EARLY CAROLINE ENGLISH

command of Sir Edward Cecil. Despite Cecil being an experienced soldier (he had seen extensive service in Dutch pay) he had no experience of naval expeditions, which resulted in the army being landed in the wrong place without enough food or water. When the hungry and thirsty soldiers found a supply of wine, nearly the whole army was reduced to drunkenness. Cecil decided the situation was hopeless. Abandoning the expedition, he re-embarked the army, although the Spanish captured 1,000 men who were still drunk.

Despite this disaster, Charles again sent an expedition overseas in 1627, this time to France. Charles’s favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, was in command, and the aim was to aid the French Huguenots. This expedition landed on the Île de Ré in an attempt to capture the town of Saint-Martin. As with Cádiz, the expedition was badly supplied and the attempt was a failure. The army had to be re-embarked and withdrawn. In 1628 two attempts were made to send reinforcements to La Rochelle, but both were dismal failures, with the English forces having no effect at all. La Rochelle was forced to surrender.

Following this embarrassment, Charles realised that England was in no position to effectively intervene on the Continent, and no further expeditions were sent abroad during the period Charles ruled without calling a Parliament. Despite

this, by the late 1630s Charles had managed to stir up religious controversy in England and Scotland. By trying to enforce a new prayer book on his Scottish kingdom, he caused them to rebel against him under the aegis of the “Solemn League and Covenant” which led to the two “Bishops’ Wars”. As with his earlier military adventures,both of these were disasters for Charles. Although there was no fighting in the first war, in the second a Scottish army invaded England, defeating Charles’ army at the Battle of Newburn and capturing Newcastle, thus forcing Charles into a humiliating peace.

If trouble with his Scottish subjects was not enough, his Catholic Irish subjects then raised a rebellion in 1641, leading to a war that lasted until 1652 when the rebellion was finally crushed by the army of the English Commonwealth.

This list covers the pre-Civil War English armies of the reign of Charles I, including the overseas expeditions to Spain and France and the two Bishops’ Wars of 1639 and 1640. It also includes various armies in Ireland from 1634, when the army was organised by Viscount Wentworth, through its partial disbandment on his impeachment, reinforcement on the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in 1641, and fragmentation following the cessation of 1643 which allowed some troops to be sent to fight for the king in England.