Did you Know Archives

Did Oliver Cromwell Ban Christmas

Did all Cavaliers dress in fine fancy clothes and did all the Roundheads wear black sombre puritan outfits?

Did the English civil war really start in Scotland!

Did more die in the English civil war than WW1 or WWII

What was the nature of Civil War
 

Did Oliver Cromwell Ban Christmas

Yes
From 1647 to 1660 it was illegal to celebrate Christmas in England, it was at that time a jubilant celebration with parades and many festivities the puritan movement frowned upon. One thing that the Puritans objected to in particular was the idea of Wassailing, in which the lower classes would go from house to house, begging for treats in exchange for drinking a toast to the family. The drink, wassail, was a hot spiced wine. Wassailing would often descended into drunken revelry, which is why the Puritan movement objected so strenuously. They also banned the consumption of mince pies which is still on the law statutes today!!

Did all Cavaliers dress in fine fancy clothes and did all the Roundheads wear black sombre puritan outfits?

Answer: No!,

The well populated myth that all royalist soldiers were upper class gents in fine clothes with long hair and a wide hat adorned with plumed feathers and that all parliamentarians wore black and were puritans is a pure figment of Victorian romanticism and imagination. The bulk of both armies were poor soldiers who dressed so similar that they often had to wear field signs like oak leafs in there hats just to identify the correct side in battle. In the 17th Century you dressed as your rank and social statues in society allowed you too, Cromwell himself had many fine sets of clothes especially after he became lord protector and as black was the most expensive dye of the period the common soldier would certainly have never been adorned in such a fashion. !!

Did the English civil war really start in Scotland!

Charles was the monarch of three kingdoms-Scotland, England and Ireland- and his attempts to rule these three jurisdictions as if they were a unitary entity contributed to his downfall.

Charles' attempted imposition of an Anglican Prayer Book on the Scottish Kirk in 1637 sparked off major controversy and a riot in St. Giles Cathedral. Leading Scottish nobles and clergy gathered together to sign a National Covenant in February 1638 in which they promised to defend their church against Anglicanism and Episcopalianism.

Charles responded to the Covenant with fury, regarding the signatories as rebels who ought to be crushed. He gathered an army together in spring 1639, determined to teach the Scots a lesson. The Scots responded in kind, raising a Covenanter army under the command of David Leslie, a Thirty Years War veteran. The Three kingdoms were hurtling towards the abyss.

The First Bishops War ended without major violence but resulted in humiliation for Charles. His army had little stomach for the fight and he was forced to conclude the war by signing the Pacification of Berwick and agreeing to several Covenanter demands. Angry and vengeful, Charles turned to his trusted ally, the Earl of Strafford, for advice. Strafford advocated a properly funded military campaign against the Scots but this would require finance and the support of Parliament, and so, in spring 1640, Charles called a Parliament, the first in England for eleven years.

Did more die in the English civil war!

The English Civil War killed a higher proportion of the British population than any other. In the seven years between 1642 and 1649, an amazing 1 in 10 of the adult male population died: more than three times the proportion that died in WWI and five times the proportion than in WWII.

Nature of Civil War

The nature of this war was dual. This was a religious and a political war. The Puritans and the Parliament united against the King and condemned his interference in the religious affairs. Both the Parliament and the Puritans were dissatisfied, as the King did not care for the existence of either. The Parliament along with the Puritans combined to dispute the King’s authority to lay down the law in Church and State. The main issue at stake was whether sovereignty resided in the King alone, or whether both the King and Parliament should share power. This discontentment broke out into an open struggle between the King, on the one hand, and the Parliament, on the other. This came to be known as the English Civil War or the Puritan Revolution.

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