British Civil Wars or Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1638-1653)

From the beginning of his reign Charles I had planned to continue the reform of the Church of Scotland that his father had started. By 1634, Charles was ready to push the process of reform toward greater religious conformity among his three kingdoms by providing the Church of Scotland with new canon and liturgy. Charles commissioned three Scottish bishops to prepare new canons and a Scottish Book of Common Prayer.

While the Irish Catholic nobles felt threated by religious persecution, English and Scottish nobles witnessed the gradual expansion of the Stuart monarchy’s power.

King Charles I attempted to impose an Anglican Church on Scotland causing considerable controversy among the Calvinist ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Scots’ resource to arms sparked a series of interconnected and complex wars across England, Ireland and Scotland, now known as the of the Three Kingdom.

The war started when Jenny Goodes leading riot in Edinburgh in 1637 over the use of the Book of Common Prayer by the Church of Scotland. The riot brought to the Bishop War the first conflict in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

In 1638, Scotland signs The National Covenant in opposition to the proposed reforms by the Church of Scotland.

A successful war in Scotland for religious liberties gave hope to Irish Catholics, Irish rebels followed the covenanters’ example in taking up arms in defence of their fish and political liberties.

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were the outcome of tensions between king and subjects over the religious also governance issues and the conflicts led to the execution of the Three Kingdoms' monarch, Charles I, by the English parliament in 1649.The Wars of the Three Kingdoms extended through the 1650s until The English Restoration of the monarchy with Charles II.
British Civil Wars or Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1638-1653)