Though the Militia Bill, which would have given Parliament the control of the armed forces of the nation, was the ostensible, this outrage on the part of the King was the direct and mediate, cause of the outbreak of the Civil War.  “To be safe from armed violence,” the Commons, as far as the rules of the House would permit, placed themselves under the protection of the City; and the day previous to the one fixed for their return to St. Stephen’s under the protection of the trained bands of London, the King left Whitehall, to return to it only to pay the dire penalty for his past offences.  Both sides now actively prepared for the inevitable struggle.  Owing to Pym’s forethought, the Tower was blockaded, and the two great arsenals of Hull and Portsmouth secured for the Parliament.  Owing to the force and boldness of his language, the House of Lords was scared out of the policy of obstruction it had taken up.  On the avowal by Parliament of the refusal of the governor of Hull to open the gates to the King, the members of the Royalist party withdrew from Westminster; and on August 22nd, 1642, the uplifting of Charles’ standard on a hill at Nottingham announced the outbreak of the Civil War.

On the well-trodden ground of the progress of the war, it is unnecessary for our purposes to dwell.  The issues involved were truly tremendous.  The evolution of the English Constitution had left it undecided to whom the supreme power in the nation did rightfully accrue:  and this was, perhaps, the most practical question at issue.[29:1] As between Parliament and King, the question was, whether the supreme power was to continue to be wielded by a king whose temporal jurisdiction was to be limited only by ancient laws interpreted by judges of his own creation and removable at his pleasure, or by the representatives of the nation in Parliament assembled?  It was left to the Model Army to remind the members of the Long Parliament that their power, as that of “all future representatives of this nation, is inferior only to theirs who choose them."[29:2] However, to make both King and Church responsible to Parliament was, in truth, the one common aim of the whole Parliamentary party; and, as Gardiner well points out,[29:3] “every year which passed after the Restoration made it more evident that, for the time at least, the most substantial gains of the long conflict had fallen to those who had concentrated their efforts on this object.”

Keeping in view the reforms secured during the first session of the Long Parliament, it may fairly be urged that everything necessary to this end had been gained prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, everything, of course, save the control of the sword; and this, if the King could have been trusted, was not immediately urgent, and would necessarily have followed the control of the purse.  “If the King could have been trusted!” In these words the key to the whole situation is to be found.  The Parliamentary leaders