Horrible Histories: English Civil War with Bob Hale

Bob Hale the historical weatherman explains the English Civil War

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)

(auctioneer voice)

(auctioneer voice)

and back to you Sam.