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25. Discuss the significance of the Civil War and institution of Republican Britain.

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") in the Kingdom of England over, principally, the manner of its government.

The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament,

while the third (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament

The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651

The overall outcome of the war was threefold: the trial and execution of Charles I; the exile of his son, Charles II

and the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–53) and then the Protectorate (1653–59) under Oliver Cromwell's personal rule

From 1649-1660 Britain was a republic, but the republic was not a success. Cromwell and his friends created a government far more severe than Charles’s had been

They had got rid of the monarchy, and then they got rid of the House of Lords and the Anglican Church

When Cromwell died in 1658, the Protectorate collapsed. Cromwell had hoped that his son, rather than Parliament, would take over when he died

But Richard Cromwell was not a good leader and the army commanders soon started to quarrel among themselves

One of these decided to act

In 1660 he marched to London, arranged for free elections and invited Charles II to return to his kingdom. The republic was over

Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although the idea of parliament as the ruling power of England was legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688