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| 1645, Jan |
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| Laud, tried in March 1644, was attainted and executed. England was fast moving toward extreme Protestantism. With Cromwell, the Independents rose to leadership. Presbyterianism, with some reservations for the Independents, became the established Church. The Self-Denying Ordinance (April 3) having excluded members of either house from military command, Fairfax superseded Essex as captain-general, and Cromwell, with the ordinance suspended in his case, became lieutenant-general. The army was reformed into the New Model on the lines of the Ironsides. | 1 |
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| 1645, June 14 |
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| BATTLE OF NASEBY, decisive defeat of the king, ruin of his cause. Charles surrendered himself to the Scots (May 5). | 2 |
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| 1647, Jan. 30 |
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| The Scots surrendered Charles to parliament in return for their back pay (£400,000). He was brought to Holmby House in Northamptonshire. Army and parliament in open conflict. Parliament reappointed Fairfax commander in chief, reenacted the self-denying ordinance, and voted the disbandment of all soldiers not needed for garrisons or for service in Ireland. This the army refused to accept, claiming full payment for arrears in salary. A detachment headed by Cornet Joyce seized Charles at Holmby House (June 4) and carried him prisoner to the army, thus forestalling an agreement between king and Presbyterians. | 3 |
| Proposals were presented to the king by the army: that worship be free for all; that parliament control army and navy for ten years and appoint officers of state; that parliament serve for three years (triennial parliaments). The king rejected them and moved to take refuge with the Presbyterian members of parliament; but the army entered London (Aug. 6) and forced parliament to take back the members who had fled to the army. Charles removed to Hampton Court, where he rejected a modified form of the previous proposals and fled to the Isle of Wight, where he was detained by the governor of Carisbrooke Castle (Nov. 11). | 4 |
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| 1648, Jan. 15 |
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| Parliament renounced allegiance to the king and voted to have no more communication with him. | 5 |
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| 1648 |
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| SECOND CIVIL WAR. At once a war between Scotland and England, a war between the royalists and the Roundheads, and a war between the Presbyterians and the Independents. | 6 |
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| March |
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| At a meeting of army officers at Windsor it was decided to bring the king to trial. Parliament, having reassembled with 306 members (and the Presbyterians again in control), repealed the noncommunication resolution and attempted to reopen negotiations with the king (July). | 7 |
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| Aug. 17–20 |
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| Battle of Preston. Under the duke of Hamilton, a Scottish army invaded England but was beaten by Cromwell. This ended the second civil war. Parliament having again attempted to treat with the king, Colonel Thomas Pride, by order of the council of affairs, forcibly excluded 96 Presbyterian members from the parliament (Pride's Purge, Dec. 6, 7), which is henceforth known as the Rump Parliament (some 60 members). | 8 |
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| Dec. 13 |
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| The Rump repealed the vote to continue negotiations with Charles and voted that Charles be brought to trial. Appointment of a high court of justice of 135 members to try the king was rejected by the lords (1649, Jan. 2), whereupon the commons resolved that the legislative power resided solely with the commons (Jan. 4; passed Jan. 6 without concurrence of the lords). | 9 |
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