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This really has to go as well, or at least be highly ammended. I can just about follow what the author means but that's because I already know a fair bit about the wars of the three kingdoms and am familiar with its historiography. A reader without this background would be completely lost.
Not only that, but what we have here is highly pov and speculative. For example, what does any of this actually mean?
the deep-seated loyalty which was the result of two centuries of effective royal protection; the pure cavalier spirit, foreshadowing the courtier era of Charles II, but still strongly tinged with the old feudal indiscipline; the militarism of an expert soldier nobility, well represented by Prince Rupert; and lastly a widespread mistrust of extreme Puritanism, which appeared unreasonable to the Viscount Falkland and other philosophic statesmen, and intolerable to every other class of Royalists. The foot of the Royal armies was animated, in the main, by the first and last of these motives. In the eyes of the sturdy rustics who followed their squires to the war, the enemy were rebels and fanatics. To the cavalry, which was composed largely of the higher social orders, the rebels were, in addition, bourgeois, while the soldiers of fortune from the German wars felt all the regulars' contempt for citizen militia.
On the other side, the causes of the quarrel were primarily and apparently political, ultimately and really religious, and thus the elements of resistance in Parliament and the nation were at first confused, and, later, strong and direct. Democracy, moderate republicanism, and the simple desire for constitutional guarantees could hardly make head of themselves against the various forces of royalism, for the most moderate men of either party were sufficiently in sympathy to admit compromise. But the backbone of resistance was the Puritan element, and this waging war at first with the rest on the political issue, soon (as the Royalists anticipated) brought the religious issue to the front.
How did the author know what motivated the Royalist infantry, for example? What on earth is 'pure cavalier spirit?' Who are 'sturdy rustics'? He may have some points here but this are generalisations far too grand for wp. And in any case, this kind of stuff is still being hotly debated by historians.
Similarly, this;
The Presbyterian system, even more rigid than that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, and the other bishops, whom no man on either side save Charles himself supported, was destined to be supplanted by the Independents, and their ideal of free conscience. But for a generation before the war broke out, the system had disciplined and trained the middle classes of the nation (who furnished the bulk of the rebel infantry, and later, of the cavalry also) to centre their will on the attainment of their ideals. The ideals changed during the struggle, but not the capacity for striving for them, and the men capable of the effort finally came to the front, and imposed their ideals on the rest by the force of their trained wills.
I'm not even sure what the author is getting at here.
Jdorney ( talk) 11:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- In the contest between King and Parliament, the generality of the nobility were on the King's side. After Edgehill fight, when the King was at Oxford, a great part of the Lords and many of the Commons went over to him. A very great part of the knights and gentlemen of England (who were not Parliament men). adhered to the King except in Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire etc. where the King with his army never came. And he could have no footing there it's like that it would have been there as it was in other places. And most of the tenants of these poor gentlemen, and also most of the poorest of the people, whom the others call the rabble, did follow the gentry and were for the King.
- On the Parliament’s side were the smaller part of the gentry in most of the counties, and the greater part of the tradesmen and freeholders and the middle sort of men, especially in those corporations and counties which depend on clothing and such manufactures. ... the reason which the party themselves gave was because, say they, the tradesmen have a correspondence with London, and so are grown to be a far more intelligent sort of men than the ignorant peasants that are like brutes, who follow any that they think the strongest ... and the freeholders, say they, were not enslaved to their landlords as the tenants are. ... The other side said that the reason was because the gentry, who commanded their tenants, did better understand affairs of state than half-witted tradesmen and freeholders do.
It's very much still debated stuff though. Like I said, he may have some points but its just not very encyclopedic to put in the 1911 author's pov lock stock and barrel. If there were some sort of statistics or hard data, or contemporary sources to back it up, that would be a different matter. I still don't what it adds to the article. At best it could be cited as part of the war's historiography. Jdorney ( talk) 12:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
How is it possible that this section has been so poorly written for five years? It starts with a list of flowery statements without adequate setup to give them any context or meaning. This is the worst writing I've seen on Wikipedia. Has someone been reverting edits to this mess since 2008? 108.93.144.184 ( talk) 03:45, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm here just to comment on how bad this section is. It reads as though copied from a particularly conservative pro-royalist history book. It is mostly opinion, while omitting some basic facts, for instance the anger stirred by Charles I attempting to essentially rule without parliament - surely number one on the list of motivations for the conflict, along with taxation attempts arising from that. In fact it is so wildly inaccurate that I'm afraid it should not be here until a more factual and balanced picture of the background to the war can be written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.36.20.132 ( talk) 12:42, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Just to add, I have added in an intro line to try to counterbalance the clear bias in this section. I'm afraid it isn't well enough referenced yet. Actually the whole section needs to be rewritten so this is a quick fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.36.20.132 ( talk) 13:04, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
As a general reader who came to this article without knowing a great deal about this conflict, I completely agree that the article is far too long, wordy, and filled with trivial details that, to a general reader, makes it a chore to get through. Encyclopedia articles should not be written for specialists, but rather for the general public, who are reading these articles to obtain a concise, to-the-point overview or summary of the topic. This article is written as if it were being done for a specialized military magazine to be read by military historians and English Civil War enthusiasts, not a general reader who just wishes to know the basic facts and overview of the war in question. Furthermore, some of the wording is not neutral or objective, as would be used in a typical encyclopedia article. Too many Wikipedia articles seem to be written by hobbyists, who in their enthusiasm for their particular topic, often go overboard on minute details and long, pedantic discussions that make these articles a disorganized, often incoherent, mess, and do little to help a general reader understand the topic. Basically, this article badly needs a complete rewrite and some serious edits to hit the "high points" of the conflict, and not give exhaustive discussions of every single battle, skirmish, and thoughts and actions of practically every person involved in the conflict. That's fine for specialized magazines or blogs, but not a general encyclopedia article. Just my two cents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.145.229.162 ( talk) 06:06, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
There are also hundreds of other articles such as individual battles and biography articles.
See Wikipedia:Summary style. For an overview of this war see the article English Civil War — it is less detailed. This article is currently 113k, in comparison the article American Civil War 214k (it also lasted 4 years).
The IP above writes "Too many Wikipedia articles seem to be written by hobbyists, who in their enthusiasm for their particular topic, often go overboard on minute details and long, pedantic discussions that make these articles a disorganized, often incoherent, mess,"
May be, but this article was created by copying text from the EB1911 (as a reading of the References clearly states), so it was not written by hobbyists, nor is it a mess although the prose could be improved with copy-editing.
I created the year articles by copying the content of this article into them, and intended to expanded them and move and some of the details in this article into those articles. However I have not done so and when I have time to edit Wikipedia I find more pressing issues. If on reading this, if you (who ever you are) have time, then perhaps you can start to do the task. -- PBS ( talk) 11:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone else see an issue with the way the article is written? It seems more ornamental than functional, and often it's difficult to actually understand what a given sentence is trying to say. For example, in the Aftermath section, there's this sentence, which is 106 words long, with 12 commas separating clauses before you finally get to the period.
The Presbyterians and the Scots, after, Cornet George Joyce of Fairfax's horse seized upon the person of the King for the army (3 June 1647), began at once to prepare for a fresh civil war, this time against Independency, as embodied in the New Model Army and after making use of its sword, its opponents attempted to disband it, to send it on foreign service, to cut off its arrears of pay, with the result that it became exasperated beyond control, and, remembering not merely its grievances but also the principle for which it had fought, soon became the most powerful political party in the realm.
What's the subject? The verb? What did Fairfax's horse do to the King's person? You can pull this all apart, especially if you already know what it's trying to say, but if you don't know this history (ostensibly why you're reading the article), it's nearly impossible. Or am I alone on this?
Qwerty0 ( talk) 21:36, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
A couple of obsolete words that need removal are "invested/investment" which should probably be replaced by surrounded, encircled, becoming surrounded. And "perforce" which in some places should just be removed, i.e. "had perforce to" should just be "had to", in other places maybe "required to", ", of necessity"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.143.128.78 ( talk) 17:15, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@ Qwerty0: You should see the original source the text was borrowed from, where that sentence is even longer! I don't think it's too controversial to say that sentences over 100 words should be discouraged. Richard Nevell ( talk) 15:00, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
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I'd like to suggest deleting the year by year pages ie First English Civil War, 1643, 1644 etc. These are essentially the 1911 version, broken into years, now superseded by this rewrite. The individual battles, events (eg Pride's Purge) have their own separate articles, so its not clear what value these add. Robinvp11 ( talk) 13:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
I think this is a very bad idea. The EB1911 article " Great Rebellion" as a paper based encyclopaedia breaks the "Rebellion" into three main sections with subsections and treats the war in Great British as one (mixing the campaigns in England and Scotland in to the same narative).
The article " English Civil War" which is an overview of the war(s) and the three major summary style articles First, Second and Third. I modified the structure of this article to be based on years as roughly speaking that allows the a natural division based on summer campaigning season, but is not restricted to describing the major campaigns. The reason I did this is because the overview by the EB1911, and what is here now, is only an overview and there is a lot more detail that can be added into each year. So I do not agree with your premise that "these are essentially the 1911 version, broken into years, now superseded by this rewrite", as you new text is in many ways less detailed than the EB1911 version. Instead of redirecting them they need to be expanded (per summary style).
The civil war is extremely complicated and many of the problems facing the protagonists are based around choices that they had to make given limited resources. Further this rewrite is really quite superficial for example:
That is nothing but a very brief summary of events. For example why was Worcester of interest, because it did not make sense geographically. However it does make sense once one knows that Royalist cavalry was sent to Worcester to protect the silver convoy making its way from Oxford to the King's location.
In this summary there is no mention of the " Battle of Kings Norton" which took place before the Battle of Edge Hill. It was roughly on the same scale as Powick Bridge and arguably was a Parliamentary victory. Both these skirmishes would have been a major talking point among soldiers and the newspapers of the day.
While this article is not one that needs to includes Kings Norton into the narrative, it is the sort of thing that can and should be mentioned in the First English Civil War, 1642.
-- PBS ( talk) 10:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
In the editing policy there is a section to which WP:PRESERVE links. removing text, that is reliably sourced, ought not to be done. The section goes into details about what to do with the text:
Instead of removing article content that is poorly presented, consider cleaning up the writing, formatting or sourcing on the spot, or tagging it as necessary. If you think an article needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do so, but it is best to leave a comment about why you made the changes on the article's talk page. The editing process tends to guide articles through ever-higher levels of quality over time. Great Wikipedia articles can come from a succession of editors' efforts.
To look at a specific year (1643):
Therefore to change the articles into redirects is a break of the editing policy.
Indeed in this article -- now that the text for all the year sections has been reduced since February 2020 from 112,000 to 22,000 byes -- less than the size of the the 1643 article; and less than half as large again as the coverage of the years in in the English Civil War article (13,000 bytes) -- what is now the purpose of this article? -- PBS ( talk) 11:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
This is the
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![]() |
![]() | This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
![]() | A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on August 22, 2014, August 22, 2018, and August 22, 2023. |
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This really has to go as well, or at least be highly ammended. I can just about follow what the author means but that's because I already know a fair bit about the wars of the three kingdoms and am familiar with its historiography. A reader without this background would be completely lost.
Not only that, but what we have here is highly pov and speculative. For example, what does any of this actually mean?
the deep-seated loyalty which was the result of two centuries of effective royal protection; the pure cavalier spirit, foreshadowing the courtier era of Charles II, but still strongly tinged with the old feudal indiscipline; the militarism of an expert soldier nobility, well represented by Prince Rupert; and lastly a widespread mistrust of extreme Puritanism, which appeared unreasonable to the Viscount Falkland and other philosophic statesmen, and intolerable to every other class of Royalists. The foot of the Royal armies was animated, in the main, by the first and last of these motives. In the eyes of the sturdy rustics who followed their squires to the war, the enemy were rebels and fanatics. To the cavalry, which was composed largely of the higher social orders, the rebels were, in addition, bourgeois, while the soldiers of fortune from the German wars felt all the regulars' contempt for citizen militia.
On the other side, the causes of the quarrel were primarily and apparently political, ultimately and really religious, and thus the elements of resistance in Parliament and the nation were at first confused, and, later, strong and direct. Democracy, moderate republicanism, and the simple desire for constitutional guarantees could hardly make head of themselves against the various forces of royalism, for the most moderate men of either party were sufficiently in sympathy to admit compromise. But the backbone of resistance was the Puritan element, and this waging war at first with the rest on the political issue, soon (as the Royalists anticipated) brought the religious issue to the front.
How did the author know what motivated the Royalist infantry, for example? What on earth is 'pure cavalier spirit?' Who are 'sturdy rustics'? He may have some points here but this are generalisations far too grand for wp. And in any case, this kind of stuff is still being hotly debated by historians.
Similarly, this;
The Presbyterian system, even more rigid than that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, and the other bishops, whom no man on either side save Charles himself supported, was destined to be supplanted by the Independents, and their ideal of free conscience. But for a generation before the war broke out, the system had disciplined and trained the middle classes of the nation (who furnished the bulk of the rebel infantry, and later, of the cavalry also) to centre their will on the attainment of their ideals. The ideals changed during the struggle, but not the capacity for striving for them, and the men capable of the effort finally came to the front, and imposed their ideals on the rest by the force of their trained wills.
I'm not even sure what the author is getting at here.
Jdorney ( talk) 11:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- In the contest between King and Parliament, the generality of the nobility were on the King's side. After Edgehill fight, when the King was at Oxford, a great part of the Lords and many of the Commons went over to him. A very great part of the knights and gentlemen of England (who were not Parliament men). adhered to the King except in Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire etc. where the King with his army never came. And he could have no footing there it's like that it would have been there as it was in other places. And most of the tenants of these poor gentlemen, and also most of the poorest of the people, whom the others call the rabble, did follow the gentry and were for the King.
- On the Parliament’s side were the smaller part of the gentry in most of the counties, and the greater part of the tradesmen and freeholders and the middle sort of men, especially in those corporations and counties which depend on clothing and such manufactures. ... the reason which the party themselves gave was because, say they, the tradesmen have a correspondence with London, and so are grown to be a far more intelligent sort of men than the ignorant peasants that are like brutes, who follow any that they think the strongest ... and the freeholders, say they, were not enslaved to their landlords as the tenants are. ... The other side said that the reason was because the gentry, who commanded their tenants, did better understand affairs of state than half-witted tradesmen and freeholders do.
It's very much still debated stuff though. Like I said, he may have some points but its just not very encyclopedic to put in the 1911 author's pov lock stock and barrel. If there were some sort of statistics or hard data, or contemporary sources to back it up, that would be a different matter. I still don't what it adds to the article. At best it could be cited as part of the war's historiography. Jdorney ( talk) 12:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
How is it possible that this section has been so poorly written for five years? It starts with a list of flowery statements without adequate setup to give them any context or meaning. This is the worst writing I've seen on Wikipedia. Has someone been reverting edits to this mess since 2008? 108.93.144.184 ( talk) 03:45, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm here just to comment on how bad this section is. It reads as though copied from a particularly conservative pro-royalist history book. It is mostly opinion, while omitting some basic facts, for instance the anger stirred by Charles I attempting to essentially rule without parliament - surely number one on the list of motivations for the conflict, along with taxation attempts arising from that. In fact it is so wildly inaccurate that I'm afraid it should not be here until a more factual and balanced picture of the background to the war can be written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.36.20.132 ( talk) 12:42, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Just to add, I have added in an intro line to try to counterbalance the clear bias in this section. I'm afraid it isn't well enough referenced yet. Actually the whole section needs to be rewritten so this is a quick fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.36.20.132 ( talk) 13:04, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
As a general reader who came to this article without knowing a great deal about this conflict, I completely agree that the article is far too long, wordy, and filled with trivial details that, to a general reader, makes it a chore to get through. Encyclopedia articles should not be written for specialists, but rather for the general public, who are reading these articles to obtain a concise, to-the-point overview or summary of the topic. This article is written as if it were being done for a specialized military magazine to be read by military historians and English Civil War enthusiasts, not a general reader who just wishes to know the basic facts and overview of the war in question. Furthermore, some of the wording is not neutral or objective, as would be used in a typical encyclopedia article. Too many Wikipedia articles seem to be written by hobbyists, who in their enthusiasm for their particular topic, often go overboard on minute details and long, pedantic discussions that make these articles a disorganized, often incoherent, mess, and do little to help a general reader understand the topic. Basically, this article badly needs a complete rewrite and some serious edits to hit the "high points" of the conflict, and not give exhaustive discussions of every single battle, skirmish, and thoughts and actions of practically every person involved in the conflict. That's fine for specialized magazines or blogs, but not a general encyclopedia article. Just my two cents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.145.229.162 ( talk) 06:06, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
There are also hundreds of other articles such as individual battles and biography articles.
See Wikipedia:Summary style. For an overview of this war see the article English Civil War — it is less detailed. This article is currently 113k, in comparison the article American Civil War 214k (it also lasted 4 years).
The IP above writes "Too many Wikipedia articles seem to be written by hobbyists, who in their enthusiasm for their particular topic, often go overboard on minute details and long, pedantic discussions that make these articles a disorganized, often incoherent, mess,"
May be, but this article was created by copying text from the EB1911 (as a reading of the References clearly states), so it was not written by hobbyists, nor is it a mess although the prose could be improved with copy-editing.
I created the year articles by copying the content of this article into them, and intended to expanded them and move and some of the details in this article into those articles. However I have not done so and when I have time to edit Wikipedia I find more pressing issues. If on reading this, if you (who ever you are) have time, then perhaps you can start to do the task. -- PBS ( talk) 11:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone else see an issue with the way the article is written? It seems more ornamental than functional, and often it's difficult to actually understand what a given sentence is trying to say. For example, in the Aftermath section, there's this sentence, which is 106 words long, with 12 commas separating clauses before you finally get to the period.
The Presbyterians and the Scots, after, Cornet George Joyce of Fairfax's horse seized upon the person of the King for the army (3 June 1647), began at once to prepare for a fresh civil war, this time against Independency, as embodied in the New Model Army and after making use of its sword, its opponents attempted to disband it, to send it on foreign service, to cut off its arrears of pay, with the result that it became exasperated beyond control, and, remembering not merely its grievances but also the principle for which it had fought, soon became the most powerful political party in the realm.
What's the subject? The verb? What did Fairfax's horse do to the King's person? You can pull this all apart, especially if you already know what it's trying to say, but if you don't know this history (ostensibly why you're reading the article), it's nearly impossible. Or am I alone on this?
Qwerty0 ( talk) 21:36, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
A couple of obsolete words that need removal are "invested/investment" which should probably be replaced by surrounded, encircled, becoming surrounded. And "perforce" which in some places should just be removed, i.e. "had perforce to" should just be "had to", in other places maybe "required to", ", of necessity"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.143.128.78 ( talk) 17:15, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@ Qwerty0: You should see the original source the text was borrowed from, where that sentence is even longer! I don't think it's too controversial to say that sentences over 100 words should be discouraged. Richard Nevell ( talk) 15:00, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
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I'd like to suggest deleting the year by year pages ie First English Civil War, 1643, 1644 etc. These are essentially the 1911 version, broken into years, now superseded by this rewrite. The individual battles, events (eg Pride's Purge) have their own separate articles, so its not clear what value these add. Robinvp11 ( talk) 13:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
I think this is a very bad idea. The EB1911 article " Great Rebellion" as a paper based encyclopaedia breaks the "Rebellion" into three main sections with subsections and treats the war in Great British as one (mixing the campaigns in England and Scotland in to the same narative).
The article " English Civil War" which is an overview of the war(s) and the three major summary style articles First, Second and Third. I modified the structure of this article to be based on years as roughly speaking that allows the a natural division based on summer campaigning season, but is not restricted to describing the major campaigns. The reason I did this is because the overview by the EB1911, and what is here now, is only an overview and there is a lot more detail that can be added into each year. So I do not agree with your premise that "these are essentially the 1911 version, broken into years, now superseded by this rewrite", as you new text is in many ways less detailed than the EB1911 version. Instead of redirecting them they need to be expanded (per summary style).
The civil war is extremely complicated and many of the problems facing the protagonists are based around choices that they had to make given limited resources. Further this rewrite is really quite superficial for example:
That is nothing but a very brief summary of events. For example why was Worcester of interest, because it did not make sense geographically. However it does make sense once one knows that Royalist cavalry was sent to Worcester to protect the silver convoy making its way from Oxford to the King's location.
In this summary there is no mention of the " Battle of Kings Norton" which took place before the Battle of Edge Hill. It was roughly on the same scale as Powick Bridge and arguably was a Parliamentary victory. Both these skirmishes would have been a major talking point among soldiers and the newspapers of the day.
While this article is not one that needs to includes Kings Norton into the narrative, it is the sort of thing that can and should be mentioned in the First English Civil War, 1642.
-- PBS ( talk) 10:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
In the editing policy there is a section to which WP:PRESERVE links. removing text, that is reliably sourced, ought not to be done. The section goes into details about what to do with the text:
Instead of removing article content that is poorly presented, consider cleaning up the writing, formatting or sourcing on the spot, or tagging it as necessary. If you think an article needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do so, but it is best to leave a comment about why you made the changes on the article's talk page. The editing process tends to guide articles through ever-higher levels of quality over time. Great Wikipedia articles can come from a succession of editors' efforts.
To look at a specific year (1643):
Therefore to change the articles into redirects is a break of the editing policy.
Indeed in this article -- now that the text for all the year sections has been reduced since February 2020 from 112,000 to 22,000 byes -- less than the size of the the 1643 article; and less than half as large again as the coverage of the years in in the English Civil War article (13,000 bytes) -- what is now the purpose of this article? -- PBS ( talk) 11:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)