Lesson video

Hello year eight, and welcome to history lessons here at Oak National Academy.

I'm Miss Hillman and I'm a history teacher.

I used to teach in Margate but currently working within London.

And I'm really excited to start this unit with you looking at the causes of the English Civil War.

The reason I'm so excited is because the Civil War was a truly groundbreaking event within English history.

It was a time where people turned against the English stereotype of having that stiff upper lip, refusing to get emotional about matters.

And actually it was a time where people turned against best friends, turned against their families, as they fought with one another.

And even a time when the king, the most important person, was executed down to that Civil War.

And throughout these next six lessons, we're going to be understanding exactly how that managed to happen.

Which is going to be really really interesting.

So before we begin, please make sure that you've got yourself a pen and a piece of paper or a book, just something for you to write on.

As that's what you'll be needing for this lesson.

If you don't have either of those.

Then please just pause me now, whilst you run and grab them, and then we're going to get stuck right in.

Okay, so to begin, can you please put today's date in the top right hand corner of your piece of paper.

Then underneath that, I'd like you to write down the inquiry question that we're going to be coming back to every lesson out of the next six lessons of this unit.

Make that quite big at the top of your page.

Why did the Civil War break out in 1642? And then underneath that, you can put down the title of today's lesson, which is the Thirty Years' War Please make sure all of that is underlined.

And then just pause me, whilst you get that completed.

Before we begin, I just want to show you a zoomed out timeline, so that you can understand where the English Civil War places in amongst all the rest of your historical knowledge.

So in year seven, you might have studied the Middle Ages, and that's a period from around the year 500 to 1500.

That ends, and then we enter into a period called the Early Modern Period.

And that begins with the Tudors, who reigned England from 1485 to 1603.

You might be thinking of Henry VIII, for instance, and Elizabeth I.

Then from 1603 to 1649, is when the Stuarts first reign England.

And we're going to be concentrating a lot of time on them.

As it's within this period, 1642 to 1649, that the English Civil War happens.

And one of the main reasons why this is so interesting is because one of the consequences of the English Civil War is then that England is no longer ruled by a monarch.

It's not a king or queen that's in charge of the country.

Instead, we have a different job, known as being Lord Protector, which Oliver Cromwell completes within the years, 1653 to 1658.

I'd also like to just give you some further background about the English Civil War itself, before we start to understand its causes.

And if you look at this drawing, on the right hand side of the screen, you might be starting to understand why it was such an important event.

Here you can see a child, that has been speared to death, as a result of this conflict.

And really it was a truly devastating amount of people that lost their lives during this period.

It was almost a quarter of a million people, who lost their lives.

And this was a huge amount of people that died due to conflict within England.

Indeed, there's been no other point in English history where that number has been any bigger until England during World War I in 1914, so this was massive.

And it divided families.

You might have a father at war with his son because one might be arguing that the King should be saved, whilst the son might be arguing, actually, no, it should be our country.

And this really divided everyone within the country.

And lastly, as already mentioned, the English Civil War ends by the execution of a king, and this was monumental, never before had people believed they could trial a king or punish a king.

He was meant to be above the lore, above all of that.

So for him to lose his life because of this, was a truly significant event in English history.

So this is the king in question, King Charles I.

He became King of England, Scotland and Ireland, the three kingdoms between the years, 1625 to 1649.

And he became King with quite a lot of inexperience.

The reason for this, is that when he grew up, people never expected him to be heir to the throne.

He actually had an older brother, by the name of Henry, who had been educated on how to rule the kingdoms, and you know, he was just very academic.

He knew what he was doing, he was very confident.

But before he had a chance to take the throne, Henry died of a fever, which left Charles, who hadn't been taught how to be a King to then take that throne.

And what this meant is that actually a lot of the times he acted on instinct.

He lacked having a really good political judgement , thinking about how his actions might affect everyone else within the country.

And it wasn't soon before many people quickly realised that he could not be trusted, and relationships started to break down around him.

So here we've got a bit more of a zoomed in timeline, this time.

So in 1603, that's when James I, which is Charles I's father, he becomes King of England and Ireland.

He was already King of Scotland before then, he was James VI of Scotland, but 1603 is the year that the Tudors end, with Elizabeth I dying.

And James I then adds England and Ireland to his reign.

Now in 1618, is when the Thirty Years' War begins, and I'm going to go into more detail on that shortly.

But essentially this is a war that happens across the English channel in Europe, which is very based on religious divisions.

And during this time, James I, is being pestered by parliament, come on James, we need to come and help, and protect the Protestants that are being killed over in Europe.

But James is quite hesitant, because wars are quite expensive.

So when Charles I becomes king in 1625, he's got a different idea.

He thinks to himself, okay, I'll join this war.

And it kind of leads to quite a few disasters, which we're going to be learning about in this lesson.

Which then means that by 1630, Charles realises, hang on, this is not going well, I need to make peace.

and I need to leave the Thirty Years' War.

It's causing far too much money to be leaving my bank.

And then later on, in 1642, we've got the English Civil war breaking out.

So the reason why we're studying the Thirty Years' War today is because it's really seen as a very long term cause of why that Civil War broke out in 1642.

And for us to truly understand how the Thirty Years' War caused that Civil War, we need to investigate the religious divisions that caused the Thirty Years' War in the first place.

Okay, so we've come to a pause point here.

What I would like you to do, is look at these two churches.

Now each of them, they're both Christian churches, but they both adhere to a different method of practising that Christianity.

So what I'd like you to do is try and spot the difference between these churches.

And if you really want to extend your knowledge, and think more deeply about this, challenge yourself by asking yourself, why are these churches different? So what I'd like you to do is just pause the slides here, whilst you bullet point the differences on your piece of paper.

And then also if you can, explain why these churches are different.

Excellent work, so hopefully some of you, and I'll be really impressed if you've managed to get this correct.

Would have immediately decided that church A is a Protestant church.

So this is one branch of Christianity.

And you might have discovered that within this church, it's a lot plainer, there's far less decorations going on.

Whereas in church B, some of you may have decided this is a Catholic church.

And immediately the difference is clear.

This church is much grander.

There's a lot more ornate decorations going on.

You can see all of the detail that's been etched into that woodwork.

And you can clearly see the difference between these churches.

Now within Europe at this time, there had been an ongoing religious conflict.

As people argued over what the best way to practise Christianity was.

Some people believed it was by being Protestant, and not having decorations within your church because they believe that that was actually just a distraction from having a very clear connection to God.

They believe the best way to practise religion was simply by reading the Bible, and praying to him directly.

Whereas the Catholics completely disagreed, and they said, no, the church is God's home.

We need to show him how devoted we are to him.

By making these churches as beautiful as possible.

We need to make them grand.

We need to have stained glass windows.

We need to have crosses, candles, everything, in order to show God that we are the most devoted.

Now.

This can be extended a little bit further.

So you can see Catholics on the right hand side, Protestants that we've just mentioned, but we've also got another group, known as the Puritans.

And you can see from this, that they kind of go off from Protestants.

They are the most extreme Protestants that you can think of.

The idea of having a decorated church to a Puritan was highly offensive.

So there are three main groups that you need to know for this lesson.

Now, England, at this point, they follow the Anglican religion, which was Protestant.

That was the church of England.

During this time as well, we've got a rising group of Puritans within England.

And as already mentioned, they did indeed hate the Catholics.

They believed the Catholics were all going to go to hell because they were practising religion badly.

And our main Catholic superpowers that we caught this time are Spain and France over in Europe.

So this leads me on to the Thirty Years' War.

Now we're not going to go into too much detail over this.

We don't need to, but I'm just going to give you a quick overview of what is going on.

So you can see down there at the bottom, you have got the Habsburg empire.

Now they were strongly Catholic.

And they're mainly within Spain, they've got some land in Italy, as well as Austria.

Now the Thirty Years' War kicks off once Habsburg empire decide in 1618 that they want to strengthen Catholicism.

And that actually any Protestant that is within their empire should therefore be quashed.

They shouldn't be allowed to practise Protestantism and they should just follow the Habsburg's view that Catholicism is the best religion, essentially.

So what happens is that Bohemia where there was quite a strong Protestant group, they rebel against this.

And they choose the Protestant Frederick I, to become their leader in 1619, which causes quite a lot of conflict to break out between Bohemia and the Habsburg empire.

Now this gains England's attention, as Frederick I is Charles I's brother-in-law.

So Charles I is thinking to himself, right, well, I need to go over there, and I need to get myself stuck in and you know, support my family in, you know, making Protestantism a strengthened religion.

So that is how England gets involved within the Thirty Years' War.

However Charles I cannot simply enter in a war willy nilly.

It was going to take a lot of things to happen first before he could do so.

And the main thing standing in his way, was parliament.

Now Charles needed parliament to raise taxes.

This was the main power that parliament had over Charles is that they were responsible for providing the Monarch with his wealth.

And it was really important to increase Charles I's wealth especially during war time.

It was incredibly expensive to funds the armies, to provide all of the weapons, to build the war ships that they would need to use in the Thirty Years' War.

And parliament, upon realising that this was quite a nifty power that they had over the king, would often use this to their advantage.

And they'd often say, well, hang on, Charles, we're not going to give you this money, until you promise us that you're going to change your behaviour.

It might be that he needs to consult them before he decides to make those decisions, that often went badly due to his inexperience, for instance.

And this caused quite a lot of tension between Charles and parliament, that we're going to come to look at in a lot of detail over the next few lessons.

One of the main reasons why Charles hated this idea that parliament would try to get him to agree or try to get him to make deals with them comes down to this strong belief he had in the Divine Right of Kings.

Now, this has shown really clearly in this painting on the right hand side of your screen.

If you look there at the top you can see that, there's a hand coming out of the sky, placing that crown on top of Charles I's head.

And all of that gold light, makes me think of sort of angelic pictures and gives Charles I almost this godly power.

And that's exactly what the Divine Right of Kings was.

It was the belief that Charles I had been put on this Earth to rule England by God himself.

And so it then followed that whatever Charles I said, and whatever he wanted to implement, was essentially the will of God.

So that if anyone, if parliament, for instance, even dare to argue with Charles, then he believed what they were essentially doing was arguing against God himself.

Which was obviously not acceptable at this time.

And what Charles would often do as well, is that if he felt thought that parliament were arguing too much with him, then he would dissolve parliament.

And what this means is that he'd essentially shut down parliament, he'd get rid of them, close the doors to the House of Commons, and say go back to your normal jobs, I don't want to hear from you.

Now this would be problematic for him because parliament would be unable to raise the money that he needed for more, but it was also Charles showing off his power, essentially, which really annoyed parliament.

And another reason that parliament very annoyed, is that Charles I not only ignored them, but decided to place a lots of his trust in one individual, that was called the Duke of Buckingham.

Who you can see here, in the left part of the screen.

Now the Duke of Buckingham, sadly, did not give Charles I the experience that he needed.

And indeed the Duke of Buckingham planned many things, not very well, and led to many more disasters, which worsened the relationship between Charles and parliament further.

And you'll come to read about that shortly.

But that was a lot of information.

So what I'd like you to do now, is just have a quick pause point, for us to consolidate everything we've learned so far.

So what I'd like you to do first, is write down the question here at the top of the screen.

What problems faced Charles I once he became King? And then once you've done that, I would like you to copy down the statements that you believe to be correct.

Some of them are false.

Read them really carefully, and make sure that you don't write down anything that is incorrect.

Just pause the slide whilst you get that done, and then we'll go through the answers together.

Okay, really excellent work! Some of them were a little bit tricky weren't they? So let's see how well we've done.

Make sure you give yourself a big tick, if you get them correct.

And if there's any that you've written down that proved to be incorrect, then just either cross them out or write down some extra information to amend them so that they are correct.

Okay, let's go through, and see how well we've done.

First statement, Charles believed in the Divine Right of Kings and wished to rule by himself.

This is absolutely correct.

Well done for getting that one.

The next one, Charles was a very wealthy king, who did not have to worry about money.

That is incorrect.

Remember, especially during the time of war money becomes a huge concern for Charles I, which is why he has to try and work with parliament in order to raise taxes, and get the money he so desperately needs.

He cannot raise that money by himself.

Third statement, parliament tried to influence Charles by stopping taxes from being raised.

This is absolutely correct.

And remember this would be one of the main points in tension between Charles and parliament, is he believed that they have no rights to try and strike any deals with him as he was God's man on Earth, essentially.

Statement number four, Charles had to face religious divisions in his own country and across Europe.

Yes absolutely, he did.

The main conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics is they argued how Christianity should best be practised.

Statement number five, parliament felt Charles took on board, their advice.

Absolutely not, not only did he ignore them, but he also placed all of his faith in that favourite of his, the Duke of Buckingham.

Everyone in England followed the Anglican church.

No, they did not.

Remember, you had rising Puritans, who were those extreme Protestants, and you also had a little amount of Catholics within the country as well.

Charles would dissolve parliament if they argued against him, absolutely right.

Yes, he would show off his power, and by doing so it really annoyed parliament as well.

Parliament hated Charles' main advisor, the Duke of Buckingham.

Yes, absolutely he did.

Good, really well done, for getting all of that completed.

Again, please make sure that you tick the ones that you got correct.

And if there's any that you need to amend, then please do so.

Okay, we're now going to move on to the main part of the lesson.

The worksheet is going to provide a lot more specific detail and events as to how the relationship between Charles and parliament worsened due to their involvement within the Thirty Years' War.

So what I would like you to do, it might be a good idea actually now, just to read through these comprehension questions so that you know what key events you need to be looking out for as you read the worksheets.

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

And then just come back here once you're finished for us to go through the answers.

Excellent work, really really well done for getting that completed.

We're now going to go through these answers.

So as I go through these slides, please make sure to pause the screen at any point, if you need to tick your answer because it's fantastic and you got it completely correct or feel free to pause these slides so that you can extend your answer or improve it in any way.

Okay, so feel free to do that at any moment.

Okay, so question number one, what caused Charles to want revenge against the Spanish? An acceptable answer, his marriage proposal was rejected.

Now that's definitely a correct answer, however say I'd written that down in my book and then I need to come back to these notes because maybe it's the end of the unit, and I need to use my knowledge in order to answer that inquiry question as to how the Civil War broke out in 1642.

If I just read his marriage proposal was rejected.

I'm not going to know what that's regarding.

I might have forgotten who I'm talking about.

A much better answer would be a full sentence that makes sure that I'm very specific in what I'm saying.

And we can see that with a good answer, it starts off by giving us the names.

We know exactly who we're talking about.

And it reads, Charles had planned to marry the Spanish princess, Maria Anna, however she rejected his proposal.

Charles felt humiliated, and so wanted revenge against the Spanish.

So you can immediately see why this answer is better.

We've got specific names, so we know exactly who we're talking about, and it takes those words from the question and puts them into the answer.

So I know it's talking about revenge against the Spanish.

Okay, question number two.

How did Charles go beyond his agreement with parliament in 1625? An acceptable answer, by paying for an army instead of sending ships to fight the Spanish.

Again, I think we can improve this, and make it into a full sentence.

So we could answer with the, parliament agreed to give Charles money to send ships across to help fight in the Thirty Years' War.

In 1625, Charles broke this agreement by sending an army over instead, which cost the lives of many.

And you'll remember from reading the worksheet, this is really the first attempt by Charles to try, you know, make a good go of it in the Thirty Years' War, but actually it just proves to be the first step in a long line of steps that caused his breakdown in relationship with parliament.

Question three.

Why did parliament want to impeach the Duke of Buckingham? You'll remember impeaching is where members of parliament can be put on trial, and if they're found guilty, they might even be executed for their actions, if it's believed those actions were to be against the country.

So an acceptable answer, because of his failed trip to Cadiz.

But an even better answer is going to have more specific information and a lot of detail.

And this reads, parliament wanted to impeach the Duke of Buckingham because he had too much control over Charles I, and influenced him to make poor decisions.

This is shown by Buckingham's trip to Cadiz which resulted in the death of 7,000 Englishmen.

Good, really well done so far, almost through.

Question number four.

Why was dissolving parliament in 1626 a bad choice for Charles I? An acceptable answer, it stopped him from raising new taxes.

Remember he needed that wealth, in order to fund the war.

So good answer.

Once parliament were dissolved, this meant they could no longer raise taxes and provide money to the King.

Due to Charles I being at war, he desperately needed money to help fund his effort, so it was a bad decision that he dissolved parliament in 1626.

Good, and last question, question number five.

How did Buckingham cause both religious and political conflict in 1627? Now this is quite a difficult question because it's talking about two different causes of conflict.

So two different categories, religious, So we want to think about Protestants versus Catholics.

And also political, so we're thinking about Charles I versus parliament.

So an acceptable answer, by agreeing to help France put down a Protestant rebellion.

But a good answer is going to go into a lot more detail and explain both the religious and political causes.

So, throughout the Thirty Years' War, parliament fought to protect the Protestant faith.

When parliament learned that Buckingham had arranged for England to fight against the French Protestants as part of a marriage proposal, they were furious.

This caused religious conflict, as England had to support the Catholics, and political conflict as Buckingham had once again, overstepped his mark.

So you can see that this is really a paragraph in order to answer this question.

And it goes into really specific detail due to those religious and political causes.

So again, if you feel like you need to go back to any questions and pause the slides so that you can improve your answers, please do so.

Really well done for everyone, for getting all of that done.

We are now going to move on to our extension activity.

Now this is always going to be coming back to this inquiry question.

We're going to chip away at this at the end of every single lesson.

And that question is, why did the Civil War break out in 1642? So, what I would like you to do is think about the different categories of.

Causation factors, essentially.

And so you can see here, we've got a mind map.

What I'd like you to do is pause the screen here and copy down that mind map in your books.

You can see the title of that, how does the Thirty Years' War help cause the Civil War to break out in 1642? And you've got your three different categories, economic problems, political conflicts, and religious divisions, okay.

So what I'd like you to do is just pause the screen here, and from each category see if you can add some historical knowledge that you've learned from that, from this lesson to support each category.

Off you go.

Excellent work, really really well done! I'm just going to go through some of my answers.

You might have different ones at home.

That's absolutely fine.

I by no means gone through all of them.

So take off the ones that I've got, but by all means add these ones, if you don't already have them, and you've written down different ones instead.

So we'll start off with the economic problems, this is all to do with money.

And you'll remember, main reason is that wars are expensive, and that by Charles choosing to dissolve parliament, he is unable to raise taxes to fund the war.

So Charles I starts to get a lot of money problems as a result of the Thirty Years' War.

And relationships between parliament and Charles breakdown because of this money stress.

Next, political conflict.

Remember, Duke of Buckingham, parliament are very annoyed that he has too much authority.

People as well.

You might have started to bring in Divine Right of Kings, and how this always meant that Charles would win any argument with parliament.

So really well done if you put that down as well.

And then lastly, I'm just going to go to religious divisions.

Here, but this is between the Catholics versus the Protestants.

And I decided to use La Rochelle, the event which forced England to help the enemy.

So I tried to be a bit more specific here.

And remember this was an issue because parliament had to help the French Catholics put down a Protestant rebellion, which obviously went against their own religious instincts as they always wanted to protect Protestants.

Really really well done for getting that done.

Hopefully that's been a really good way for you to summarise all of the information that we've learned today in trying to really understand how the Civil War broke out.

Okay, so we've come to the end of the lesson, really great work! So now you have the option to share your work with Oak National.

So 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 #LearnwithOak.

I'm really, really impressed with your work today.

Next lesson we're going to be looking at Charles I, and how he completely breaks away with parliament by creating his own personal rule.

So I really look forward to meeting you back here for us to learn that.

Hope you gone to have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you back here soon!.