Civil War

Civil War

When should Christians rebel?

IN 1642 the Puritans of England thought that the time had come. Charles I had been king of England since 1625. In that year he had married the daughter of King Henry IV of France, a fervent Roman Catholic. Charles, as head of the Church of England, supported the High Church Party within the church with its tendencies toward Roman Catholicism and sought to crush his Puritan opposition.

His effort to force Puritans to conform strictly to the practices of the Anglican Prayer Book caused many to emigrate to America. Those who remained in England harbored a growing resentment against Charles.

Earlier, in 1637, Charles set up his own downfall by ineptly handling the Scottish Church. Having declared himself the head of the Church of Scotland, Charles imposed a book of prayer on the Scottish Church that was more Roman Catholic than the one used by the Church of England. The Scots responded by signing the National Covenant in 1638, which made the Scottish Church officially Presbyterian. The following year they revolted against Charles. Needing funds to fight the Scots, in 1640 Charles was forced to convene Parliament for the first time in eleven years to raise money. Unfortunately for Charles, most of the members of the House of Commons were Puritans.

Charles’s fatal blunder came in 1642 when he attempted to arrest five leaders of Parliament for treason. The result was civil war. Charles I had the support of the Anglican clergy and the nobility, while Parliament had the support of the Puritans and the merchant class.

The crucial battle came in 1644. Oliver Cromwell, a godly Puritan, became the leading general of the Parliamentary army. In early summer he began a siege of the royalist city of York. From his headquarters in Oxford, Charles I ordered his son Prince Rupert with his army of twenty thousand to go to the relief of York. When Rupert arrived, the Parliamentary army retreated a few miles southwest to Marston Moor. On July 2, 1644, Prince Rupert, not content simply to relieve York, attacked the Parliamentary army as they were about to move south. Initially the right wing of the Parliamentary army was routed by the Royalists. But on the left, Cromwell’s cavalry defeated the cavalry of Rupert and followed them in hot pursuit. When the rout was complete, they turned back to aid the Parliamentarian infantry. The result was a total victory for Cromwell. The king lost his army, and the queen escaped to France.

The Puritans’ attitude in the civil war can be sensed in a letter that Cromwell wrote three days after the battle to the father of a soldier who had died at Marston Moor:

Dear Sir, It is our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, that so we may sorrow together.

Truly England and the Church of God hath had a great favor from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this War began. It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord’s blessing upon the Godly Party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. . . . The particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of twenty thousand the Prince hath not four thousand left. Give glory, all glory, to God.

Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon shot. It broke his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died. Sir, you know my own trials this way [his own son Oliver had been killed not long before]; but the Lord supported me in this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant and long for. There is your precious child full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow anymore.

The Lord be your strength: so prays,

Your faithful and loving brother,

Oliver Cromwell

Reflection

If you had lived at the time of the English civil war, on which side do you think you might have been? Are there circumstances under which Christians have the right to overthrow their government? What would those circumstances be?

Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay your taxes and import duties, and give respect and honor to all to whom it is due.

Romans 13:7