The Civil War between the royalist forces of King Charles I and the Parliamentarian troops (the socalled Roundheads) began in August, 1642. The king’s forces were at the first victorious in a number of engagements, but then the tide turned as a result of intervention from Scotland. The Scots and English parliaments entered into a ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ to adopt a uniform religion in the British Isles ‘according to the Word of God and the example of the best reformed churches’. A Scottish army was soon on its way south and, joining the English Parliamentarians in the Battle of Marston Moor, comprehensively defeated the Royalists on 2 July 1644. In the meanwhile, Parliament declared that church government in England would be Presbyterian henceforth, did away with bishops and the prayer-book, and adopted the Westminster Confession as the rule of faith. In London and throughout England the ‘purification’ of churches and cathedrals took the severest turn yet, and all forms of Christian art and church decoration were ruthlessly destroyed.
The next phase of this amazing and terrifying religious drama was characterized by even further splintering of religious factions, as the Presbyterians and Parliament began to seek for peace while the ‘Independents’, represented by the army, determined to carry the war to a finish. A ‘New Model’ army was organized under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, and the king was utterly defeated and forced to surrender in May 1646. For three years, while being held prisoner, he negotiated with the Presbyterians, the Scots, the Irish, the French, but no satisfactory plan for his restoration could be arrived at. At last, the army took Charles under its own custody, a trial of sorts was held and the death sentence pronounced. On 30 January 1649, he stepped out of a window onto a platform outside the Banqueting House of Whitehall Palace and was beheaded in the sight of all the people.