Short term causes of the English Civil War?

Answer 1

AnswerThere were two. One was the Protestant Reformation and the question of whether England would be formally Catholic or Protestant and how much toleration would be permitted for differing faiths. The other was the question of whether the King ruled by divine right and should have absolute power, or whether his power should be circumscribed and exercised through a parliament representing his subjects.

More on the reasons

1. As elsewhere in Europe, monarchs were trying at the time to make their rule "abolute" and to make themselves answerable to nobody. (They liked to say that they had been appointed by God and answered only to Him for their actions). In England, unlike elsewhere, the middle class and sections of the gentry resisted this successfully. First they resisted in Parliament and then in a civil war against the king (Charles I). The sources of the conflict go back to the reign of Charles's father, James I (reigned 1603-25). In 1649, after the Civil War, key elements of the parliamentary side put the king on trial for treason (on the grounds that he'd waged war against his own people) and the verdict was: Off with his head! In most of Continental Europe this was regarded as shocking beyond belief, as 'murdered majesty' and so on.

[Although the monarchy was restored in 1660, the power of the king was never the same again. When James II tried in 1685-88 to establish himself as an absolute monarch, William of Orange and his wife, Mary, were invited to take the throne. They did so an the basis of what was in effect as a contract between the king and Parliament. ('Bill of Rights', 1689). Some of the provisions were later adopted in the U.S. Bill of Rights, for example, the ban on cruel and unusual punishments). James II fled England in a panic in 1688.]

2. Monarchic abolutism was at the time closely associated with Roman Catholicism and with High Church Anglicanism, while the democratic forces in society tended to be Presbyterian or puritan or sectarian. One of the things that makes this period rather hard to follow is that many of the political arguments were presented in religious terms - which makes things rather complicated.

Aftermath

There are many subtle changes from the civil war also. We have a Royal Navy (which stayed loyal to the crown) but not a Royal army as each regiment followed their patron and took sides accordingly. Our language took on many new phrases still in use today such as being 'sent to Coventry' meaning to socially exclude someone. At the time Coventry was a devout Protestant town and housed a formidable jail which was used to hold Catholic insurgents. The Catholic Church lost all the authority and influence it still had over the state of England (though much was lost to King Henry VIII earlier). This also accounted for the consequent wars and troubles with Catholic France, Scotland and Ireland. France, aspiring to capture England and return it to Catholicism conived with Scotland and Ireland to attack from all sides. England, to survive, had to break this stranglehold and so it started its occupation of Ireland and sowed the seeds of Protestantism in Scotland.

Answer 2

The short answer would be religion and control...It was about who would run the country and what religion the country would be.

Answer 3

the short term causes were that king charles was cool

Answer 4

money power religion