<P> In early January 1642, accompanied by 400 soldiers, Charles attempted to arrest five members of the House of Commons on a charge of treason . This attempt failed . When the troops marched into Parliament, Charles enquired of William Lenthall, the Speaker, as to the whereabouts of the five . Lenthall replied, "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here ." In other words, the Speaker proclaimed himself a servant of Parliament, rather than of the King . </P> <P> In the summer of 1642 these national troubles helped to polarise opinion, ending indecision about which side to support or what action to take . Opposition to Charles also arose owing to many local grievances . For example, the imposition of drainage schemes in The Fens negatively affected the livelihood of thousands of people after the King awarded a number of drainage contracts . Many regarded the King as indifferent to public welfare, and this played a role in bringing a large part of eastern England into the Parliamentarian camp . This sentiment brought with it people such as the Earl of Manchester and Oliver Cromwell, each a notable wartime adversary of the King . Conversely, one of the leading drainage contractors, the Earl of Lindsey, was to die fighting for the King at the Battle of Edgehill . </P> <P> In early January 1642, a few days after his failure to capture five members of the House of Commons, fearing for the safety of his family and retinue, Charles left the London area for the north of the country . Further negotiations by frequent correspondence between the King and the Long Parliament through to early summer proved fruitless . As the summer progressed, cities and towns declared their sympathies for one faction or the other: for example, the garrison of Portsmouth under the command of Sir George Goring declared for the King, but when Charles tried to acquire arms for his cause from Kingston upon Hull, the depository for the weapons used in the previous Scottish campaigns, Sir John Hotham, the military governor appointed by Parliament in January, refused to let Charles enter Hull, and when Charles returned with more men later, Hotham drove them off . Charles issued a warrant for Hotham to be arrested as a traitor but was powerless to enforce it . Throughout the summer months, tensions rose and there was brawling in a number of places, with the first death from the conflict taking place in Manchester . </P> <P> At the outset of the conflict, much of the country remained neutral, though the Royal Navy and most English cities favoured Parliament, while the King found considerable support in rural communities . Historians estimate that between them, both sides had only about 15,000 men . However, the war quickly spread and eventually involved every level of society . Many areas attempted to remain neutral . Some formed bands of Clubmen to protect their localities against the worst excesses of the armies of both sides, but most found it impossible to withstand both the King and Parliament . On one side, the King and his supporters fought for traditional government in Church and state . On the other, most supporters of the Parliamentary cause initially took up arms to defend what they thought of as the traditional balance of government in Church and state, which the bad advice the King had received from his advisers had undermined before and during the "Eleven Years' Tyranny". The views of the members of parliament ranged from unquestioning support of the King--at one point during the First Civil War, more members of the Commons and Lords gathered in the King's Oxford Parliament than at Westminster--through to radicals, who wanted major reforms in favour of religious independence and the redistribution of power at the national level . However, even the most radical supporters of the Parliamentarian cause still favoured the retention of Charles on the throne . </P>

What were the causes and results of the english civil war