Causes of the British Civil Wars: Royalists versus Parliamentarians
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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. You're about to listen to You're Dead to Me. Episodes will be released on Fridays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you are in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First on BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 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 on the 400th anniversary of the coming of King Charles I. So yes, we're travelling 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 World, 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 Healy. Welcome, John. Hi, Greg. Lovely to be here. Thank you for

Coming in and in Comedy Corner, he's an award-winning stand-up comedian. He's a writer. You may have seen him on BBC Three'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 Douglass. Welcome back to the show, Toussaint. 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 cornflakes this morning, so I'm also...

very academic myself. Don't want to, I'll leave it to him mostly, but I just to say that, you know, I dip my toes in some milk. So yeah. Tucson last time you proved yourself a bit of an American history aficionado. You knew quite a lot about. Yeah. Well, he was, he's one of my heroes. So someone I, yeah. And also I, I did study kind of American history at uni a bit. So I had a little bit of a, a little bit of a help there. This one, not so much. Uh,

So when you told me about the British Civil Wars, I did think it was like a British version of like the Marvel kind of film or something like that, the Civil War film. So 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. 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 the show The Devil's Whore. There was Blackadder, The Cavalier Years. Recently, we've had Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galatzin seducing their way into the early Stuart Court in Mary and George, which was very rude and naughty. I enjoyed it.

But I reckon most listeners are going to be unsure of the details here. I think probably you're thinking of Roundheads versus Cavaliers or Oliver Cromwell and his ugly wart or Charles I 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. 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. We're going to go Phantom Menace, Tucson. We're going to basically do. In fact, Phantom Menace had loads of chat about tax and import duties. That's what we're doing as well. So lucky you. It was a slog. So I'm hoping this podcast is a little bit a little bit less like that. But yeah, it's not all taxes, I promise you.

So, John, where do we start our story? Do we start with Charles? 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 kind of 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. James I of England, James VI of Scotland. But first,

For Toussaint's benefit, what are the super speedy highlights of James I's quite controversial reign? 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

called parliaments, they tended to want grievances to be addressed. So there's that. He's short of money. It's a kind of perennial thing for the English and the British government. 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. This sounds familiar. Hang on, hang on.

I'm sensing a threat here. During these riots in 1607 in the Midlands, people threw down fences, which may feel like a little bit of a kind of random thing to do, but these were enclosures which had kind of fenced people out of land. And to do that, they had to level the fences and they had to dig. They used spades to dig. So they took the names levellers and diggers. And that then, later in the 17th century, they became the names applied to radical, democratic and indeed communist groups.

That's very Middle England activism, though, isn't it? I'm putting a fence down. This is my fence and I'm making sure it's level, actually. And there's a lot of religious issues which have hung over from the Reformation. And so by the end of James's reign, England is at war with Spain. Yeah. So Charles went on this kind of long and entirely kind of daft trip.

trip to Madrid where he basically kind of popped up in the Spanish court and tried to get the Infanta to marry him and the King of Spain said no. And so he went home and he was absolutely mad about this. So he persuaded his father to join a war against Spain.

It's quite incel behaviour, isn't it, if a woman says no to declare war on an entire country? I mean, the incel thing, it sounds flippant, but people thought that Charles was so sexually repressed that he had something called the green sickness, which kind of made him ill because he wasn't getting enough sex. So I'm going to get letters for this, but maybe he was the first incel. Who knows?

Goodness me. So the end of James's reign, England and Scotland, of course, at war with Spain, which is bad news. So, Toussaint, King Charles I comes to the throne, 1625. Do you think he learns from daddy's mistakes? I'm going to go with no. I'm going to go with he didn't have the greatest dad modelling in what he should be doing, so I'm thinking more of the same, Greg. LAUGHTER

I think that's a pretty good guess. John, things just get worse for young Charles, don't they? Yeah, I mean, he doesn't take after his father, though. I mean, one of the first things he does is he tries to clean up his court and make it a little bit less debauched. I mean, he was terribly offended by the sort of drinking and the pissing and the shitting that had gone on under his father. So he did try and clean that up. But the issue of tax, you know, those phantom menace issues, let's call them that, that

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.

And the grievances are, they're long and they're extensive. 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. She wasn't even allowed in the church during the coronation and wedding ceremony. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of anti-Catholicism in England at this point. It's not helped by the fact that in the church,

there's a group which Charles rather likes who want to create a much more elaborate church with lots more sort of, you know, we'd call it high church, I guess. Yeah, he's married to a French Catholic and he's also, and this is a Mary and George thing, he's also still really intertwined with the Duke of Buckingham who Parliament see as a thoroughly bad thing. They see him as corrupt. They see him as an upstart. They see him as very, very dangerous. There's also a weird thing called

Toussaint, tell me if you've heard of this before. Tonnage and poundage. This is Radio 4, right? I'm going to say no. And if we weren't Radio 4, what would you say? I'd probably still say no because my mum listens to everything I do. OK, all right.

All right, John, tonnage and poundage is not as filthy as it sounds. Well, I mean, to the English common law mindset, it was distinctly filthy because it was a way that the Crown tried to take money without gaining consent from Parliament. Tonnage and poundage, as funny as it sounds, is a fairly kind of, you know, 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. Ah.

And then we're going to kind of have another look and see if everything kind of tracks and everything's OK. 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. So parliamentarians, lawyers sort of think, well, this is sort of a little bit illegal, isn't it? Yeah.

Okay, so he's raising an awful lot of money on tonnage and poundage, which is a sort of medieval customs duty. I quite liked monage. I think you should have rolled on. I think monage could catch on. You've mentioned the Duke of Buckingham. So he was King James's lover. He'd been raised to that status. He is the star of Mary and George. If you want to watch that show, it's very fun.

So he's sort of chief advisor to Sartre. He's not having a great time of it, though, because he launches a military campaign to go and attack Cadiz in Spain. And it goes very badly. All the soldiers get drunk and then run away. So how do you think he gets back into Parliament's good books? I feel like he probably doesn't. LAUGHTER

I feel like the only way probably someone like that gets back into Parliament's good books is if they get to like... I think, you know, above board, lawful, but yeah, a bit of punishment probably might help them. I don't know. I mean, your instincts are quite good on this. You've basically sort of guessed where we're going in this episode. His attempt to get in their good books is to launch another military campaign, having bungled the first one. And he bungles this one as well. It's a double bungle. He's trying to help the French Protestants, the Huguenots, in La Rochelle, John,

And it's a sort of classic clerical era. Yes, so the soldiers turn up to this castle to try and take it and they get out of their boats and they get out of these ladders which they've brought along to scale the walls and they discover that they're too short so they all get killed. And it is another disaster. Buckingham, at this point, he's been impeached by Parliament and that's not worked. So in the end,

the Buckingham problem is solved by assassination. He makes the mistake of going to Portsmouth and he goes to an inn in Portsmouth and as he comes out of that inn in Portsmouth, he is stabbed by a person called John Felton. I mean, it's one of these kind of dramatic scenes. As he was stabbed, no one could see who did it and someone saw it and thought, assumed it was a French person because, you know...

It was French. So they shouted out, a Frenchman, a Frenchman. Why did they assume it was a... Did he have a croissant in his hand? I mean, what are they basing that on? Stabbed him with a baguette. But the actual stabber and the actual murderer, John Felton, thought they were saying his name. They said, Frenchman, Frenchman. He thought they were saying Felton. So instead of running away, he turned back and said, yes, was I? And they grabbed him and hung Drew and caught him.

So it came to a grim end for him as well. I mean, I feel like the guy's first mistake was going to Portsmouth, right? I mean, that's where he went wrong. Why go to Portsmouth? Lots of other really good... No offence to Portsmouth, but I've been there quite a few times for gigs and other places.

So we have the Duke of Buckingham killed. The chief adviser's gone. He's out of the picture. So does that mean things are a little bit easier for Charles because Parliament is appeased that, you know, one of the bad guys is gone? I mean, you'd hope so, but no. 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 signs it or eventually gives his assent, but fudges it.

and then they go back to arguing about punnage and townage 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 smells, you know, that kind of thing. 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. What does high church involve? What would that be in church? What does it look like? There's more sort of ceremony. There's a lot less focus on private prayer, 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. Right.

gets railed off and put at the east end. It's sort of protected, but also that looks like a Catholic altar and this is very offensive to quite a lot of people. So what you're saying there is that one of the key reasons that caused Britain to plunge into civil war, one of the most monumental and influential moments in our history was a disagreement over interior design. Is that what we're saying here? Yeah. It doesn't get more British than that, does it? No. Someone just fighting over where the table goes. LAUGHTER

We've got the third Parliament of 1628 called, where again, he's trying to raise money. Parliament's like, no, people who refuse are imprisoned. They're pushed into the army. They're pressed into the army. So there's real tension where Charles is throwing his weight around.

There's a lovely quote, John. Sir Benjamin Rudyard, he says, this is the crisis of parliaments. We shall know by this if parliaments live or die. Oh, that's good, isn't it? It's a good quote. It is. And basically what he's doing is he's looking at the European scene and he's seeing that in France and, you know, in Spain...

Monarchs are at this point trying to rule increasingly without Parliament and he thinks that England will go down this route as well. Essentially, the monarchy is starting to look very, very authoritarian and Parliament really kind of fights back against this. Yeah, and Charles's attitude to Parliament, he goes full cycle. King Charles wrote a lovely quote here. "'At first I liked Parliaments, but since, I know not how, "'I was grown to distaste of them. "'But I am now where I was. "'I love Parliaments.'"

Tucson, I know you like your politics. I know you're quite into politics. Is I love parliaments a good slogan? Is it memeable? I'm not quite sure it's memeable, no. I don't know who that would be for, to be honest, apart from parliament. So Charles, he loves parliaments for now, but the honeymoon period doesn't last because there's a subsidy bill, John, isn't there? And you've talked about the forced loans, there's martial law, the petition of rights.

There's tonnage and poundage again. And you mentioned the subcommittee. The subcommittee...

are in charge of the tonnage and poundage thing, and they just suddenly decide to be a subcommittee about Catholicism. They've changed the name. Oh, now we're getting into the nitty-gritty. Subcommittee, here we go. Subcommittee, that's what you want. And Charles is annoyed at this, and he demands an adjournment. 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. And at this time, it's one of these kind of very dramatic moments where MPs, because of course the MPs would all wear swords at this point. So they're all grabbing their swords and they're sort of banging them on the floor and they start calling each other pirates.

patriots and royalists. So you start to get these kind of party labels, if you like. It's very disorderly scenes. Great fun. As a historian, you're loving this, but that's chaos. 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. Come on. You're like, what am I going to tell the king? I've got to go back to him. And the king responds by imprisoning nine MPs.

That's not good news, right? John, you can't imprison MPs. Can you? Can he? Well, I mean, there's a question. I mean, yeah, I mean, he can and he does.

He's obviously quite cross about the situation. By this point, he's sort of starting to think, well, maybe I'll kind of wind up these wars, so I'm not going to need quite so much money anymore. He basically decides that he wants to rule without Parliament. It's all too much of a hassle. So from now on, he will try to rule England without calling another Parliament for as long as he can. Toussaint, do you want to guess how long this personal rule, no Parliament is?

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

Less than five years? Sensible guess. It's 11 years. He managed to pull it off for 11 years, really. What did he do? Did he just lock the door as well? He just changed the locks of the door? Is it just all down to the door? Whoever controls the door controls the country? How did he do 11 years? It's a good point, John. Is he raising cash just in his own way then? He's not getting Parliament to pass these laws for him?

Yeah. So, I mean, Parliament at this point is it's something which doesn't sit permanently. It only sits when the king calls it. And 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 Burra,

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 everything from attacks on beer, for example, or attacks on death or attacks on lawyers, which I think would have been quite popular. But the two really crucial ones were, get this, fines for people who were wealthy enough to become knights but hadn't presented themselves to become knights before.

at the king's coronation. So he fined people for that. It's called distraint of knighthood. It's very controversial, as you can imagine. And the other thing he did was he found the boundaries of the old medieval forests and he found that basically they covered about a third of the country and said, right, OK, there's all these medieval laws against building houses or having land on the forests.

and said, well, you know, I know there's a massive town here now, but in 1200, this was a forest, so I'm going to fine you as well. And again, it was very controversial and people didn't like it very much. Right. Toussaint, if you need to sort of rustle up, I don't know, let's say three billion quid, what strategies would you go for? If I needed a quick three billion, I think I would just draw my face onto a piece of paper and just say that's three billion. He's the king. Isn't that what money is? LAUGHTER

I mean, that might work. I don't know. Maybe that works in some dictatorships. I don't know. But I think that tends to lead to hyperinflation. But, you know, I'm not an economist. Something he does do is he turns to ship money. What is ship money? 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 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. The way he did it was very, very clever. He said, basically, it's an emergency and the emergency is the French.

and pirates and the Turks as well. And he said, there's loads of pirates in the English Channel. They keep coming here and being a pain. So it's an emergency. So I need to have a tax without parliament. And people argued, well, that's all very well, but you know, it doesn't look like that much of an emergency. There's like two pirates, mate, come on. And he says, well, I'm the king and I get to decide when it's an emergency.

Rather cleverly, he's kind of basically said, in emergencies, I can have your money and I get to decide when it's an emergency. Therefore, I can have your money. But it seems to work. You know, he raises quite a lot of money through it. You can see the tensions rising here, Tucson, I think, because the king is just doing what he wants.

So we've already mentioned tension between the high church Anglicans and the ones who are almost a bit Catholic and the Puritans. What is Arminianism? Is it this high church thing you mentioned? Yeah, it is. I mean, to be fair, I get a lot of student essays where it has been autocorrected from Arminianism to Arminianism. Or it says things like Charles I had a lot of problems with Armenians.

which I think is a very, very specific form of prejudice. But 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 and

And, you know, again, interior design, putting the altar, putting the holy table 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 William Lord. And he became the Archbishop of Canterbury. And he was very, very controversial because, you know, the Calvinists and the Puritans didn't like it very much.

Okay, so William Laud, it's Laud, L-A-U-D. And there's a vicar called Peter Titley who sounds fun. LAUGHTER

Not because of his name. I mean, maybe a bit because of his name. It's a bit because of his name, isn't it? Come on. I know we're radio for, but it's a little bit because of his name. John, why is Peter Titley fun? 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, you know, this was all in the name of decorum, of course. Was he also drunk as well, though? Because I feel like just bowing isn't enough to make you fall over. LAUGHTER

Unless he was really top-heavy on his head. I've got quite a big head sometimes. But I feel like he must have been hitting the communion wine a little bit, surely. Okay, so the anti-Puritan push of the 1630s

also enters a surprising arena, which is sports. Toussaint, what kind of things are you imagining here? I'll be generous. There aren't that many formalized sports in the 1630s. So anti-Puritan sports. Yeah, so the kind of high church Armenian style sports. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So obviously you've got like main sports like egg and spoon race. So is it like that, but with like the communion cup? Nice. The egg is just in the cup.

And you're just running with that. I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea, Greg. I love the idea of a sort of child's sports day, like, you know, primary school. What sort of sports and activities are we talking about? Well, basically what the king did in 1633 is said, on the Sunday, these are the sports you can play.

Puritans thought you could play no sports on a Sunday. They're like, you know, the very fact that you're suggesting we can play sports on a Sunday is entirely offensive. And Charles basically had all his ministers, all his clergymen around the country, they were forced to read this thing called the Book of Sports, which basically said these are the sports you can play. And if you're a Puritan minister, you were deeply offended by this.

And some of them had clever ways of getting around it. So, for example, they would read it out before anyone had turned up in church. Oh, nice. Or there was one guy who read it out and then read the Ten Commandments and said, you've now heard the laws of God and the laws of the king. You can choose which one you obey. Wow. Wow. OK. Strong, that.

Strong. So these sports are... We've got dancing. Yeah, so Morris dancing is very politicised. It's a kind of angry, radical form of dance. Is it though?

I've seen a bit of Morris dancing. Is it angry? I'm not quite sure. They've all got copies of... Just furiously flicking their ankles with the bells. Dancing with Mao's Little Red. But one of my favourite ones is a kind of set of sports that are still with us today, which are the Cotswold Olympics, which was set up by a guy called Robert Dover.

And it was a specific way of annoying the local Puritans because he was really trying to rub their noses in it. But he made sure it was all very hierarchical and it all kind of fitted the social hierarchy. So the rich would do things like hunting and shooting, whereas the peasants would basically do something called shin kicking, which sounds pretty horrible to be honest.

There's also the Whits and Ales. So the brewing of ales, which I think is, again, the Puritans are against. So we've got this sort of culture war. The king is ramping up the culture war on one side. The Puritans are pushing back. But we also then get the cost of living crisis again, John. Why is this crisis happening? It's not inflation, is it?

it? 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 also this kind of the fences, the enclosure that we talked about earlier. There's a big

there's a big series of riots, particularly in the West, the Forest of Dean, led by a man who goes around dressed as a woman. There's a series of very, very significant riots there. There's a sense in the 1630s that the social order is really kind of fraying. There's a lot of anger out there.

There's a cost of living crisis, but surely it's not affecting the Puritans, is it? Like, they must be saving loads of money. They're not doing anything with their time. They're just indoors, just like, just reading the Bible. Like, what? They're not spending any money, are they? Why is the guy dressing up in women's clothing? Is he just feeling more comfortable that way? And this is his excuse?

He may be. So one theory is that it's a disguise. The other is that the authorities tend to be a lot gentler to women rioters than men, although that doesn't really work because when they captured him, they would probably found out quite quickly. The best explanation is that it represents this idea of the world turned upside down. Basically, the enclosers, the people who are taking this land away from the poor, are people who are overturning the social order and impoverishing

It's a way of mocking that. It's a way of saying, you know, if you take away our land, you might as well have men dress as women. And that really would overturn the social order kind of thing. It's a very conservative society in lots of ways. It's quite pantomime, isn't it? It's quite sort of twanky. Now, earlier, Toussaint, you mentioned Marvel. And I can ring my Marvel bell because we have Captain Carter show up.

who is a lady who sort of rallies the brave lads of Malden in Essex. Do you know what she does, Toussaint? To rally them? Yeah, they go on a heist. They go to steal some stuff. Oh, right, OK. This sounds very... Yeah, what do they steal? Well, they're going after the grain.

They carted it off. Captain Carter carted it off. Not the sexiest heist, I'll be honest. No. Stealing stacks of grain. A 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. Just stealing grain. You can only have grain. Grain only gets you grain. You can't eat gold, Doosan. Come on. Think of it. They're hungry. This is a political act.

John, Captain Carter, or Anne Carter as she is, she was executed for this heist. Yeah, I mean, it's unusual that she was treated very, very harshly. It's very unusual for food rioters to be hanged in this period. And she was treated very, very harshly. And I think it is partly because there is this kind of political crisis and people are kind of basically saying, well, this is more serious now because of the political crisis. Yeah.

Okay. And the king also devises other stricter penalties. He goes after the printing. So he's sort of controlling the media, I suppose. Is that fair?

Yeah, and one of the things about the 1630s which becomes very, very controversial, particularly later, is the strong control of the press by the government. So, for example, there is a decree against printed material in 1637 and there are a series of really quite nasty prosecutions for sedition. One of the earliest is a guy called Alexander Leighton who's a Scot and writes about

bishops in such a way that the king doesn't like. So he ends up being put in the pillory in a snowstorm just to make it worse. He had his ears cut off, or had one of his ears cut off. He was whipped and then thrown in prison. And he was forced to kind of sit in a prison cell with rats and mice for 10 years. And by the time he was released by Parliament, he was basically a complete mess, as you would be

Yeah. So getting your ears lopped off in a snowstorm is the 17th century equivalent of YouTube taking down a video for copyright infringement. It's quite bad, but they don't kill you. Let's get back briefly to Captain Carter. Was she rare being a woman involved in protests, John? You said it was rare that she was executed, but...

were women often politically engaged, politically radicalised? 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, including prophesying that her husband would die. He was a bit cross... He was...

He was a bit cross about this and ended up sort of burning her papers. And then she had another husband who also burnt her papers. So she was quite sort of, you know, she ran up against the patriarchy, shall we say. 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 on

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. Wow. I mean, chucking molten tar onto a sort of sacred table in a holy building, that's quite bold, isn't it?

Toussaint, I mean, have you ever gone that bold with a protest? No. I mean, 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 it's 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. All right. So that's a very bold protest statement.

She called herself the primate and metropolitan and she sat in a bishop's throne as well, didn't she? She really like wasn't keen. Cheeky, very cheeky. Cheeky, I think is politely putting it. Struggling to get out of bed? It might be time for an upgrade. Lisa makes exceptionally comfortable mattresses designed for every body and budget. But what truly sets them apart is their commitment to giving back.

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We've spoken a lot about England so far, and I think it's really important, in case listeners don't know, that Charles I of England was king of Scotland as well. There were kingdoms that he reunited because he was a steward, his family was Scottish, his dad was Scottish. So...

These English reforms, these William Lord reforms, was he also pushing them north of the border up into Scotland as well? 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. Scotland was particularly agitated

anti this kind of thing. They particularly like their communion tables in the middle of the church. And so when a new prayer book was used in Edinburgh by the Dean of Edinburgh, apparently, according to legend, an Edinburgh woman called Jenny Geddes stood up and flung her stool at the Dean of Edinburgh before he was chased out of the city by a mob.

That then led to the conditions of a massive rebellion in 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 church, their kirk. They became called Covenanters. Charles agreed to convene an assembly of the kirk and a Scottish parliament, and they then abolished

abolished bishops. So they basically said, oh, thank you for our nice assembly. We're going to really go whole hog. And one of the things that Charles's father had said was no bishops, no king. He thought the bishops were absolutely central to the institution of the monarchy. And Charles agreed. So it's a real two fingers. You've said something very, very important there, John. And I'm going to be an absolute childish idiot here. And I'm going to have to just pull you up on something. You said chucked her stool at the dean. Do you

Do you mean furniture or do you mean she pooed in her hand and lobbed it at his head? Because I don't know if this is good, but I'd just like some clarity. Funnily enough, Greg, I had exactly the same conversation with my editor a couple of years ago. Sadly, the possibly apocryphal Jenny Gedds had a, I think, I'm assuming a kind of three-pronged piece of wooden furniture, picked it up and lobbed it at the Dean, saying something like,

along the lines of don't say mass in my lug, which is great. I love the word lug. It's good. But no, it wasn't poo, I'm afraid. Sorry. OK, so you said the Scottish Covenant has got rid of bishops entirely. And this means war, Toussaint. Do you know what this war is called?

The British Civil War? I didn't know. You'd think so, right? That's what we've got you here. That's what we're doing. Are we there yet? We're not there yet. No. This is called the Bishop's War. Now, is it a war fought by bishops?

Four bishops, against bishops or just near some bishops? How are the bishops involved, John? I would like it to be near some bishops. It was settled by a chess game. It was for and against. So Charles was fighting on the side of his bishops. The Scots were fighting against his bishops and Charles was trying to protect the bishops. The Scottish were trying to bash the bishops.

It led to a plan by Charles to invade Scotland and it all went terribly badly wrong. By March 1639, the Covenant had seized most Scottish strongholds. The King's soldiers under the Marquess of Hamilton met really, really tough resistance, including Hamilton's own mother. LAUGHTER

His mother, Anne, apparently was seen on a beach when he was trying to land saying, if my son lands, I will shoot him myself with a pistol. So some family issues going on there. That's embarrassing, isn't it? That's embarrassing, seeing your mum on the beach. She goes, ah, lads, I don't know what to say, but that's my mum, isn't it? Please don't shoot.

Don't kill her, all right? And he changed sides eventually. He eventually did come out to the Covenants. So maybe it worked. Maybe it worked. Eventually, it ends in a truce because the Scots managed to kind of array their soldiers out to look like they had a lot more. And Charles happened to be looking at them through a telescope and sort of went, oh, shit. Yeah.

They've got more soldiers than I thought. And so eventually there was a truce, although it was always very much in bad faith. Charles was always planning to fight again. Yeah. I mean, without wishing to spoil it, there is a second bishops war. So as soon as the treaty is signed, he's already planning a second one. And of course, the second one breaks out a year later. 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 and

It's called the Long Parliament. He can't get enough. Toussaint, how long is the Long Parliament? I'm going to go with two years. That's a very sensible guess. It's 20 years. 20 years? What? 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, I would 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. 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?

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 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. Good on Parliament. Yeah, they found their self-worth after all that being messed about and actually like, you know, good. I'm glad. Yeah, so we now have a parliamentarian sort of step forward, you know, because 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? 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 long standing, incredibly politically savvy guy. He is an absolute master of political timing. And he is particularly good at organising committees. So it really is the thick of it. Like, you know, he's kind of Malcolm Tucker, but put in parliament.

He's incredibly clever. He's incredibly sophisticated and has this kind of group of MPs and peers who support him and want to reform the state.

And he gets nicknamed King Pim, which sounds like King Pin, but it's King Pim. But that's, I mean, I'm guessing his friends call him that? No, no, his enemies. Oh, really? Yeah, so it's a kind of, it suggests that he wants to become king. He's ambitious. He's a traitor. So it's very much an insult. And when you hear it, it's normally someone in a pub in London saying, ah, that King Pim, I hope he gets fried in his own grease kind of thing. Oh, lovely. It's not his friends.

Pym starts to unpick Charles's 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 goes after crucifixes and images in the churches. So he's taking on the Anglican high church, Arminianism. He's sort of puritanising and streamlining government.

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 Stratford, who was out in Ireland. And he tried to recall 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 Stratford was executed. And he had been running Ireland. And without Stratford there, suddenly we get a huge, huge outbreak of violence in Ireland. Yeah.

And this is a really important factor, isn't it? Yeah. So after the execution of Stratford, I mean, literally the day of the execution of Stratford, 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

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 the issue was that, or one of the kind of immediate issues was, was that Stratford had created this army of Irish Catholics who,

And then he'd been beheaded and the army was left with nothing to do. There was a plan to give it to Spain and to France, but parliament were a bit, a bit, you know, a bit reluctant to that. So essentially it just kind of sat there. And then these people became, these disbanded soldiers became very, very, very, very angry and, uh,

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, massacres,

really quite nasty bloodshed. 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. And we get the Irish Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny, which is the sort of unification of an Irish...

or independent movement almost. And they are fighting for the king, but they sometimes fight against the Scottish and sometimes for... Like, it's very confusing what's going to happen, but the Irish equation is so important. 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? 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 do 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 to say but it's not John it's much more serious than that and the music isn't nearly as jolly

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's 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 on.

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 then there's a kind of huge argument about whether it can be printed. And

And it ends up with Parliament saying that it can be published, but not printed. So immediately people are sent away to sort of make these manuscript copies, which are then sold in London. But it's a moment where, 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 politically.

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. There's also a petition presented to Parliament which is 24 yards long saying,

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.

So the Grand Remonstrance, not a ballroom dance, unfortunately. It's an absolutely huge list of things that people hate about the King. 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? Well, so the first thing that Charles did was he accused them publicly in the House of Lords on the 3rd of January and he accused five MPs and one peer. And the Lords were supposed to then say, yep, fine, we'll have them all arrested and we'll impound their papers because that will give incriminating evidence. Instead, the Lords say, actually, we think you've done this the wrong way because you've used a particular procedure which we don't think is correct. So Charles goes home...

in a bit of a sort of, you know, a bit of a fuss. 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 them, 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. And the reason was that they knew he was coming. They'd had a series of warnings, one of which probably came from someone called Lady Carlisle, Lucy Hay, who was a courtier, one of Henrietta Maria's ladies-in-waiting, but who was also connected to him and his group. Anyway, they kind of fled and went by boat into London and Charles kind of sort of, oh, I can see my birds have flown and then went off again in a huff. The 4th of January, when this happened, was an uproar.

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. 1642, this is the year of the Civil War and in May of 42, we get

the country basically going to... How does the country raise itself to war when it's the king that they're angry at? 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 a medieval way of getting people to come out to slay and kill people who were attacking the king. And both sides are raising these defensive forces. At the same time, they're saying, well, we're only doing it because the other side is raising forces.

And eventually that then cascades into the next step, which is to actually raise armies. But before then, Parliament had put together another document, which sounds a bit less like a ballroom dance, I reckon. 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 the king. We get control of the militia.

And of course, there's no way that Charles would agree to this. It's two political positions which are very much apart.

And that then, again, sort of feeds into this arming, creation of armies, by which, and by the summer, basically, Charles has decided that it's all gone too far. The only way I can deal with this is to declare war on the rebels, as he calls them, on the Earl of Essex, their leader. And that's why he went to Nottingham and raised his standard on the 22nd of August. Why did he choose Nottingham to declare war? Is it...

Is it because it already looks like a bit of a battlefield? No, I'm joking. I really like Nottingham. I've already alienated Portsmouth. I don't want to lose Nottingham as well. I've got a long history with Nottingham. I went to uni there. It's really good. Some fond memories. My first mugging was in Radford, so I've got a lot of... I really like Nottingham.

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... Yeah, he just really hates Leicester. He wanted to give a bit of... Just a bit of trade to Leicester. I mean, he does... One of the things that Charles was executed for was for laying waste to Leicester. That was literally in the charge against him. But no, it's because it's right in the centre of London. Sorry.

A bit of metropolitan elite there. It was right in the centre of the country 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. 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 was never a good sign, and thus declared independence.

the British Civil War, the English Civil War, whatever you want to call it, but he declared war. Charles had come to power in 1625, so it's 400 years this year since Charles had come to power. The question I want to ask you, Toussaint, which side would you have sided with? Would you have gone king or parliament? 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 going to lie, Parliament, they do seem a bit like Jobsworth's, like a little bit like, you know what I mean? Like 2am, the Grand Remonstrance thing, the 19th... You know, if I got that in my intro, I'd be like, mate, do one, please. All right, we've heard it before. Just chill out. Do you know what I mean? So I think...

I might go Charles, you know. I think I'm royalist, yeah. It just sounds a little bit more fun. Okay, so you're a cavalier. Yeah, cavalier, yeah. Feather in the cap and off you go. So there we go. So that's the end of the story. We're not going to cover the actual wars itself. We're stopping here. But there we go. Toussaint has committed himself to the king's cause.

And John, I guess, I don't know, are you fighting for the parliamentary side? I don't know. We're the BBC, so we need balance. So yeah, I'll be a parliamentarian on this one, I think. OK, great. Lovely. The nuance window!

OK, 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 Healy. 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 politics.

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 longstanding 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 it's...

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. And 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.

Oh, boo-hoo. It's so hard for the king. Oh, boo-hoo. 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 him bit. You know what I mean? Now we've swapped sides. Yeah. You were fighting for the king a minute ago. What's happened? We've lost you. So what do you know now?

This is our quickfire quiz for Toussaint to see how much he has learned and remembered. You are giggling and wincing at the same time. It's so dense. It's just so much. It's so interesting, but there's so much to it, isn't there? Yeah, there is. I mean, it's only a 16-year period, really, 17-year period, but it's so, so much happened. All right, we've got 10 questions for you. So here we go. Question one. In what year did Charles I come to the throne? 16...

25? It is. Well done. 400th anniversary. Well done. Question two. How did King James and King Charles' close advisor, the Duke of Buckingham, die? He was assassinated. He was. He was stabbed outside a pub in Portsmouth. By a croissant. Maybe. We don't know. It's not in the history books, but we're thinking it might have been. Seems plausible. Question three. During his personal rule, how long did King Charles go without calling Parliament?

Okay. This sticks in my head because it was quite a long time, to be honest. 11 years.

It was 11 years. Well done. Question four. Can you remember who was Captain Carter? Yeah, she was in the Marvel films. No, no, I'm joking. I'm joking, Greg. I've learned something. Don't worry. She was a grain thief. Yeah, she could have gone gold, but she went grain, so... She did, and she was executed. Question five. Can you name the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose reforms were so unpopular they became unpopular? Oh, Lord. Yes, I can. It was Lord. BELL RINGS

William Lord, well done. Question six. Which unpopular tax, there were quite a few actually, which particular unpopular tax could King Charles levy without Parliament even in inland communities? Yeah, I'm going to have to say this one very carefully, Greg, because I know this is a respectable podcast. It was, and I've also got a little bit of a lisp like the speech impediment, so I'm sweating it a little bit.

Ship money. Ship money. That is my final answer. Very good. Well done. Yes.

Question seven. Can you name one traditional activity or outdoor activity that Charles encouraged during his anti-Puritan efforts? Yes. The shin wars, the shin kicking. Was it? Yeah, yeah. And Morris dancing, maypoles, wits and ales. Yeah, the shin kicking is a good one. Question eight. Which wars of 1639 and 40 were sparked by Charles' attempt to bring the Scottish Kirk in line with the English church? Was that the bishops? No.

It was. Well done. Yeah, Bishop War 1 and 2. Question 9. King Pym. It was King Pym. John Pym. This for a perfect 10. My favourite place in the world, an absolutely beautiful part of England. It's got to be Nottingham. BELL RINGS

10 out of 10. Well done, Toussaint. Excellent. Really, really impressive. Well done, John, for an excellent history lesson. Yeah. Brilliant lesson. Thank you. Well,

Well, thank you so much, Toussaint. And listen, if you want more Toussaint, do check out our episode on the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who was an extraordinary man. For more Stuart history, we've got the episode on King James, of course, but also Nell Gwynne, the 17th century actress. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to You'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 had the amazing Professor Jonathan Healy from the University of Oxford. Thank you, John. Thanks, Greg. Ah.

And in Comedy Corner, we have the truly talented Toussaint Douglas. Thank you, Toussaint. Thanks so much for having me again. So much fun. Thank you. 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 going to feel my petty wrath. Bye! Bye!

This episode of You're Dead to Me was researched by Matt Ryan. It was written by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Neguse and me. The audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Emma Neguse and our executive editor was James Cook. You're Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4.

Hello, Russell Cain 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 not.

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.

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