Summary:
Three reasons for the downfall Of the Royalists in the English Civil War pertained to lack of military strategy, lack of leadership and a lack of quickly available finances.
A)
When looking at source A the reference to "the Scottish army in England" is a direct reference to the Scottish army which had invaded England and was led by Levein and Leslie who had joined the parliamentary forces by agreeing a document called "The Solemn League and Covenant." The document was designed by parliamentary leader John Pym and key members of parliament. This was one of the main reasons for the vast parliamentary army that was able to overcome the contrasting army of Charles I. The overall size of the army which according to Source A was "numbered over 50,000 men" vastly out-weighed the Royalist army which was "about 15,000 men." This was one of the factors that practically decided the outcome of the English Civil war.
B)
When making a comparison between sources C and D, there are obvious differences however, there are similarities between both sources. Both source B and C were written by a Chaplain for the New Model Army. Source C mentions a number of times the word "God" or "godly." This theme is very apparent in the final line of source C, ."..the Lord God by this victory showed us how just and righteous are the ways of God, who protects his godly people." This sentence alone gives the impression that the author was a definite Puritan, if there was any doubt. Source D also gives accounts of prayer and bible reading but the author does this in a slightly different way, "The officers and soldiers prayed much and read the Bible..." source C is a more effective in persuading the reader that the army were carrying out the will of God.
However, despite the some similarities that the sources have the differences are apparent too. Source C describes how the soldiers in the New Model Army "plundered" and that they killed a man of great importance, it also gives an indirect description of a possible rape, "eight women of rank were treated roughly..." It may also be worth noting that source C was a letter written for a particular man in parliament and was never meant for general consumption which makes the source more candid and possibly more truthful. Another point is that source C was written during the time of the raid on Basing House. Source D gives the impression that the New Model Army was a more merciful band of men who "won the love of their enemies." Although, in contrast to source C, this source was written for the general public as it is an extract from a book and was written two years after the raid. This is plenty of time for the actual facts to be fabricated and for the account to be changed to give the right impression of the New Model Army.
Overall it must be noted that both sources provide an adequate view of the strengths and character of the New Model Army but unless we have a proven factual account of the situation we are unable to determine how the New Model Army have behaved when they were in the raid on basing House.
C)
In the English Civil War there were a number of reasons why Charles I lost the war one of the main points is that he never devised a clear military strategy which ultimately resulted in the loss of the war. Charles and his advisors did have a large financial advantage at the start of the war but failed to utilize it on men, weapons, etc. Source A describes how vastly Charles' men were outnumbered. Fairfax, one of Charles' generals had only 15,000 men under his control and the entire parliamentary force of 50,000 men were more than enough to gain an advantage in the war.
A second reason as to why the Royalist force managed to falter during the Civil War was that Charles was not an outstanding military leader, this definitely contrasts the parliamentarians. Their overall leader, John Pym, was an excellent politician and very resourceful. The battlefield however, parliament had one of the greatest military leaders, Oliver Cromwell, despite having no previous army experience Cromwell appeared to be a natural at his new profession. However, the Royalists had a leader below Charles I, Prince Rupert, a battle-hardened soldier who previously had captured Leicester in an act of great courage as mentioned in source B; this gave them a big advantage. However, to turn this advantage into a disadvantage was the low morale of all the Royalist troops, who never apparently did not completely believe in their cause and mainly fought for the King as they believed it was the right thing to do. Also in the Royalist foundation there were divisions, some Royalist supporters did not want to go to war and others who opposed parliament directly wanted a full-blown attack on the parliamentary forces, despite being outnumbered.
A third point to mention is that from a geographical point of view, Charles I held the majority of the poorer, more northern areas which were unable to raise sufficient funds for the King at the crucial point in the war. This was opposed by parliament who controlled the majority of the southern and richer areas, London for example; this may have had serious psychological effects on the Royalist party who had lost their main stronghold in the country and the country's capital. The King relocated his parliament to Oxford but it was not the same as having parliament in London, the effects of this are pure theory but to say that the capture of London by parliament had no effect on the Royalist forces would be inaccurate.
As mentioned before Charles had large sums of money and a good financial advantage over his counterparts in parliament, this made Charles and the Royalist party complacent. Parliament on the other hand made the most out of their finance by investing it in troops and weapons for the upcoming battle at Naseby. During the battle of Naseby parliament managed to gain a huge advantage over the Royalists partly due to Cromwell's military genius but also due to Prince Rupert's troops having little or no discipline, once Rupert had defeated his parliamentary adversary his troops chased the troops off the battlefield which left Rupert open to attack, Cromwell knew this and after disposing off his Royalist opponent his troops showed discipline to regroup then attack Rupert and the rest of the Royalist army.
A factor which is not mentioned in any of the sources is the neutral territories throughout England. These counties refused access to any army Royalist or parliamentarian. The counties opposed any army because when an army passes through a town many soldiers looted and pillaged houses and stole crops as at the end of the war a law granted the soldiers indemnity which stated that what happened in the war, stayed in the war, so any soldier was immune from any punishment for any "war crime" he had committed. Any army which travelled to one of the neutral counties were met by the county's Clubman Association, a group of men who protected their own county from granting access to any army. Each Clubman was armed with a club hence their name. The spread of neutralism effected both Royalist and parliamentary forces as they would have been denied access to food supplies, medical aid and any arsenals that lay in any of the neutral counties.
In conclusion, there were many factors that resulted in the Royalist defeat in the Civil War, financial mismanagement, geographical factors acting as a disadvantage, military battles not going to plan, weaponry not equaling the opposition and the overall moral of the Royalist troops, but all of these can be categorized into the fact that Charles I and his advisors did not create a military strategy which should have ensured them victory against the parliamentarians, they fell to complacent by having generated an early financial income but failed to make all the advantages work for them. In contrast to this John Pym had organized his officers to create a military strategy, this may have worked better as they were under pressure and could have faced a Royalist attack if Charles or Rupert had attacked early but time was on their side and once everything had been put into place it was left to Oliver Cromwell to capitalize on the Royalist weaknesses.
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