We tend to talk of the British Civil War(s) rather than the English. This is because the event that broke the Personal Rule of Charles I and the necessity of calling Parliament began in Scotland. Archbishop Laud’s attempt, supported by the King, to introduce the Prayer Book and raise the status of bishops in a land where the model for the church established was Presbyterian led to open revolt and the invasion of northern England.

 Oliver Cromwell had asserted of the 1640s

“Religion was not the thing at first contended for but God brought it to issue at last”.

(W. C. Abbott, The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Cambridge, Mass., 1937-1947), iii, p.586)