Why did Civil War break out in 1642? Fiona Green
In the 16th century, King Charles was crowned king. He had different ways of ruling the county and changed many things that the people did not agree with. All these problems totalled up to a Civil War. The civil war was a turning point in British history. It was caused by a mixture of long term and short term factors. Some of these causes were politics and others were more money and religion. People have many different views on whose fault it was on why the civil war broke out. Some blame Charles for trying to rule without parliament and others believe parliament pushed too hard for power.
One of the causes of the Civil War was the Irish Rebellion. In 1641, a riot started in Ireland and the Catholics murdered thousands of Protestants. King Charles saw Ireland as a threat and wanted to take control and send an army to punish the Irish; however Parliament and the King couldn’t agree on who would order the punishment. Charles undermined Parliament by sending Wentworth (who was one of his men) over to Ireland and ordered the punishment himself without saying to Parliament. King Charles made Wentworth the Earl of Stratford. Parliament hated this, because they saw Wentworth as a threat as he was too powerful and would use the Irish army to arrest the king’s enemies. Parliament didn’t trust the king; therefore they wouldn’t want to take any orders or requests from the king, meaning that they would rebel against him and a civil war would break out.
Resulting the Irish Rebellion, there was no trust between the king and parliament, so King Charles gathered 400 soldiers to arrest Pym (a member of parliament) and four other MPs. He ordered his army to break into the House of Commons to arrest the five MPs, however they had already escaped.
Pym travelled back to London, whilst Charles went north to gather more soldiers. Pym was also persuading others to join him and to create a law that would give him and Parliament control over the king’s army. That was the first time that parliament created a law without the king’s permission.
As well as the new law being created, the Grand Remonstrance was created by Pym and other Members of Parliament. The Grand Remonstrance was a list of demands from Parliament to King Charles. Here are some Examples:
Parliament would have power over the army
Parliament should decide they future of the church
The Parliament should make sure the kings children were brought up as Protestants and were well educated
The king should get rid of his soldiers
The king rejected these requests and gained 236 MPs as they all thought Pym had gone too far at trying to gain power. They travelled to north to join him.

In my opinion, the most important reason the civil war broke out was politics. I believe this, because as Charles wanted complete control of England and that he believed in the Divine right of king, he ruled for 11 years without parliament. This would have made parliament really mad, as they wanted more power than they had over the country. The more parliament wanted to have power, the angrier Charles got, as he wanted complete control over the country. The more Charles ignored parliament, the angrier parliament got and when Charles ignored the Grand Remonstrance parliament got really mad. As each side got angrier with the other, the more they would want power therefore it would total that a civil war would break out. Also, the Grand Remonstrance affected Charles’ power, because it undermined his power given to him by the divine right of kings. Charles could have declared war to Parliament as they undermined his power, resulting a civil war.
Religion added to the build up, because Charles married Henrietta Maria who was a French Catholic. Catholics were not trusted. Parliament did not want a French catholic Queen and thought she had a lot of influence over Charles decisions. He put more decorations