Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T20:35:10.315Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - War in Britain and Peace at Westphalia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2023

Get access

Summary

The impact of foreign news during the turbulent years that were heralded by the Bishops’ Wars is perhaps best understood in terms of reaping the effects of twenty years of war reporting, diplomacy and recruitment. Readers followed the Thirty Years War as a single conflict, and we can track some of the effects as the lines of engagement within the Stuart kingdoms took shape. Charles had set out in 1637 preparing the nation for one war. In 1639, he set out upon a different one, with royalist forces arraigned against veterans who had fought in the Protestant armies of Europe. The deal with Spain to help transport bullion for the Spanish war effort on the Continent was to help with his finances. To many people, it must have seemed as if the war had finally crossed the Channel. Soldiers came home to fight, naval engagement took place in offshore waters, and reports of atrocities against Protestants came from Ireland. It was only after the royalist defeat at Naseby in 1645 that the situation in London became sufficiently settled for a new approach to reporting on the European conflict to emerge and, by this time, with delegates gathered in Munster, the end of the Thirty Years War was finally in sight.

The Bishops’ Wars and Battle of the Downs

Charles’s lack of understanding of popular opinion was dramatically demonstrated through military engagement in the north involving many of the soldiers that the London press had reported upon as warriors for the Protestant cause in Germany and the Netherlands, and by a humiliating naval stand off in the Channel. The response of the military and the public was to have practical and pressing implications.

To draw upon the military experience of those serving in the wars on the Continent, Charles issued a circular letter calling for their return to support his stand against the Covenanters. The response was meagre by contrast with the exodus to Scotland. The Swedes agreed to release men to support the Covenanters in large numbers and supplied arms. Scottish merchants procured munitions in Zealand and the Baltic with loans from puritan Englishmen, then shipped them to Scotland with the connivance of sympathetic Protestant powers.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×