Hello and welcome to the news at when, when at the 1600s
when the people of Britain went to war with each other, to decide if they wanted the country to be ruled by a King, or by Parliament
With more details we'll send it over to Bob Hale
with the Civil War report, Bob
Thank you Sam, well its 1625 and I hope you're dressed
smartly because here comes the King
Yes its King Charles I, and right from day 1 he is stirring up trouble
Mainly because he is suppose to be a Protestant like the Church of England
But he keeps doing some very Catholicy things, like marrying a Catholic, praying like a Catholic, and wearing an I love Catholics T-shirt
Except not the last one, and Charlies behavior
annoys an awful lot of people especially in Parliament in London
So Charlie tells them to take some time off, about 10 years in fact, leaving him in charge
of the entire country which is jolly good fun, but not for long
First the Scots sick of this bossy Catholic loving king start a war against him
Then the Irish sick of English people stealing their land start another war against him
and wars are very expensive, so Charles brings back Parliament just to
ask them for some money, and they said no, because you tried to get rid of us
remember? Instead they just give him a big long list of all the things they don't like about him
Well, talk about trouble, over the next 2 years the country divides in 2
With some people siding with Charlie, thats the Cavaliers, and others siding with Parliament
Thats the roundheads, until in 1642 here in Nottingham Civil War
Is declared and what a war it is, in fact if we look at the fight-o-meter
We can see that the first major battle at Edgehill, victory goes to...
No one at all, how very dull, its a dead heat, but in round 2 here in London
the winner is, oh a great result for the Roundheads, followed by...
a real killing for the Cavaliers in the west country
and then another win for the King up north taking Bolten, Preston, Wiggen and Liverpool, where my cousin Ed
runs a dry cleaners just up the high street, half price shirts on wednesdays, worth remembering
But the Kings luck can't last, its complete murder at Marston Moor
By a knockout at Newbury, and annihilation at Naseby,in fact he's doing so
badly he's broken our thingy, but Charlie has an idea he'll
make a truce with the Scots if they help him fight the Roundheads, which is absolutely brilliant
except it doesn't work at all and they just hand him over to Parliament, woops
So, the Roundheads win and the Cavaliers lose, and that is the end
of that, but not for long, it soon becomes clear that the Roundhead
leader Oliver Cromwell is about as much fun as stingy ? underpants, so the Scots finally join an alliance with Charlie to overthrow
Cromwell, yes, its Civil War, part 2!!! With the Scots and the Cavaliers
fighting on the same side there is no way they could lose, or so we thought, yes, Cromwell completely destroys both of them and its goodbye Civil War
Goodbye Charlie's head, and goodbye kings and queens all together, yes, Cromwell is now in charge
of the country with the war ing finally over Oli can stop being mean to the Cavaliers
and start being mean to the rest of us, he turns Britain into a Puritan state, which means banning anything fun including sport, theatre
and Christmas, and then he runs out of stuff to ban, gets bored, and dies, so his son
Richard takes over but he's about as much use as a jelly pick axe, and before long the
people of Britain just want the petty Puritans out, and the crazy Kings back
Yes, Prince Charles is welcome with open arms, he becomes King Charles II
and the monarchy is restored! Its the Restoration which gives us all sorts
of fun things including Restoration comedies, Restoration fashion, and Restoration
furniture, including this delightful mahogany bureau, now do I hear $750 lbs
(auctioneer voice)
and back to you Sam.