Friday, November 6, 2009

English Civil War

News on the English Civil War has come in, King Charles has been sentenced to death by the English Parliament as of mid 1648. In case you don't know what the English Civil War was,in 1642, King Charles sent troops to Parliament to arrest several Puritan leaders. Parliament(which was dominated by Puritans) organized an army to fight King Charles' army. Eventually Parliament's army defeated King Charles' army and they captured King Charles.After this, the commander of the Parliament's army, Oliver Cromwell, dissolved Parliament and seized power, declaring himself Lord Protecter of England.

During the war there were problems in the colonies too. They had to choose who to support, the king ,which would make them Royalists, or Parliament,which would make them Parliamentarians,. This causes disputes in colonies, an example was the little civil war in Maryland, the proprieter, Lord Baltimore, was in support of the king as was the governor of Maryland. Maryland, having many Protestant colonists, rebelled in 1644. To calm things down Lord Baltimore introduced the Maryland Toleration Act in 1649 which grants religious tolerance within the colony.