Unit 26 The Civil Wars

Charles I was a brave man but no general, and he was deeply perturbed by killing people on the battlefield. In 1643 the royal cause prospered, particularly in Yorkshire and the southwest. At Oxford, where Charles had moved his court and military headquarters, he dwelt pleasantly enough in Christ Church College. The King seems to have assented to a scheme for a three-pronged attack on London-from the west, from Oxford, and from Yorkshire-but neither the westerners nor the Yorkshiremen were anxious to leave their own districts. In the course of 1643 a peace party of the Parliamentarian side made some approaches to Charles in Oxford, but these failed and the Parliamentarians concluded an alliance with the Scottish Army. The entry of a Scottish army into England in 1644 thrust the King's armies upon the defensive and the plan for a movement on London was abandoned. Charles successfully held his inner lines at Oxford and throughout the west and southwest of England, while he dispatched his nephew, Prince Rupert, on cavalry raids elsewhere. For about a year the King's forces were successful. The year 1645 was decisive. The highly disciplined and professionally led parliamentary army organized and commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax with Oliver Cromwell as his second in command, defeated the King and Prince Rupert at the Battle of Naseby. This was the first of a long row of defeats the King's forces suffered through the summer and fall. Charles returned to Oxford in November and by the spring of 1646 Oxford was surrounded. Charles left the city in disguise and ran to the Scottish camp. But the Scots handed over Charles I to parliamentary commissioners. He was held in Northamptonshire, where he lived a placid, life and, learning of the quarrels between the Army and Parliament, hoped to come to a treaty with one or the other and regain his power. But a junior officer with a force of some 500 men seized the King and carried him away to the army headquarters at Newmarket. After the army marched on, the King was moved to Hampton Court. He escaped, but was captured. Charles found himself in the Isle of Wight, where the governor was loyal to Parliament and kept him under surveillance at Carisbrooke Castle. There Charles surreptitiously conducted complicated negotiations with the army leaders, with the English Parliament, and with the Scots; he did not scruple to promise one thing to one side and the opposite to the other. Charles then twice refused the terms offered by the English Parliament and was put under closer guard, from which he vainly tried again to escape. In 1648 the last of Charles's Scottish supporters were defeated at the Battle of Preston and the second Civil War ended. The army now began to demand that the King should be put on trial for treason as "the grand author of our troubles" and the cause of bloodshed. He was removed to Hurst Castle in Hampshire at the end of 1648 and thence taken to Windsor Castle for Christmas. In January, 1649, he was brought before a specially constituted high court in Westminster Hall. Cromwell insisted on the execution of the king and Charles was beheaded.

Read the text, translate it into Russian.

Memorize the words, answer the questions:

prosper - преуспевать	Which force prevailed at the beginning of the war?
headquarters – штаб-квартира	Which army was more disciplined and better organized?
behead-обезглавить	What did Parliament accuse the king of?
bloodshed - кровопролитие	Who demanded the king`s execution?