The Wars of the Three Kingdoms

Alternate meanings: Three Kingdoms (disambiguation)

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, also called the British Civil Wars, are a series of conflicts that took place in Scotland, Ireland, and England between 1639 and 1651 which included the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640, the Scottish Civil War of 1644-5; the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Confederate Ireland, 1642-9 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649; and the English Civil Wars of 1642-6, 1648-9 and 1650-51.

Main events

• 1639: Conflict between Covenanters and Royalists in Scotland which began with the Covenanters seizing the City of Aberdeen in February
• 1639: The Bishops' War Charles brings his troops into Scotland but decided not to attack but negotiate instead. The Treaty of Berwick is signed- peace agreement between the Scottish army and Charles I in June
• 1640 The English Short Parliament is recalled in order for Charles to obtain money to finance his military struggle with Scotland
• 1640: The Second Bishops' War or 'Second War of the Covenant' broke out in August . An army of Covenanters crossed the Tweed and overran the English force at the Battle of Newburn marching on the city of Newcastle.
• 1640: The Treaty of Ripon left Newcastle in Scots hands who received a large tribute from Charles.
• 1640-1660 The English Long Parliament convenes in November as Charles needs to raise finances after being bankrupted by the cost of the Bishops' Wars
• 1641 Irish Rebellion (also know as the Irish Rising). Alliance of Ulster Catholics and the Old English to form the Catholic Confederation who won a battle against Crown forces at Julianstown Bridge near Drogheda in December
• 1642 A Protestant Scots army is sent by the Covenanters to Ulster to defend the Protestant plantations.
• 1642-6 The First English Civil War
• 1642 Battle of Edgehill
• 1644 Battle of Marston Moor
• 1645 New Model Army formed
• 1645 Battle of Naseby
• 1648-9 The Second English Civil War
• 1648 Battle of Preston (1648)
• 1649 Execution of Charles I
• 1649 Cromwell takes Drogheda
• 1649 Cromwell takes Wexford
• 1650 Third English Civil War begins
• 1651 Sep 3 Defeat of Charles II and the Scots at Worcester ends the Third Civil War and the wars of the Three Kingdoms

See Also

• Bishops' Wars
• English Civil War
• Montrose and The Scottish Civil War

External Links

• article by Jane Ohlmeyer who argues that the English Civil War was just one of an interlocking set of conflicts that encompassed the British Isles in the mid-seventeenth century

• John Adamson argues that the importance of the Celtic fringe in the events of the 1640s has been exaggerated

Further Reading

• British Isles
  • John Kenyon and Jane Ohlmeyer (eds.), The British and Irish Civil Wars. A Military History of Scotland, Ireland and England 1638-1660 (Oxford University Press, 1998)
  • The Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660 by Trevor Royle (2004)
  • Martyn Bennett, The Civil Wars in Britain and Ireland (Blackwell)
  • Martyn Bennett, The Civil Wars Experienced: Britain and Ireland 1638-1661 (Routledge)
  • Charles Carlton, The Experience of the British Civil Wars 1638-1651 (Routledge)
  • John R. Young (ed.), The Celtic Dimensions of the British Civil Wars (John Donald)
• Scotland
  • Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates: Scottish-Irish Relations in the mid Seventeenth Century by David Stevenson (Belfast, 1981)
• Ireland
  • Reformation and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Ireland: The Mission of Rinuccini, 1645-49 by Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin (Oxford, 2001)
  • Confederate Catholics at War, 1642-1649 by Pádraig Lenihan (Cork, 2001)
  • Confederate Ireland, 1642-49: A Constitutional and Political Analysis by Micheál Ó Siochrú (Dublin, 1999)
  • Kingdoms in Crisis: Ireland in the 1640s by Micheál Ó Siochrú, ed. (Dublin, 2000)
  • The Outbreak of the Irish rebellion of 1641 by Michael Perceval-Maxwell (Dublin, 1994)
  • Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates: Scottish-Irish Relations in the mid Seventeenth Century by David Stevenson (Belfast, 1981)
  • Cromwell in Ireland by James Scott Wheeler (1999)
• England
  • G.E. Aylmer, Rebellion or Revolution? England 1640-1660 (Oxford University Press)
  • Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (Temple Smith, Penguin)