The Treatment of Prisoners of War During The English Civil Wars
by The English Civil Wars took place during an era in which the treatment of prisoners of war did not have any set conventions or legal guidelines that were binding upon all the combatants involved in these conflicts. There were different concepts and contending notions as to how prisoners of war should be treated yet none of the competing sides during the English Civil Wars have to strictly adhere to legally binding ways of dealing with their captives. There were as will discussed in the following chapters and conclusion informal rules and procedures about how wars should or should not be conducted.
The three kingdoms of Charles I inadvertently drifted into the first of the English Civil Wars during the course of 1642. The government of Charles I could be blamed for promoting all be it unintentionally the events that led to the outbreak of the first conflict in October 1642 at the inconclusive Battle of Edgehill. It was the decision of Charles I to introduce a modified version of the English Common Book of Prayer into Scottish church services backfired disastrously and led to the Bishops War. The Scots formed their own army, its efficiency improved by the presence of Alexander and David Lesley who had experience of fighting in the Thirty Years War. Events in Scotland soon escalated out of the king’s control but he had nobody to blame apart from himself and William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Aside from occasional troubles in Ireland there had been no major fighting in the British Isles for a few decades, and the hastily assembled English armies of Charles I proved completely inadequate for fighting the Bishops War. It was probably a failure compounded due to the Protestants within the English armies being unwilling to fight the Scottish Presbyterians when they had similar religious and political beliefs. The expensive failure to defeat the Scots in the Bishops War forced Charles I to reluctantly recall Parliament in order to drive them out of England. After the failure of the Short Parliament, Charles I’s relationship with the Puritan elements of the Long Parliament was so acrimonious that it resulted in the first English Civil War. Whilst the king and the Long Parliament disagreed over the raising of taxes and the control of the army there was a major rebellion in Ireland that ended any prospect of a peaceful compromise. The killing of Protestant planters in Ulster would also act as a precursor to massacres, summary executions, and atrocities during the course of the subsequent English Civil Wars.
The knowledge that the king would almost certainly have the Parliamentary leaders executed for treason arguably increased the resolve of hard-liners such as Oliver Cromwell to carry on fighting. The Royalists claimed that they were more chivalrous than their enemies were, but in reality the gentry would play a large role in all the armies involved in fighting the English Civil Wars. As the English Parliamentary forces and their Scottish Presbyterian allies held most of the territories that made it harder for the Royalists to put other prisoners of war on trial. The Royalists were to use military tribunals to convict prisoners of war of treason, as well as resorting to summary executions. Charles I did establish courts in his make shift capital of Oxford, yet these had little influence over Royalist forces. Both sides found it difficult to find adequate accommodation for their captives leading to prisoners being held in churches, and occasionally organised exchanges of prisoners. For instance, prisoners taken at the Battle of Westhougton in December 1642 were exchanged in January 1643. Prisoner exchanges were convenient for all sides, as they got their own soldiers back and were not responsible for looking after so many prisoners of war.
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