Causes of the British Civil Wars (Radio Edit)
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What is the focus of this podcast episode?
BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we're getting political. We're travelling back to the 17th century to discover the causes of the British Civil Wars. You might call them English Civil War. We'll explain later.
Who are the guests discussing the British Civil Wars?
And to help us separate the Royalists from the Radicals, we have two very special guests. In History Corner, he's Associate Professor in Social History at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, where his research focuses on the social history of early modern England. You might have read his incredible book, The Blazing World, A New History of Revolutionary England. He's also the author of a forthcoming book, The Blood in Winter, all about the run-up to the Civil War in 1642. It's Dr Jonathan Healy. Welcome, John. Hi, Greg. Lovely to be here. Thank you for Coming in and in Comedy Corner, he's an award-winning stand-up comedian. You may have seen him on BBC Three's Stand Up for Live Comedy or loads of Dave shows like Outsiders, Hypothetical, Question Team or Late Night Mash. And you will remember him from our episode on Frederick Douglass. It's Toussaint Douglass. Welcome back to the show, Toussaint.
All right, thanks so much for having me, Greg. You also forgot to mention that, just like John, I also have a connection with Kellogg's. I had cornflakes this morning, so I'm also very academic myself. I'll leave it to him mostly, but just to say that I dipped my toes in some milk, so yeah, don't worry.
Tucson, last time you proved yourself a bit of an American history aficionado. You knew quite a lot about Frederick Douglass.
Yeah, well, he was one of my heroes. So someone I, yeah, and also I did study kind of American history at uni a bit. So I had a little bit of a help there. This one, not so much. When you told me about the British Civil Wars, I did think it was like a British version of like the Marvel kind of film, the Civil War film. So I'm not sure if it's going to be that or not, but that's my starting point. So, yeah, I'll probably be leaving a lot of the history to John, but I'll chip in every now and then, I'm sure.
So what do you know? So what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And as you've probably heard of the British Civil Wars, or rather you've probably heard of the English Civil War. That's not really a name we use that much anymore. And also there aren't that many movies about it or pop culture about it. We've got King Charles popping up in To Kill a King. There was Blackout of the Cavalier years. Probably you're thinking of Roundheads versus Cavaliers or Oliver Cromwell and his ugly wart or Charles I being beheaded. But how did a civil war actually start? And just how long is a long parliament? Let's find out. The British Civil Wars or the War of the Three Kingdoms or the English Civil War or... I mean, there's loads of names for it, but they started in 1642. They lasted about a decade. But today we're going to do the prequel. So, John, where do we start our story? Do we start with Charles?
Well, we're going to look at the period 1625 to 1642. So that's from the start of Charles's reign to the moment when it all falls apart and the Civil War begins in England. But we're going to start with James I as well, because some of the things that we'll be thinking about will date back to the predecessor of Charles, his father.
What were the early financial struggles of King James I?
So James I was very short of money and that created an awful lot of problems. And in particular, it created a lot of problems in his relationship with with Parliament because the assumption was at this time that for the King to take people's money, they had to give consent to it in Parliament, which met when the King wanted it to. But the trouble is that when James called parliaments, they tended to want grievances to be addressed. So there's that. He's short of money. There's also a huge amount of kind of social stress In England at this period, there's been a long period of population growth. It means that people can't get on the housing ladder and food prices are very, very high. There's a series of riots in 1607.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the focus of this podcast episode?
0:01–0:24
2
Who are the guests discussing the British Civil Wars?
0:24–3:09
3
What were the early financial struggles of King James I?
3:09–4:19
4
How did King Charles I's marriage affect his rule?
4:19–6:28
5
Why did King Charles I rule without Parliament?
6:28–8:08
6
What were the religious tensions during Charles I's reign?
8:08–10:28
7
How did social unrest contribute to the outbreak of the Civil War?
10:28–13:56
8
What role did women play in protests during the 17th century?
13:56–28:05
Speakers
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