another chance to use my Roundheads icon!

[winterbadger]

Someone on one of my wargames lists wrote:

Over here in the states, "our" Civil War is usually called just that. The Civil War. We don't often place the word American in front of it. It's just understood that if you are talking about the Civil War, it's ours. Sure, we abbreviate it ACW on forum posts, but that's just to be polite.

Along with the thread about our "common language" which separates us (thank you Winny for that most excellent quote) there has been one about 28mm Civil War. The first time I started reading that thread, I thought "Cool, the lardies are going to work on a set of rules for
the Civil War!"

Not so. Turned out you were focused on some other conflict. Which leads to my question: Do you chaps refer to "your" Civil War as The Civil War as well? And like us, you don't bother putting English in front of it, since you "know" what you're all talking about?

I would have thought that given your long history, you must have had more than just the one time that a portion of your people took up arms against another portion. And that because of this, you would have many Civil Wars, so to differentiate, you would need to give them fancier names. If they are all just called Civil War, that would be confusing, like having everyone in Australia called Bruce.

So for this total dweeb when it comes to English internal conflicts, just what is "your" Civil War - when did it happen, between whom, and why? (in, say, 100 words or less).

To which I replied:

The short answer is that they have several civil wars, but they have cool names for all the rest of them (like the Wars of the Roses or the Glorious Revolution, cf. Wikipedia list of English civil wars), leaving "the English Civil War" to mean the bust-up in the 17th century.

But even that is a bit of a misnomer as it (a) refers to several different wars and (b) was not solely restricted to England (those from abroad, like us Americans, may annoy the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, and the Cornish when we forget that there is something north and west of the Channel other than England, but not nearly as much as it annoys them when the ENGLISH do it...)

In fact, what is generally called "the Civil War" is a series of conflicts that started up (in part) because of a war that was fought by the English in Ireland (to make the Irish into Englishmen) and a war fought between England and Scotland (to make the Scots Anglicans) and then turned into a fight about Charles I (King of England, whose dad was a Scot) wanting to be a French-style absolute monarch, eventually devolving into a conflict about Oliver Cromwell making himself a Spanish (Franco-style) military dictator. For details, see Wikipedia article on the War of the Three Kingdoms

Since, of course, no matter what the fight was about, the English eventually won and got to write the history, they've been calling them the English Civil War(s) ever since.

Except in Ireland, where no one ever wins, and the losers get to write all the good songs.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Except in Ireland, where no one ever wins, and the losers get to write all the good songs.

And eventually come to America, where we sing the songs.

[percyprune.livejournal.com]

You were far too wordy. And I'd dispute your emphasis. A much shorter version is:

"The wars of the three kingdoms, commonly known as 'The Civil War', was fought to preserve the privilege of Commons against the tyranny of the King and protect the true religion against popery and episcopalianism."

If you were minded to waffle you could add:

"From 1639 the king fought the Scottish sectaries, who had rejected episcopalianism and aimed to bring the blessings of the presbytery to the English.

In 1641 a war began in Ireland to suppress the rebellious papists and their confederate cause.

In 1642 war came to England where a rebellious Parliament fought to destroy not the King, but those evil counselors who had led him into error (for the Members of Parliament were, of course, his loyal subjects). The Scots joined the rebels and delivered the north of England to Parliament, which proved a fatal blow for the King's cause.

There was a peace in 1646 following which the Commons lost patience with the King's intransigence. After a second attempt by the monarch to raise an army of malignants against them, the Commons conspired to have him put on trial and slain. He was beheaded in 1648.

At this point the English army seized power. A Godly general named Cromwell was given the commission in 1649 to finish the war in Ireland, following which he turned on the Scots and in 1650 beat them hollow. In the peace that followed Cromwell was acclaimed the leader of the nation."

[shy-kat.livejournal.com]

Here in Spain, "the war" usually means the (most recent) civil war; sometimes "the civil war" is used instead. I've never heard anyone refer to "the Spanish civil war".

(HI!!!!!)

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I've heard it said that the ECW wasn't English, wasn't civil, and wasn't a war. I'm not too sure how they justify the last of those three statements.

I take it you've read "1066 and all that" on the subject?