In the year 1642
A king declared war on his own people.
A land was torn apart
Leaving a trail of destruction which 400 years has not repaired.
And brother killed brother
on battlefields where men were buried in mass graves.
“That great God who is the searcher of my heart knows with what a sad sense I go upon this service, and with what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy;…”
Sir William Waller to his close friend and royalist opponent Sir Ralph Hopton in 1643
The English Civil wars, also known as the Wars of the 3 Kingdoms, took place between 1642 and 1651. A greater proportion of the population died, through direct and indirect causes than during the First World War. King Charles I was convicted of treason and executed on 30 January 1649 outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector but following his death, the short lived Republic came to an end with the restoration of the exiled King Charles II in 1661.
A.J.Lyndon - author 