The World Turned Upside Down - The British Civil Wars 1638-1651

Events in Scotland and Ireland in the late 1630s and early 1640s directly contributed to and amplified, the worsening political crisis which in 1642 would explode into Civil War in England and Wales. By 1641 there was instability across the Three Kingdoms.  In Ireland, the deteriorating condition of the so-called “deserving Catholics” who held property ... Read more

This is the incredible but true story of John Poyer of Pembroke. Poyer’s early years are obscure but he rose from poverty to become mayor of the isolated and poor town of Pembroke in the farthest reaches south west Wales. When civil war broke out in 1642 Poyer seized the town and castle for Parliament ... Read more

Between 1643 and 1645, Basing House in Hampshire – which once rivalled Hampton Court in size and opulence – was besieged by Parliament’s forces. The house was a Royalist bastion and its owner, the Marquess of Winchester, who repeatedly refused to surrender, had the motto “Love Loyalty” etched into the window. The house finally fell ... Read more

Some historians refer to the British Civil Wars as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.  As a result it is easy to forget the Welsh experience and imply that it was unexceptional. But Dr Lloyd Bowen, Reader in Early Modern and Welsh History at Cardiff University says this ignores the important ... Read more

On the 23rd of October 1641 – about a year before the outbreak of civil wars in England and Wales – a bloody Rebellion swept across Ireland. Lead by a small group of Catholic gentry and military officers, many of whom were Gaelic Irish, the rebels’ goal was to oust the hated English administration and ... Read more

In January 1644, the Scottish army was sent into England to directly intervene in the Civil War in Parliament’s favour. The Scots became aligned with the Presbyterians at Westminster, where they generated the political ideas which shaped much of Parliament’s war effort.

From 1637 popular opposition to Charles I in Scotland ignited a crisis which first spread to Ireland in 1641 and then to England and Wales in 1642. It was here in Scotland that the king initially made the concessions which publicly exposed his weakness and his inability to sustain his Divine right to rule. Once ... Read more

Historians now recognise that the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century must be viewed in a British and Irish context and not exclusively from an English perspective. Events in both Scotland and Ireland are fundamentally important if we are to gain an understanding of the causes of the conflict and the events which occurred throughout ... Read more

John Pym was one of the most influential Parliamentary leaders of the Opposition to the arbitrary rule of Charles the First in the years preceding the outbreak of civil war in 1642. And after the conflict began, he was an influential and widely respected figure in the development of the strategy developed by the Parliamentarians, ... Read more

John Pym, who was born in 1584 and died in December 1643, was one of the most important Parliamentary figures in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Civil Wars. He earned a reputation as a parliamentary revolutionary, leading opposition to the arbitrary rule of Charles I. Throughout this time, Pym’s leadership in ... Read more