Those receiving scoring votes (and extra points to your 3rd Quarter grade – I’ve also scores them all):

1. #3 Keyes
2. tie #6 Carroll and #23 Dugan
3. #14 Boley

I have yet to receive comments from Kellogg and Strudwick

Please vote for your top FOUR and explain why you think them the better theses. Post your vote and reasoning in a comment.

1. Parliament and the English inhabitants found fault with Charles’ counsel (sic.) religion, and illegal acts of imprisonment, but the policies of James I truly made war inevitable.
2. The primary cause of the English Civil War was opposition to Charles’ assertion of royal power.
3. Structural problems of the Three Kingdoms, Parliament’s increasingly bold assertion of the rights of lords and merchants, and Charles’ expensive military ventures all contributed to the English Civil War.
4. The English Civil War was spurred on by religious tensions and economic difficulties.
5. Charles’ use of the royal prerogative to tax and imprison alienated the Parliament and the people to the point of civil war.
6. The Three Kingdom structure combined with inconsistent domestic policies of James I and Charles I and rapid departure from feudal society lead to irreconcilable social unrest and civil war.
7. Charles’ use of Star Chamber, his taxation and limitation of merchants, and his enforcement of increasingly Catholic Anglican church threatened Parliament and infringed on civilian liberties.
8. Charles’ inability to control Parliament, his failure to get needed funds for war, and the inherent conflict between royal prerogatives and common law pushed England into civil war.
9. The English Civil War was brought about due to the unwillingness of Charles to put the good of the nation before the good of his family and friends.
10. The English Civil War was caused by a Parliament that had grown accustomed to a measure of independence and wanted more control over the economy and military.
11. Parliament attempted to assert greater control in running the country, while Charles was reluctant to give up his rights.
12. James I’s lose grip on Parliament and Charles I’s tight rule and dissolution of Parliament, the structural issues, and poor decisions of Buckingham caused the English Civil War.
13. James’ reign of relative religious toleration, of respect for Parliament, and of peace was followed by Charles’ which was the opposite on all those fronts. This dramatic shift in policy caused the Civil War.
14. James I’s treatment of Parliament followed by Charles’ treatment, the proximity of Catholicism to the crown, and increased prerogative taxation caused the English Civil War.
15. Tensions between the king and parliament over the right to make laws, and between the king and both the merchant and Puritan communities combined to cause the English Civil War.
16. The English Civil War began over a general inability to define the English constitution clearly, and more specifically because of Charles’ inability to appoint competent and effective government officials, the increasing debt, forced loans, and quartering English soldiers.
17. The English Civil War was caused by the king’s disregard for parliamentary rights and his assertion of royal authority over the legal rights of subjects.
18. The British Civil Wars resulted from financial demands Charles made on his parliament, the suppression of dissent, and Charles’ reliance upon a select group of advisors.
19. The cause of the British (sic.) can be traced to the freedoms Charles I took with religion, finance, and war, aggravated by the fact that he took advice from a select group of individuals while neglecting his Parliament and rebellions in Scotland and Ireland.
20. The English Civil War was caused by Charles I’s conflict with the powerful Puritan gentry and merchants in the House of Commons.
21. Charles’ attempt to wage war against Spain and France without sufficient support from Parliament forced the king to abuse emergency powers, turning much of England against him.
22. The British Civil Wars were caused by the conflict between Charles I and parliamentarians and middling merchants who asserted their own rights in the face of the king’s feudal prerogative which Charles used to raise funds and establish royal absolutism.
23. Charles I’s inability to reason with or consult his Parliament, his taxation policies and quartering acts (sic.), his enforcement of religious uniformity, and his disregard of basic legal rights forced a rebellion among his English subjects.
24. The cause of the British Civil Wars was Charles I’s botched attempt to rule as an absolutist without Parliament and Parliament’s determination to stay relevant in English politics.
25. The English Civil War was the result of a convoluted system of political, religious, and social hierarchies, set within an antiquated feudal system ill equipped to meet the economic realities of the 17th century.