Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome to lesson four of six, looking at why a Civil War broke out in 1642.

Now last lesson we looked at the Bishop's War and we get to how Charles was dealing with conflict with Scotland and how he had obviously fund that war.

He tried to get parliament back, but actually, because they were uncooperative, they only lasted three weeks before he dissolved them.

And you might also remember that the Scottish War ended with the Treaty of Ripon which meant that Charles had to pay £850 a day in order to stop Scotland from invading any further and stuff.

Now ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls with Charles now being in desperate need of money, Parliaments are going to have to be brought back and they come back in a very big way, which is what we're going to be learning about today.

So as always please make sure you've got a pen and paper ready in order to complete this lesson.

If you don't have them, please pause me now, once you get them and then we will begin.

Okay, so to start off, can you please write down the date in the top right hand corner of your piece of paper and the title which is The Return of Parliament.

Please make sure both dates and title are underlined and just pause the screen once you complete this task.

Okay, so exciting stuff.

In November, 1640 the Long Parliament is called into session.

The reason why they earn the title of Long Parliament is that you remember earlier on, in the year between April and May of 1640, Charles has his Short Parliament that only managed to last for three weeks.

Long Parliament manages to last obviously a lot longer than this.

And so you'll remember the Bishop's War.

The conflict ends between Scotland and England with the Treaty of Ripon.

Which says that the National Covenanters, they won't invade England anymore as long as Charles pays them £850 a day.

So that's good for Charles because the conflict has ended.

However, it is bad because he becomes incredibly desperate for money.

So he therefore opens parliament and he gives a big speech and denounces the covenanters, declares how evil they are.

And he demands a lot of money in order to crush the Scottish rebellion.

However parliament are not very quick in giving this money to Charles.

Indeed, there's actually quite a lot of growing resistance amongst the MPs in trying to fight against the National Covenanters.

In particular, a lot of the Puritan MPs.

You remember that those are those extreme Protestants.

They agreed with the covenanters because they also disliked Charles' Church Reforms and didn't want them to be implemented anywhere.

So, parliament start to use this situation to their advantage.

They know that Charles needs them and they want to work out what they can get out of this deal, how they can use this to their advantage.

And John Pym is essentially unofficial leader of the King's opposition.

He is really trying to rally parliament and gain them as much power as possible.

And he is really quite clever because instead of attacking Charles directly, because we know that this is happening in the past, when they tried to take Charles to court and declare that ship money was illegal, Charles would just fall back on the Divine Right of Kings argument and say, "look, you can't criticise the actions that I've done.

Remember God has put me as King of England himself.

So if you criticise me, you're therefore criticising God." And they weren't going to get anywhere by doing that.

So instead John Pym very cleverly didn't tackle Charles directly, but instead decided to focus in on Charles' evil councillors.

So essentially what he's doing he's saying "Charles look I know it's not you, it's not your actions that are negative.

You're fantastic but what you've done, unfortunately, is surrounded yourself with these evil people who don't have England's best interest at heart.

And they are therefore influencing you to make bad decisions." And one of the main person that John Pym goes after first of all is Earl of Stafford.

And you remember that he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

He was providing an Irish Catholics to join English Armed Forces.

And so in December Stafford was impeached.

He was put on trial on charges of high treason.

His sword was removed from him and he was taken to the Tower of London.

The reason being is that there were really strong fears that Stafford's Army of Irish Catholics was to be used against the English as well as Scotland as part of the Bishop's War.

And we'll come onto that in more detail shortly.

So its now really, without success of impeaching the Earl of Stafford parliament starts to go from strength to strength here.

To begin with, you have got the Puritan martyrs they're released from jail.

A martyrs is essentially someone who was either killed or really violently harmed due to their beliefs.

And so I'm talking about these three men that we've met before, who when Laud's reforms came out they publicly protested.

And some of you might already remember they had their ears hacked off publicly cast away from their heads.

So, as punishment for publicly going against those reforms. And parliament said, "No, we actually agree with what they did by speaking out against those church reforms, we're going to release them from jail." Secondly, they managed to declare ship money to be illegal which was a huge win for them after already taking this case to court and losing to Charles.

Thirdly, we had the Triennial Act, which was essentially parliament ensuring that Charles could never have a personal rule ever again, as the Triennial Act made it law, that parliament had to be called into session at least once every three years.

So Charles's personal rule of 11 years would never be able to happen again.

And then fourthly Laud was impeached.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, he was impeached as well and also imprisoned.

And at this point, many of Charles' supporters start to flee.

They've seen what's happened with Earl of Strafford.

They've seen what's happened with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Those people that were very, very close to Charles and were against Parliament things are going rapidly downhill for them.

So a lot of people that are close to Parliament, sorry, close to Charles, they therefore flee and leave Charles to fend for himself.

So that is a lot of information there I'm just going to give us a pause point now, so we can really take in and appreciate just how much power, Parliament seems to gain.

So, first things first, I would like you to write down this question as a subheading on your piece of paper.

How did parliament gain power between the year 1640 to 1641? And then you'll see underneath this, you've got five statements.

I would like to use only copy down these statements that you believe to be true, okay.

So just pause the slide here.

Once you get that done and then we'll go through the answers together.

Excellent work.

Okay, let's see how well we are.

As always, please make sure to give yourself a big tick once you've got them correct.

And if you've got any that you've written down, that actually are false, what you can do is just cross out particular words and amend them so that the meaning changes and they fall.

They become correct.

Okay, first bullet point, The Earl of Strafford and Laud were both impeached and imprisoned.

This is absolutely true.

Well done for getting that one correct.

Second bullet point, The money raised from ship money went straight to the MPs.

No, we know this is false.

And indeed what happened with ship money is that it was declared illegal.

So you can either write down as another point bullet point in your book.

That ship money was declared illegal.

Just to alter that one, if you did indeed write that one down.

Third point, John Pym made the decision to attack 'evil councillors' rather than the King himself.

Yes, a very clever and wise decision from him so that he didn't have to enter into the Divine Rights of Kings argument by attacking the King directly.

Fourth point, Parliament happily gave Charles' money to crush the Covenanters.

That is false.

Remember a lot Puritan MPs actually felt that they were on the same side as the Covenanters, as both of them were fighting against Charles' Church Reforms. And lastly, Charles lost supporters as many fled to escape impeachment.

Yes, that is absolutely true.

So really, really well done for getting that completed.

Again, if you need to pause me now to tick or to correct any work please do so.

Okay, so things start to ramp up now as in March, 1641, Strafford goes on trial.

Now what was used as the main bit of evidence in trying to lead Strafford towards his execution was a speech that Strafford me to Charles when they were trying to plan another attack as part of the Bishop's War.

Now, the key point that was made within this speech was that Strafford said to the King, that actually the King was loose from all rule of government.

That was one of the phrases that he said, and Pym really zeroed in on that phrasing.

And he said, "well, look if you're saying that the King is free from the rule of government, you're saying that he's free from parliament.

You're saying that he's therefore free to rule as he wishes, you know that's treason, you're going against parliament.

You clearly out for us." But really it wasn't long before the case started to crumble against Strafford because John Pym was just using words that Strafford had definitely said, but he was kind of manipulating them to have different meanings and Strafford defended himself really well against this.

There was one speech where he broke down in tears, as he mentioned his wife and the thought of leaving her would just tear him to pieces.

And people soon started to kind of go sympathetic towards Strafford as they realised that he hadn't actually broken any law.

And so therefore should not be convicted of treason.

However, John Pym could not stand for this.

And he introduces a new law that he's very confident that he can convict Strafford as broken.

So he introduces the Act or Attainder.

And this essentially added another layer to treason by basically saying that anyone could be convicted of treason if parliament agree that the person is probably guilty.

So what this essentially means is that if parliament will make up their mind that they want to get rid of someone then they can, without really having any hard evidence to go on.

It really is Act of Attainder really caused chaos to mount up within England.

Charles I refuses to pass it first of all, because he realises that if he does, then this is going to mean that his dear friend is going to be executed.

And when people start to realise this there's increased social unrest on the streets with bishops being attacked, as people become incredibly outraged and angered.

And even it leads to a thousand strong mob protesting against Strafford outside Whitehall Palace.

The Whitehall Palace was where Charles was living at the time.

And this mob just stood outside and they were shouting for justice repeatedly to try and get Strafford impeached at successfully.

So in May, 1641, finally, Charles crumbles.

He previously promised to keep Strafford safe.

However, with all of this chaos ensuing, Strafford realises that maybe actually he should be killed basically for the good of his country.

He realises that England is just completely falling into disrepair as people going on protests and Strafford writes to Charles to say, "Look, I know that you swore to protect me, but actually I'm allowing you to take back that promise." And Strafford actually quite shocked that Charles goes along with this.

He was actually expecting Charles to be like, "No, of course I'd never do that to you.

I want to keep you alive." But Charles actually sees things lesser from Strafford is a really quick way out.

And the death of Strafford would fix all of the problems. So, as soon as he gets the letter from Strafford, Charles then decides to pass the Act of Attainder, which therefore, allows Strafford to be then executed.

And that's what you can see here in this picture.

There were tens of thousands of people who turned up to watch this execution.

And you can see that as you can see all of those people there turning out to watch it.

And really, Charles when he then had his own execution at the end of the Civil War, he brought up the execution of Strafford and he said that he never forgave himself for throwing the Earl of Strafford to the wolves, throwing him to parliament.

And really it didn't prove to be a huge mistake of Charles, as it proved to parliament that they could get their own way and that the King could be pushed around.

So, another pause point for you here, just multiple choice question.

What did Strafford's execution reveal to parliament? And you've got four options here.

I would like you to write down the question and answer that you've gone for.

And if you again want to challenge yourself and make sure that you're deeply thinking about this, then justify your answer.

Why did you pick a particular option? Okay, so just pause the screen and then we will go through the answers.

Okay, excellent work.

So let's go through this then.

What did Strafford's execution reveal to parliament? Option one, The public had stopped supporting parliament.

Now, hopefully none of you put that one down as we already have seen, there were 15,000 people that turned up supporting parliament and trying to execute Strafford in a protest outside Whitehall Palace.

So it's not option one.

Option two, That parliament could push the King around.

Yes, really well done for getting that one.

If you did give yourself a big tick.

Absolutely right.

The fact that John Pym had managed to target someone who was a very close advisor to Charles and actually be successful in imprisoning him and then bringing about his execution, they showed that parliament had real power here.

So definitely give yourself a big tick if you put that option too.

But let's just go through the last two options.

Option three, That Charles would always have the greatest power in England.

Nope, absolutely not.

We know this because he tried to say, he tried to stop the Act of Attainder from going through.

But actually with increasing pressure from parliament and from the public, he then buckled under that pressure and he did pass the Act of Attainder.

Thus proving he did not have the greatest power.

And option four, That the Divine Right of Kings was worthless.

This one's quite interesting it's obviously with parliament gaining power, you might argue that therefore, the Divine Right of Kings was worthless because Charles is kind of losing powers of parliament.

But remember, Charles still has the title of Monarch.

He is still at the top of the hierarchy of England.

So we cannot go as far to say the Divine Right of Kings is now worthless.

Hey, excellent work.

We have now come on to the main part of the lesson where you're going to leave these slides in order to read the worksheet and complete these comprehension questions in full sentences.

So what I would strongly advise you to do now is just have a read of these questions now so that you know what key information to look for in the worksheets.

And then I'd like you to pause the video, read the sides on the next page and answer the comprehension questions.

Please make sure the answers are in full sentences and really challenge ourselves to be really specific with the information that you're including.

Make those answers as detailed as possible, okay.

And then resume here once you're finished then we can go back through the answers and then go back to that inquiry question of just why the civil war broke out in 1642.

Excellent, off you go.

Excellent work, okay.

As always, as I go through the answers to these comprehension questions, please make sure to give us up a big tick once you've got these answers correct.

But also if you feel like you can improve your answers with any information on the screen, then please do so, okay.

And so just feel free to pause me at any point so that the notes on your piece of paper are of the highest quality and you're producing your best work.

Okay, so question number one, Who did John Pym publicly criticise once parliament opened? Acceptable answer, Charles' evil councillors.

Absolutely, that is correct.

But I think can be a little bit more specific we need a name, so and even better answer.

Once parliament opened John Pym immediately criticised Charles' evil councillors, specifically the Earl of Strafford.

Good, question number two.

How else did the Long Parliament challenge the king's power? Choose at least three.

An acceptable answer, Free puritans from jail, make ship money illegal and pass the Triennial Act.

Good, but again we want to make that into a full sentence.

If I look back at these notes, maybe it's been a few weeks and I've forgotten it.

So I'll read that except one answer, even though it was correct at the time, I'm not going to know what that's relating to.

So an even better answer, we're using words from the question and putting them into our answer.

So it would say, Parliament continued to challenge the King's power by freeing Puritans from jail, making ship money illegal and passing the Triennial Act which made sure Charles' personal rule could never happen again.

So actually we've got some extra information on the Triennial Act there, which really shows how the King's power had been challenged.

Good, question number three.

Why was the Earl of Strafford accused of treason? An acceptable answer.

It was believed that Strafford would use his Irish army against England.

Good, but even better answer.

What I've done is I've used Strafford's own words, and then John came zeroed in on to make his argument.

So I've said, The Earl of Strafford had told Charles that he could use his Irish army to 'reduce this kingdom into obedience'.

Parliament argued that 'this kingdom' referred to England and believe Strafford had committed treason by plotting to overthrow parliament.

So you remember this is what the court case against Stafford all circulated around.

It was like John Pym was trying to manipulate Strafford's words against him.

Now Strafford obviously defended himself and said that when he was talking about 'this kingdom', he was referring to Scotland as England was already in a war against them as part of the Bishop's War.

But John Pym decided no, it meant England.

And therefore that is why Strafford should be executed.

Question four, What was the purpose of the Act of Attainder? An acceptable answer.

It meant that anyone could be convicted of treason if parliament agreed they were probably guilty.

But an even better answer.

As I've given a little bit more context here.

So I've explained why the Act of attainder was needed so that we've got a further level of understanding of that.

Okay, so good answer.

The evidence against the Earl of Strafford was not enough to convict him of treason.

Therefore John Pym passed the Act of Attainder that meant anyone could be convicted of treason, if parliament agreed they were probably guilty.

This was to ensure Strafford could be found guilty.

Okay, as you remember, the court case was falling apart around Strafford, as it was found that there wasn't really a law that he had purposely broken.

So therefore John Pym created the Act of Attainder as a law that the Earl of Stafford could be found to have broken, okay.

Question five.

How did the Earl of Strafford cause his own execution? An acceptable answer, By writing to Charles and telling him to pass the Act of Attainder.

Absolutely, It's correct.

But again, we're always after that more details.

And I think here we can really explain it further.

So a good answer, Charles had sworn to protect the Earl of Strafford from harm, which caused much outrage in the public as violent crowds demanded justice.

To calm the country down, Strafford wrote to Charles telling him to pass the Act of Attainder and that he was no longer responsible for his safety.

This then led to Stafford being found guilty of treason and caused his execution.

Excellent work.

Again, if you feel like you need to return to any of these questions in order to improve your answer, please do so.

And then once you're finished, I will join you back here for the inquiry question.

So as always, we will end each lesson by coming back to this inquiry question, to see how much further we are to finally answering it.

So, Why did the Civil War break out in 1642? What I'd like you to do as your last task of this lesson is to really focus in on this Long Parliament and answer this question here.

So the question reads, In what ways did parliament increase the chance of conflict between 1640 and 1642? Use the sentence starters and keywords below to answer this question, okay.

So what I'd like you to do is write a paragraph, maybe quite like an extended paragraph as well.

So that you can really summarise how Parliament's actions between these years have caused them to gain power over Charles and how they've really increased tension between the King and Parliament.

So what I'd really, really encourage you to do is to use these sentence starters that you can see in this table, but also focus in on these key words, okay.

They will really help you summarise everything and make sure that you zero in on the core knowledge of this lesson, okay.

They're also in chronological order.

So it makes sense for you to, when you're writing your paragraph for this to try and tick off the keywords as you go, okay.

Fantastic work.

And I'm going to leave you to finish off that task.

So please just pause this page as you do so.

Off you go.

Okay, excellent work.

We are so, so close to finally understanding why the Civil War in 1642 broke out and now you have the option to share your work with Oak National.

So if you'd like to, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Next lesson, we're going to be looking at the last cause before the Civil War is triggered.

Which is going to be really, really exciting stuff.

So we look forward to teaching that again with you soon.

And you have a great rest of your day and I'll see you again soon.