King Charles sent another representative to offer terms of treaty to Parliament. This time Viscount Falkland who was a member of the Commons. The new offer was that both he and Parliament would withdraw the charges of treachery from followers of either side. On doing this the King would then take down his Standard and thus allowing both sides to then discuss there differences. This was but the public terms, Faukland also had private terms in that the King was prepared to consent to a thorough reformation of religion as well as anything else that Parliament could reasonably desire. Later negotiations point towards what Charles thought was reasonable and what Parliament did were rather different. Parliaments answer though could only lead to surrender by the King or war. Parliament it declared, would only lay down it's weapons if the King first withdrew his protection from all persons who had been or could in future be voted to be delinquents. This would give Parliament the power to remove anyone who ever supported the King in any matters.In short Parliament would become the ultimate power whilst the King would be a figurehead at best. The main effect of such a reply was to strengthen the resolve of the Kings followers. Where before many of his followers would welcome peace at almost any terms, the threat of loss of life and estates (from their family's) was all too much to contemplate. The only choice now was war and a war that would have to be fought to the bitter end. Parliament in trying to make negotiation impossible had made peace without total victory extremely unlikely. Not only was war inevitable but so was a long and protracted war.
Both sides as bad as each other and a country in flames!
ReplyDeleteAlthough bloody, these pivot points in history are important.
ReplyDeleteNice work Ian and have fun at your game tonight!
A fascinating period, and one that I have dabbled in... I used to play it with WECW, but that foundered a bit. I recently got the new Black Powder supplement for it; "Pike & Shotte" which I look forward to give a whirl...
ReplyDeleteWhenever ever I play a wargame, I usually pick a side that I have some kind of affinity for... yet in this one I struggle... because much of the conflict centered around religion, and being a self confessed 'pagan', its difficult to pick one side over the other!
@ Angry, I think I have heard the same record played over and over, before and since. Did someone say learn from history? It's all sad really.
ReplyDelete@ Anne, well it certanly changed Britain, so many of the things that exist today have some link to the ECW, even the famous Red Coat comes from the New Model Army!
@ Scott. Part of the War started with Religion but as always so much more was about power. The kind did want to push his New Prayer Book and systems that was too Popeish for a large section of the Gentry but Charles was trying to rule as much as possible without Parliament through lots of taxes and monopolies that had either not been in use for anything up to hundreds of years or like Ship Money had only ever been levied on counties with a coast. Parliament started with the goal of protecting it's rights but in the end tried to widen them beyond any previous attemps and in doing so was reducing the King to a much lesser power. You could break it down to the right for self government against the need to have a King. Better still, you could just choose a side that has commanders whoose names you like the best ;-)
Ian