I think that the English Civil War was inevitable due to many factors but mainly due to the dominance of parliament and the King and his moves. The phrase "civil war" means that citizens of the same country engage in war against each other. I think that the Civil War was due to things happening gradually over a long period of time until it all became too much. I will categorize my essay into four main paragraphs: 1) Economic 2) Political 3) Religious 4) Social.
A long-term cause that began to cause slight friction between parliament and King Charles was that Parliament granted customs during for 1 yr only whereas his father King James was granted it for life. This caused Charles to start charging Ship Tax to people who lived in land as well as on the coast and also because a war was not on the horizon at that time. Charles called Parliament back because he needed money because the Parliament was refusing to give him money he abolished them. Another long-term cause was that Charles continuously gave money to his favourites. As you can see this caused major arguments between parliament and the King.
Now onto what I think is the biggest cause of the Civil War - political problems. The Stuart era of Kings believed in the "Divine Right of Kings" this meant that Kings were allowed to rule however they wanted. Though there was only one thing stopping this the Magna Carta, which was signed in 1215 by King John that limited the Kings" or Queens" power from then on. Another long-term cause was that Charles's wife got too involved into politics, which was a very bad thing because she changed many things through the authority of the King. A medium term cause was that Charles had his own court, which was called the Star Chamber; it was virtually impossible to get out of that chamber because Charles was the judge, jury and the persecutor. A long-term cause of the civil war was that King Charles had dismissed parliament for 11 years, this was known as the 11 years of tyranny.
