England’s Wars of Religion: A Reassessment

In 1983 John Morrill concluded a lecture before the Royal Historical Society in London with the observation that the English civil war was ‘the last of the wars of religion’. 1 is was profoundly suggestive, given the fact that religion had shaped political action and debate since the English Reformation, and that it remained a dominant feature of the ideological conict that generated war among the British kingdoms. While many historians took pains to avoid erecting billboards along a high road to civil war, it is nevertheless the case that the reign of Charles I (1625-49) witnessed a sudden upsurge in the politicization of religion. 2 is culminated in the ‘Bishop’s Wars’ (1639-40), a conict which stemmed from the attempt by the English to bring the ercely independent (and Presbyterian) Scottish Kirk into line with the magisterial episcopacy of the established church. Defeated by the Army of the Covenant, Charles I was forced to summon a parliament to secure funds to continue the Scottish campaign, but aer 11 years of the ‘personal rule’ members of parliament were in no mood to grant supply to a king making war on fellow Protestants.