Lesson video

Hello, I am Mr Olivey and I'm going to be teaching you for the next six lessons about the ways in which Britain was turned upside down during the seventeenth century.

Now, I'm wearing a Cornish rugby jumper today and the reason I'm wearing that is because Cornwall comes up several times in this video, so keep an eye out for that, see if you can spot where I mention it.

Before we start the lesson now I need you to do two things.

So the first, is to go and get a pen and a piece of paper, or your notebook, so you can take notes and write things down at various points of the lesson.

The other thing, is try and find a reasonably quiet place, like the room I am in now, for you to do some work in and to just really focus on the quite complicated story that we're going to be learning.

I'm really excited to start teaching you this lesson, so let's make a start.

So this is lesson one of a six lesson inquiry, and our title for today is Civil War divisions.

So just pause the video now, and write that down.

Okay, and our inquiry question for the next six lessons, is in what ways was Britain turned upside down in the seventeenth century? I'm going to begin with this image, I'd just like you to look at this, and try and see two things in this picture that are wrong, so pause the video now, and find those two things.

Okay, so two of the ones that immediately jump out to me are there is a church in the sky that is upside down, and there is also a candle in the sky that is upside down.

Now this image comes from very famous pamphlet from seventeenth century England, and that pamphlet was called the world turned upside down, or, a brief description of the ridiculous fashions of these distracted times.

It was printed in 1647, and this image is an incredibly famous way of representing a period of English history that was seen as crazy, as completely different to anything that had come before.

The whole world it seemed, had been turned upside down in the 1640's and 1650's.

And that's why our next six lessons are going to be spent unpacking this big question, which is, in what ways was Britain turned upside down in the seventeenth century.

But first, we just need to go back to someone you'll have studied before, Charles the First, because Charles the first was a king who believed he could do no wrong.

He believed in something called the divine right of kings, which meant that kings were made kings by God, so they could do as they pleased because they were God's representatives on Earth, and Charles started to do increasingly extreme things, he started to demand new taxes from his people, he started to impose new rules onto them, like the prayer book that he thought people could try and follow in Scotland and eventually Charles became very unpopular.

And the final straw was when Charles stormed into his parliament, and he tried to arrest five MP's, he stormed in with some soldiers and tried to arrest some of his MP's.

Now, he didn't succeed in this, but what he did succeed in doing was dividing his country and starting an English Civil war.

Where on the one side, there was parliament, and on the other side, there was the King and his Royalist supporters.

Now these two sides came up with insulting nicknames for each other.

Parliament, called the Royalists, Cavaliers, after wild Spanish cavalrymen, and the Royalists, called the Parliamentarians Roundheads, after the shaved heads of some of their apprentice supporters in London.

And this famous political cartoon here, shows the two sides in this war having some sort of dog fight.

So it says, the Roundheads are saying "To him pudel" and the Cavaliers are saying "Bite him peper" to their dogs but this civil war was much more than a small dog fight, it was a huge war that turned England upside down.

But what I would like you to do, is just to pause the video now, and write down which side were the Roundheads, were they supporting the King or Parliament? And which side were the Cavaliers, were they supporting the King, were they supporting Parliament.

Okay good, so you'll have written down the Roundheads were Parliamentarians, supporting Parliament, and the Cavaliers were the Royalists, supporting the King.

These are the two sides in this war.

But we've got this slight question of well, if there's a war within a country, a civil war, how did people choose sides in the English Civil War? Now some people chose sides for money so foreign mercenaries, soldiers from other countries in Europe, flooded into England because they knew that they could be paid lots of money to fight for either the King or Parliament, and one of them, Captain Carlo Fantom said this: "I care not for your cause, I fight for your half-crowns and your handsome women." So mercenaries didn't really care which side they fought for, they would fight for whoever would pay them the most money.

Now other people, didn't even get to choose their side at all, because both the Royalists and the Parliamentarians used things called press gangs, where they would kidnap people in the night, and force them to fight for their army.

Now the people who did get to choose their sides, didn't just choose it based on money, it wasn't the case that the rich people supported the King and the poor people supported Parliament.

Instead, it was other factors, and one of them was where they lived, because people in London primarily supported Parliament, and disliked Charles the First, whereas people in Cornwall and in Wales and in Oxford and in parts of the north of England, mainly supported the King.

Now these places, certainly Cornwall and Wales, were known as Britain's Celtic fringe, and they were more loyal to the King than the Parliament, because they felt that the Parliament was only really interested in London and England.

So, where people lived, their regional loyalties was one of the things that divided them.

The main thing that divided people was religion.

And this clergyman called Richard Baxter summed it up rather nicely at the end of the war.

He said "Puritans who talked of God, and heaven, and holiness supported parliament.

Those who did not trouble themselves so much with God and heaven supported the King.

Now Richard Baxter was biassed, because he was trying to make the Royalists look bad in this quote, but there is certainly a lot of truth in the fact that very strict Christians called Puritans mainly supported the parliament, the Roundheads, and more moderate Christians, more moderate Protestants, supported the king, the Royalists and the Cavaliers.

Okay, so pause the video now, and do these true or false statements based on these Civil War sides.

Okay, lets find out which of these are true and false.

So it is not true that foreign mercenaries like Carlo Fantom loved Charles the First.

What they really loved was money, and they would fight for whichever side paid them the most.

Nor is it true that press gangs smashed up printing presses.

In fact, press gangs stole people from villages and towns and forced them to fight for their army.

But it is true that most people in Cornwall supported Charles the first, and it's also true that most puritans, these very strict Christians, supported parliament.

And likewise many moderate protestants supported Charles the first.

But it's not true that London supported Charles the First, in fact, London was Parliament's capital during this war.

So well done, we've worked out how people chose sides in the civil war, and we've seen that it was mainly about their religion and where they lived.

We come back to our inquiry question, we need to think about how did the English Civil War turn the world upside down.

Now the first way, the English Civil war turned the world upside down was because of something called the printing press.

Now the printing press allowed people to make books and pamphlets and posters much more easily than they had been able to do in the past.

So in the middle ages, if you wanted to make a book, you needed to get someone who was a very good writer, like a monk, to make an accurate copy of it, and obviously this made making books incredibly expensive, and they were very very few books made, but when the printing press was invented, suddenly it was possible to make multiple copies of the same book, and to spread information, news, rumours and lies very quickly through a country and the printing press enabled rumours about the war to spread like wildfire through England, and some of these rumours, were rumours of atrocities.

So this is a Parliamentarian poster about the cruel practises of Prince Rupert, who is said to have murdered people in the city of Birmingham.

And some of the rumours of atrocities were truly horrible.

There were rumours that the Royalists had thrown babies onto pikes, long spears, pushed women off cliffs.

And these pamphlets also challenged gender roles.

So, in the seventeenth century, women were generally seen as excluded from politics, but during the civil war, women became more involved in politics.

So one incredibly radical pamphlet talks about a parliament of women.

Now this didn't happen, but even the fact that people were talking about this was seen as a revolutionary new idea, and other pamphlets involved women because they would petition, they would ask their husbands to go to war.

So, women were becoming more involved in this war.

Another way that it was turning the world upside down.

The war also caused horrible social problems, because so many people were injured in these battles, and so many women were widowed, meaning their husbands were killed, there were far more beggars in the big cities and in the towns of England.

People who had no money, and needed to beg for food and support.

And finally, the civil war saw horrible, horrible bloodshed.

It is estimated that 200 000 people were killed either in the battles or by diseases that were spread during the war.

That's a population of England of about 6 million.

And the huge huge bloodshed in this war was made even worse by the fact that often families were divided, so there would be fathers fighting sons, and brothers killing brothers.

This was a terrible war, a huge trauma for everyone in England.

Okay, sort these statements into whether they are true or false.

Pause the video now, and then find out the answers.

So, the first statement is false.

It wasn't true that women told their husbands not to go to war.

In fact many women were very politically involved in asking their husbands to join either the parliamentarians or the royalists.

But it is true that both the Roundheads and the Cavaliers printed pamphlets, and it's also true that nearly 200 000 people were killed during the war, and that brothers fought brothers, and fathers fought sons, and that beggars became more common during the war.

Now it's not the case that no one believed in God by 1646, but it is true that many people really believed that this was the end of the world, and that Jesus would come and the sinners would be sent to hell, and those who had lived a good life would be sent to heaven.

Genuinely people thought that it was the apocalypse had come to England, or at least some people did.

Finally then, we've got this question of how was the Civil War won? How did this awful war in England end? At the beginning of the war, Charles had lots of supporters in Cornwall, Wales and the north, and his capital Oxford.

But by the end of the war Charles's lands had been dramatically reduced, and the final breakthrough came because of a change to Parliament's army.

In 1642, there were no professional armies in England.

People only wanted to fight in their county, where they lived.

They were poorly paid, or fighting on a voluntary basis, they had very limited training and not enough supplies, and this meant that battles were incredibly disorganised and chaotic.

So in 1645, Parliament created something called the New Model Army, and this was an army of 22 000 professional soldiers led by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Olive Cromwell.

And it cost over 50 000 pounds a month, but what parliament now had was an army of well-trained soldiers, trained with things like this manual exercise of the musketeers here, well-trained soldiers, good at fighting, they would fight anywhere in the country, and they were given proper supplies.

And very quickly, the New Model Army helped Parliament to win the Battle of Naseby in June 1645.

And exactly a year after Naseby, Oxford, Charles the first's capital city, surrendered in June 1646.

And with that, the civil war, four years of bloodshed and fighting in England, was finally over.

Okay, finally, let's sort these statements into whether they are true or false.

Pause the video now and do that.

Okay, number one is true, most people in Cornwall and Wales did support Charles the first.

It's false that Charles had control of London, Charles never was very popular in London during the Civil War.

Now it is true that the New Model Army was established in 1645, but it's false that the New Model Army fought for Charles the first.

They fought for Parliament.

And it's also false that the New Model Army were poorly trained and lazy.

They were an incredibly well-trained efficient fighting force.

And it's true of course that Charles's capital Oxford surrendered in July 1646.

So, we cone back to our big inquiry question, and this idea of the world in England in the seventeenth century being turned upside down.

Let's just think, in what ways was Britain turned upside down during the seventeenth century? What about the English Civil War has turned the world upside down? Pause the video now and write down a few ideas.

Okay good, you might've put that there were huge numbers of people killed during the English Civil War, 200 000, you might've put that families had to fight each other, you might've put that people believed that it was actually the end of the world, there were all kinds of ways that the Civil War has turned society upside down.

So what I'd like you to do now is pause the video, read the slides on the next page and then answer the comprehension questions.

And resume the video once you're finished.

Good luck! Okay, well done for doing the comprehension questions, let's do the answers.

Question one, is how many people died during the English Civil War? Now the correct answer is around 200 000 people, but a better answer would be almost 200 000 people died during the English Civil War.

Brutal battles with deadly pikes, cannons, swords and muskets killed thousands and disabled many more.

Question two, what insulting nicknames did the Parliamentarians and Royalists call each other? Roundheads and Cavaliers would be the correct answer, but the better answer would be Parliamentarians were called Roundheads, after their shaved-headed supporters.

Royalists were called Cavaliers, after the wild Spanish cavalrymen.

Question three.

How did people choose sides in the English Civil War? And the correct answer, would be where they lived and what they believed helped people choose sides.

But a better answer would be Puritans and people in London were more likely to support Parliament.

Protestants and people in the Celtic fringe were more likely to support the king.

Mercenaries chose whichever side paid them the most money.

Question four.

What did some pamphlets claim happened to women and children during the English Civil War? The correct answer would be atrocities, but an even better answer would be pamphlets claimed that babies were thrown onto pikes and women pushed off cliffs by Royalist soldiers.

Many of these rumours were untrue.

Question five.

How did the New Model Army help Parliament win the war? The correct answer would be it was more professional than the Royalist army.

But a better answer would be the New Model Army was well-trained, would fight anywhere and was a paid army.

It defeated the Cavaliers at Naseby in July 1645 and took Oxford from Charles in 1646.

Well done then, you've finished the comprehension questions and we are making a really good start to our inquiry we already have lots of ideas about how to answer this question, in what ways was Britain turned upside down in the seventeenth century? Based on what you've just read, and everything we've covered so far, just write down a few more ideas on your piece of paper.

Okay, so we now know that in seventeenth century England the world was turned upside down.

And the story we've got up to today, is Oxford, Charles's parliament has surrendered in June 1646, but there's still a lot of things that have not been solved, what happens to the king? What happens to the New Model Army? What is the role of Parliament now? And all of these questions will be answered next lesson.

Well done for all your hard work today, if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging at Oak national and hashtag learn with Oak.

Well done, you've made an absolutely brilliant start during our inquiry, I can't wait to teach you about what happened after 1646 next lesson.

Bye for now!.