The Republic Without a King
The Tudors and the Stuarts1485 to 1714
Parliament's victory in the civil war was won on the battlefield. The king's forces were broken at the Battles of Marston Moor and Naseby, which brought about the defeat of the king's army in the Civil War and left him without an army. Held prisoner by the parliamentary army and unwilling to agree terms, Charles I was tried and executed, and England became a republic with no monarch on the throne at all.
One of the parliamentary army's generals, Oliver Cromwell, went on to lead the new republic, though Britain's time as one lasted only 11 years: without him there was no clear leader, and people began to want a settled government once more.
Charles I's son refused to accept his father's fate. He led a Scottish army into England, but Oliver Cromwell beat that army at Dunbar and then at Worcester. Charles II then got away from Worcester, hiding at one point in an oak tree, and in the end fled to Europe.
What to remember
| Charles I | executed Held prisoner by the parliamentary army, unwilling to agree terms, executed in 1649. |
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| The Battles of Marston Moor and Naseby | the defeat of the king's army in the Civil War Charles I's army lost both; the Roundheads won the war. |
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| Britain's time as a republic | lasting 11 years From the execution of Charles I to the Restoration; without Cromwell there was no clear leader. |
| Defeated the Scottish army in the Battles of Dunbar and Worcester | Oliver Cromwell Charles II had been crowned king of Scotland and led that army into England. |
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| Escaped from Worcester, famously hiding in an oak tree, and eventually fled to Europe | Charles II He came back as king at the Restoration. |
Everything in The Tudors and the Stuartsor the whole course, from the beginning