THE BATTLE OF BIRMINGHAM IN THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR 1642 – 1649

Birmingham supported Puritan Parliament during the English Civil War 1642 – 1649 and Warwickshire in general was a Parliamentarian supporting county with Worcestershire falling into the Royalist camp with Worcester being a Royalist garrison with the Commandery in the city now an English Civil War Museum and visitor attraction. The West Midlands was pivotal to the outcome of the English Civil War from the first inconclusive Battle of Edge Hill in Oxfordshire in 1642 to the final battle of the Civil War at Worcester in 1649 where King Charles the First was captured put on trial and executed by Parliament and his son and heir Charles Prince of Wales forced to flee to the Netherlands where he plotted and schemed his Restoration which finally took place in 1660 when Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard Cromwell ‘s Puritan Protectorate finally came to an end after 10 years of austerity