Douglas]

I'm gonna go with two years.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

That's a very sensible guess. It's 20 years.

[Toussaint Douglas]

20 years. This guy is so random. I don't. I wouldn't know where. If I was a parliamentarian, I just wouldn't know where I stand with him. Do you know what I mean? I just want clarity from Charles. I feel like he's like, are you into me? Are you not? Like, you keep calling me up and then you keep breaking up with me. Like, come on. Like, what's our relationship status here? 20 years. Wow.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

In fairness, he was dead for half of that. So, you know, I mean, John, it's a technicality, right? The Parliament is never dissolved because the king is executed. But, you know, we're jumping ahead. But that's why it's called the Long Parliament. Is that fair?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. But also, he can't dissolve it because he needs money. They also then passed an act called the Triennial act, which is terribly important, which says Parliament must sit every three years. And if it doesn't, if the King doesn't call it, then leading kind of lawyers and politicians can call it anyway. And that is a massive constitutional revolution. Because previously Parliament had always been called by the King. That was the only way it could be called. And now they're saying Parliament is permanent and it can be called even if the King doesn't.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Good on Parliament. Yeah, they found that then they found their self worth after all that being messed about and actually like, you know. Good. I'm glad. Yeah.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

So we now have a parliamentarian sort of step forward, you know. Cause often people will assume that Cromwell will be kind of important at this phase, but Cromwell isn't really in the picture yet. The person who steps forward to be sort of leader of Parliament a bit is called John Pym. Is that right?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. I mean, Cromwell's basically a backbench MP from Cambridge. He's virtually, you know, very, very little significance at all. Pym is this kind of longstanding, incredibly politically savvy guy. He's incredibly clever, he' incredibly sophisticated and has this kind of group of MPs and peers who support him and want to reform the state.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Pym starts to unpick Charles policies. He goes after ship money, which was that inland coastal thing. He goes after the Star Chamber, which is how Charles had crushed the media. He goes after the High Commission. He takes after. He goes after crucifixes and images in the churches. So King Charles was under huge pressure from Pym and from Parliament in general. And he was now relying on a new advisor called Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, who was out in Ireland. And he tried to recall Wentworth, Wentworth back to London. Parliament found out about it, they intercepted him, they accused him of treason and they forced the King to sign the death warrant. And Strafford was executed. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

So after the execution of Strafford, I mean, literally the day of the execution of Strafford, Charles met with his negotiators from Scotland and they said, he's surprisingly cheery for someone who's just had his lead advisor beheaded. And the reason was that Charles, in the summer of 1641, had decided to go to Scotland and try and win power there. And to do that, he engaged in plotting to try and have his enemies arrested and possibly killed. Meanwhile, in Ireland, which of course had been subject to British colonial rule for decades now, was suddenly kind of bubbling up into rebellion. And one of the kind of immediate issues was, was that Strafford had created this army of Irish Catholics, and then he'd been beheaded and the army was left with nothing to do with. So essentially it just kind of sat there. And then these people became. These disbanded soldiers became very, very, very, very angry, and that kind of fed into a rebellion. And in October 1641, it all kind of explodes with this plot to take Dublin Castle, which is betrayed, and then a huge uprising in Ulster, which quickly gets out of hand. And there are reports of massacres, really quite nasty. And, you know, some of them are true, but also they're massively exaggerated by the English press. And that then creates a really kind of tense situation going into the end of 1641.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

And this is one of the reasons we don't call it the English Civil War, because Ireland is a huge part of it, Scotland's a huge part of it. Unfortunately, Wales just gets sucked into England. Sorry, Wales. So we get the Grand Remonstrance. Do you know what that is, Toussaint?

[Toussaint Douglas]

It sounds a bit like a dance that the couples on Strictly would do, like Week Nine, you know, like kind of like Blackpool Week, you know, because it's quite technical and it's a lot of hip action to it. You know what I mean? Like the Grand Remonstrance. It just sounds really nice to say as well. Grand Remonstrance. It's just a really nice, like, name.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

To say, but it's not John. It's much more serious than that. And the music isn't nearly as jolly.

[Greg Jenner]

Well. So it's basically a big document with 204 clauses. It's huge, which basically says what was wrong with Charles's rule, what we've done about it and how we're good and what we still need to do about it. And essentially the kind of implication is that because Charles, his government was so bad, we, as Parliament, need to take control over that government. We need to have control over the appointment of government officers. So people like the Lord Treasurer, all those kind of things. And that's the implication. It's hugely, hugely controversial. MPs sit up until 2am in the morning debating it. Eventually it passes by a whisker, because there's lots and lots of opposition to Pym in Parliament by this point. And the really important thing, I think, about the Grand Remonstrance is it's a moment where it's clear that in Parliament itself, in the House of Commons in particular, MPs are divided. There are Royalists and there are parliamentarians, and it's a split down the middle. That hadn't been the case in 1640. It had been much more unified in opposition. So now we're getting closer to a situation where the political nation is divided and that can then lead to civil war.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

There's also a petition presented to parliament which is 24 yards long, so it's about 20 metres long. It's got 15,000 signatures on it. It's against Catholic peers and bishops. And I love the idea of just unrolling this petition slowly in front of Parliament. It's so passive aggressive. We're getting daily clashes in Parliament by this point. We've got riots, we've got protests, we've got people being shot. Proper violence breaking out in Westminster. And a fed up King Charles basically comes up with a plan. He's going to arrest Pym, he's going to accuse him of treason, he's presumably going to execute him. And why doesn't it work?

[Greg Jenner]

Well, so the first thing that Charles did was he accused them publicly in the House of Lords on 3 January, and he accused five MPs and one peer. And then at some point, he decides that the next day he will gather about, sort of 500 armed Cavaliers, March down to Westminster from Whitehall, and he will pull them out himself, he will have the five MPs arrested. And so that's what he did. But by the time he got there, they'd run away. The 4th of January, when this happened, was an utterly shocking moment for the country, because Charles had basically taken an armed gang down to Parliament and threatened to arrest them. Now, he hadn't done it, he hadn't massacred them, but they thought he was within a whisker of basically having loads of MPs shot. It was a hugely, hugely shocking moment for the political nation.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

1642, this is the year of the Civil War, and In May of 42, we get the country. How does the country raise itself to war when it's the King that they're angry at?

[Greg Jenner]

Well, I think. I mean, by this point it's much more split down the middle. I mean, a lot of people are angry at the King, but there's a lot of people who are still loyal. And basically what happens is that both sides say we need to defend ourselves from the other side. So Parliament raises the militia and does so without the assent of the King, which they'd never done before. Whereas Charles used something called the Commissions of Array, which was sort of a medieval way of getting people to Come out to, you know, slay and kill people who were attacking the King. And Parliament had put together another document which sounds a bit less like a ballroom dance, I reckon. The 19 propositions. Maybe it does. The 19 propositions, which basically is another attempt to say, look, things have got bad. The way that we solve this is we get control of the government, we take it away from. From the King, we get control of the militia. And of course, there's no way that Charles would agree to this. And that's why he went to Nottingham and raised his standard on 22 August.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Why did he choose Nottingham to declare war? Is it because it already looks like a bit of a battlefield or is it just. Nah, I'm joking. I really like Nottingham. I've got a long history of Nottingham. I went to uni there. It's really good. Some fond memories. My first mugging was in Radford. So, like, I really like.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

I mean, it's a fair point. Why not? Is it just because it's in the middle of the country? Is that just a good, sensible.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. And it was a great base for raising troops in the Midlands and also possibly going over towards Wales, where Charles knew that he had a lot of support.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

So on the fateful day, 22nd of August, 1642, having come to power in 1625, Charles I raised the Royal Standard at Nottingham, and then apparently the wind blew it down, which is never a good sign, and thus declared the British Civil wars, the English Civil War, whatever you want to call it. But he declared war. The question I want to ask you, Toussaint, which side would you have sided with? Would you have gone king or Parliament?

[Toussaint Douglas]

Oh, that is a good question. I think before this, I would have gone Parliament, because I'm a man of the people. And also I'm just. I'm not a king, so. But to be honest, I'm not gonna lie, Parliament, they do seem a bit like jobsworths, Like a little bit like. You know what I mean? That, like 2am grand remonstrance thing, the 19, you know, if I got that in my entry, I'd be like, mate, do one, please. All right, We've heard it before. God, just chill out. So I think I might go, Charles, you know, I think I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna. I think I'm royalist. Yeah, it just sounds a little bit more fun. Just a little bit.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Okay, so you're a cavalier.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Pop on your hat.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Yep. Feather in the cap and off you go. So there we go. So that's the end of the story. We're not gonna cover the actual wars itself. We're stopping here. But there we go. Toussaint has committed himself to the King's cause. The nuance window. Okay, time now for the nuance window. This is where Toussaint and I sit quietly and read seditious pamphlets for two minutes while Dr. John tries not to topple over in the pulpits while gesticulating wildly about the British Civil wars. You have two minutes. Take it away, Dr. Healey.

[Greg Jenner]

So, I mean, it's very easy when you're thinking about the British Civil wars to think that it's basically all Charles I's fault. And lots of historians think that's the case. I'm not saying he's a success by any stretch of the imagination. He toys with militarism, he toys with authoritarianism. He marches to Parliament with an armed gang. He basically does mess things up quite significantly. There's nothing which says that he has to impose his prayer book on Scotland. Nonetheless, I think one of the things that's really important to have in mind is the fact that there are these really kind of deep level problems in the country at the time. We talked a bit about inflation and all this kind of stuff, and that makes it much harder to run a government. We talked a little bit about social pressures. And again, that makes it much harder to rule the country. But also, you know, these kind of issues with Parliament are based on really kind of long standing ideological differences. There are people who believe the King can kind of do what he wants, and there are people who believe that the King is much more restricted. It's very, very hard to rule a country which thinks intelligently about these issues and comes to different conclusions. And it's the same with religion, the country. It's complex the way it thinks about religion. There are Catholics, there are Puritans, there are Protestants in the middle, and. And it's very, very, very hard to run one country like that, let alone three. And remember that Scotland is more Protestant, more Puritan than England, and Ireland is mostly Catholic. So it's very, very hard for Charles. So again, I think with the Civil War, it's really, really important not to just pin this on one hopeless guy. I'm not saying he's not hopeless, but it's important to think of other things that are going on. He's dealt a very, very difficult hand.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Oh, boo hoo. So hard for the King. I mean, he was a king in the 17th century who thought he was chosen by God. So let's not go too heavy on the feel sorry for a bit, you know what I mean?

[Greg Jenner]

Now we swap sides, yeah.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

Toussaint, you were fighting for the King a minute ago. What happened? We've lost you. Well, thank you so much Toussaint and listener. If you want more Toussaint, do check out our episode on the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who is an extraordinary man. For more Stuart History, we've got the episode on King James, of course, but also Nell Gwynn, the 17th century actress. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review. Share the show with your friends. Subscribe to youo're Dead to me on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. But I've just got to say a big thank you to our guests. In History Corner we have the amazing Professor Jonathan Healy from the University of Oxford. Thank you John.

[Greg Jenner]

Thanks Greg.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

And in Comedy Corner we have the truly talented Toussaint Douglas. Thank you Toussaint.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Thanks so much for having me again, so much fun. Thank you.

[Dr. Jonathan Healey]

And to you lovely listener. Join me next time as we untangle the complicated origins of another historical happening. But for now I'm off to go and petition my local council with a 24 yard long petition about potholes. They're gonna feel my petty wrath.

[Toussaint Douglas]

Bye.

[Greg Jenner]

Hello, Russell Caine here. I used to love British history. Be proud of it. Henry viii, Queen Victoria, Massive fan of stand up comedians, obviously. Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor. That has become much more challenging for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out were they evil or genius. Do not catch up on BBC Sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed, but if like me, you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Cain. Go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed it.

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[Greg Jenner]

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