The English Civil War was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Royalists and Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the struggle consisted of the First English Civil War and the Second English Civil War. The Anglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652 is sometimes referred to as the Third English Civil War.
Edmund Calamy was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.
Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles, was an English statesman, best remembered as one of the Five Members whose attempted arrest by Charles I in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War.
Pride's Purge is the name commonly given to an event that took place on 6 December 1648, when soldiers prevented members of Parliament considered hostile to the New Model Army from entering the House of Commons of England.
Congregationalism is a Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. These principles are enshrined in the Cambridge Platform (1648) and the Savoy Declaration (1658), Congregationalist confessions of faith. The Congregationalist Churches are a continuity of the theological tradition upheld by the Puritans. Their genesis was through the work of Congregationalist divines Robert Browne, Henry Barrowe, and John Greenwood.
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, sometimes known as the British Civil Wars, were a series of intertwined conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities united in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 Bishops' Wars, the First and Second English Civil Wars, the Irish Confederate Wars, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and the Anglo-Scottish War of 1650–1652. They resulted in victory for the Parliamentarian army, the execution of Charles I, the abolition of monarchy, and founding of the Commonwealth of England, later The Protectorate, a unitary state which controlled the British Isles until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.
The Second English Civil War took place between February and August 1648 in England and Wales. It forms part of the series of conflicts known collectively as the 1639–1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which include the 1641–1653 Irish Confederate Wars, the 1639–1640 Bishops' Wars, and the 1649–1653 Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point between 1639 and 1653, while around 4% of the total population died from war-related causes. These figures illustrate the widespread impact of the conflict on society, and the bitterness it engendered as a result.
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was a council of divines (theologians) and members of the English Parliament appointed from 1643 to 1653 to restructure the Church of England. Several Scots also attended, and the Assembly's work was adopted by the Church of Scotland. As many as 121 ministers were called to the Assembly, with nineteen others added later to replace those who did not attend or could no longer attend. It produced a new Form of Church Government, a Confession of Faith or statement of belief, two catechisms or manuals for religious instruction, and a liturgical manual, the Directory for Public Worship, for the Churches of England and Scotland. The Confession and catechisms were adopted as doctrinal standards in the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches, where they remain normative. Amended versions of the Confession were also adopted in Congregational and Baptist churches in England and New England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Confession became influential throughout the English-speaking world, but especially in American Protestant theology.
The Engagers were a faction of the Scottish Covenanters, who made "The Engagement" with King Charles I in December 1647 while he was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle by the English Parliamentarians after his defeat in the First Civil War.
The Treaty of Breda (1650) was signed on 1 May 1650 between Charles II, exiled king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the Scottish Covenanter government. Under its terms, they agreed to install Charles II as King of Scotland and Britain, while Charles undertook to establish a Presbyterian Church of England, and guarantee the rights of the Church of Scotland.
"Oliver Cromwell" is a song recorded by Monty Python in 1980 but not released until 1989 where it featured on their compilation album Monty Python Sings. John Cleese, who wrote the lyric, debuted the song in the episode of the radio show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again broadcast on 2 February 1969, when it was introduced as "The Ballad of Oliver Cromwell". It is sung to Frédéric Chopin's Heroic Polonaise, and documents the career of British statesman Oliver Cromwell, from his service as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon to his installation as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. The lead vocals, often heavily multi-tracked, are performed by Cleese, with interjections by Eric Idle.
The Cambridge Platform is a statement of congregational church government for the churches of colonial New England. It was written in 1648 in response to Presbyterian criticism and served as the religious constitution of Massachusetts until 1780. The platform's preface also endorsed the Westminster Confession. The document was shaped primarily by the Puritan ministers Richard Mather and John Cotton.
The Conservative Congregational Christian Conference is a Congregationalist denomination of Protestant Christianity that is based in the United States. It is the most conservative and oldest Congregationalist denomination in America following the dissolution of the Congregational Christian Churches. It is a member of the World Evangelical Congregational Fellowship and the National Association of Evangelicals.
Sir Edward Harley was an English politician from Herefordshire. A devout Puritan who fought for Parliament in the First English Civil War, Harley belonged to the moderate Presbyterian faction, which opposed the involvement of the New Model Army in the peace negotiations that followed victory in 1646. Elected MP for Herefordshire in 1646, he was one of the Eleven Members forced into temporary exile by the army in 1647.
Under Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Catholic influence both at Court and within the Church.
From 1649 to 1660, Puritans in the Commonwealth of England were allied to the state power held by the military regime, headed by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell until he died in 1658. They broke into numerous sects, of which the Presbyterian group comprised most of the clergy, but was deficient in political power since Cromwell's sympathies were with the Independents. During this period, the term "Puritan" becomes largely moot, therefore, in British terms, though the situation in New England was very different. After the English Restoration, the Savoy Conference and Uniformity Act 1662 and Great Ejection drove most of the Puritan ministers from the Church of England, and the outlines of the Puritan movement changed over a few decades into the collections of Presbyterian and Congregational churches, operating as they could as Dissenters under changing regimes.
Thomas Birch, c. 5 June 1608 to 5 August 1678, was an English landowner, soldier and radical Puritan who fought for Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1649 and 1658.
Congregationalism in the United States consists of Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition that have a congregational form of church government and trace their origins mainly to Puritan settlers of colonial New England. Congregational churches in other parts of the world are often related to these in the United States due to American missionary activities.
The Battle of St Neots on 10 July 1648 was a skirmish during the Second English Civil War at St Neots in Cambridgeshire. A Royalist force led by the Earl of Holland and Colonel John Dalbier was defeated by 100 veteran troops from the New Model Army, commanded by Colonel Adrian Scrope.
