Talk:Anglo-Scottish war (1650–1652)/Archive 1

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Article is Fragmented

This article is packed full of good facts but is incredibly arduous to read. It's so broken up into sections that it's not really connected. It lacks any kind of cohesion. Just my thoughts. I think a rewording and rewritting of this could prove helpful. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.107.151.178 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

William Stone

After waiting weeks for this to have citations added, I have moved it from the article to the talk page as suggested by WP:V

During the English interregnum there were lots of plots and rebellions. What makes this rebellion part of the Third Civil War, yet not the eight attempts between 1652 and 1659 to bring about the Restoration by the Sealed Knot? At the very least this needs a source that claims it was part of the Third/Second Civil War. --Philip Baird Shearer 23:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

POV

This article is ridiculously POV. Montrose was the 'noblest of all Royalists', which would be why he allowed the sacking of Aberdeen and the refusal to grant quarter to defeated Covenanter armies? Cromwell is a superhero, described in purple prose. This is a hagiography rather than a balanced encyclopedia entry. It needs substantial revision. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iain1917 (talk • contribs) 15:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The Scottish Proclemation of King Charles II

See Brown, K.M.; et al., eds. (5 February 1649), "Proclamation of Charles II king of Great Britain, France and Ireland", The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, St Andrews University, retrieved June 2013 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |editor2= (help)

-- PBS (talk) 16:31, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

How was Charles II crowned King of France? What was his claim to the French throne? Pistolpierre (talk) 18:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

See British claims to the French throne -- PBS (talk) 19:40, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Article title

Apologies in advance for the lengthy post, but I think this article should be renamed. The overwhelming majority of sources I've been able to review simply don't call this campaign the Third English Civil War, and some explicitly criticise the use of that phrase.

First, it's not clear that scholars routinely view the campaign as part of the English Civil War/s. It is undoubtedly a part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms, but looking at a few histories that are specifically about the English Civil War...

  • Ashton, Robert (1978). The English Civil War: Conservatism and Revolution, 1603-1649. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-77537-5. As the title suggests, this doesn't discuss anything after 1649, implying that the author does not consider the Scottish campaign or the battle of Worcester to be part of the ECW.
  • Morrill, John (1991). The Impact of the English Civil War. London: Collins & Brown. ISBN 1-85585-042-7. Morrill's introduction lists the battle of Preston in 1648 as the last major battle of the ECW - the book doesn't touch on the Scottish campaign or on the battle of Worcester.
  • Braddick, Michael (2008). God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-141-00897-4. This also doesn't discuss anything after 1649, again implying that these events weren't part of the ECW.

To find coverage of this campaign, I turned to histories of the wider period. The ones I checked almost all don't give it a particular name:

  • Dow, F. D. (1979). Cromwellian Scotland:1651-1660. Edinburgh: John Donald. ISBN 0-85976-049-9. Dow doesn't give it a proper name, but describes it as "the conquest of Scotland by the English army" (in lower case, and she is not an author who is afraid of capital letters).
  • Lynch, Michael (2001). The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-861024-6. This book discusses the campaign, but doesn't give it a particular name (Lynch refers to the whole shebang, from 1639 to 1651, as the Wars of the Covenant; he describes the events from Cromwell's invasion to Worcester "the final stage of the Wars of the Covenant").
  • Wheeler, James Scott (2002). The Irish and British Wars 1637-1654:Triumph, Tragedy and Failure. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22132-3. This book discusses the campaign; the closest thing it gets to a name is a section title, "The last Anglo-Scottish war, 1650-2".
  • Coward, Barry (2003). The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714, Third Edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd. ISBN 0-582-77251-6. This book describes the campaign, but doesn't give it a name. In the preface to the third edition, Coward discusses the problems with what to call the conflicts, and uses the terms "English Civil War" and "Second Civil War" without apparent concern, but he does not make mention anywhere I can see of a "Third Civil War" - he describes the events and the battles, but he doesn't give them a particular name.
  • MacKenzie, Kirsteen (2009). "Oliver Cromwell and the Solemn League and Covenant of the Three Kingdoms". In Patrick Little (ed.). Oliver Cromwell: New Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-57421-2. This chapter is largely about the campaign, but it doesn't give it a particular name.

I was able to find two books that used either the phrase "Third English Civil War" or just "Third Civil War". The first one, an edited collection, uses it in two chapters:

  • Kenyon, John & Ohlmeyer, Jane (2002). "The Background to the Civil Wars". In John Kenyon & Jane Ohlmeyer (eds.). The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland and Ireland 1638–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 41–72. ISBN 978-0-19-280278-1. In the editors' initial chapter on the background, they devote a fair chunk of text discussing what the conflicts ought to be called. They do use the full phrase "Third English Civil War" to refer to these events, but they do so in the context of a wider discussion of how it is inaccurate to call them English Civil Wars by that point - they say that Worcester should be thought of as the final battle in a wider British Civil War.
  • Furgol, Edward (2002). "The Civil Wars in Scotland". In John Kenyon & Jane Ohlmeyer (eds.). The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland and Ireland 1638–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 41–72. ISBN 978-0-19-280278-1. This chapter discusses the campaign at length, and has a section called "Third Civil War" (without the word English), but has no discussion of the phrase (as with Wheeler above, it's just there as the title of the relevant section).
  • Woolrych, Austin (2002). Britain in Revolution 1625–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820081-9. Woolrych, on the other hand, explicitly scorns the use of the phrase: "The contingents of [English] royalists who succeeded in joining the king's army were numbered in scores rather than hundreds... ...This puny contribution makes it seriously misleading to describe the campaigns of 1650-1 as the Third Civil War, as has become the fashion in some quarters. This was essentially a war between the Scots, or at least such of them as obeyed the Scottish parliament, and the English Commonwealth."

A Google Scholar search for "Third English Civil War" does yield quite a lot of hits, and it's clear that some people do use that phrase (otherwise Woolrych wouldn't have criticised it). However, if you examine the results that Google throws up, a great many of them are actually reviews or references to David Peace's book GB84, which uses the phrase to refer to the miner's strikes of the 1980s. That strongly suggests that, in his mind at least, there were only two English Civil Wars prior to the 1980s.

So, in summary, there is clearly some diversity of opinion on what these events should be called amongst scholars, I don't think we can uncritically present the events described in this article as the Third English Civil War - the majority of scholars whose work I have reviewed don't use that phrase or anything like it, and those who do use it are criticising its use in one way or another. Put simply, it's not the COMMONNAME. We should probably have a redirect from that title, and we might want to mention the fact that some authors have called it that (and others have critised the term), but I think that a descriptive title such as those used at English invasion of Scotland (disambiguation) would be a better title for the article. This would also necessitate a few changes to other articles which link to this one.

Pinging Gog the Mild and PBS as the principal editors of the article to date. Input welcomed from anyone as to whether this move would be contentious enough to warrant a fill RM discussion. Thanks for reading. Girth Summit (blether) 13:04, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Harrias has a keen interest in 1ECW issues and may have an informad opinion on this. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:32, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
I'd be very keen to get Harrias's take on this. As an aside, I've just been looking through some old versions of the article to see if they shed any light on where this name is coming from. They lean heavily on the 1911 version of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica for their content, but I see that that source doesn't use either 'Third English Civil War' or 'Third Civil War' anywhere.

Google Scholar for "Third English Civil War"

I've also just been through the first two pages of Google Scholar hits for "Third English Civil War". I found:

  • One undergraduate thesis, some of which may have been cribbed from our article;
  • One use of it in the 'keywords' section of in an online blurb about a book (the blurb itself didn't use the phrase, presumably they want it to show up in searches of this nature though);
  • Four actual scholarly articles, but they're about subjects that are either entirely unrelated (the macro-economic implications of COVID-19), or only very loosely related (the philosophy of a Puritan Congregationalist, the influence of the Low Countries on British agricultural development and the fiscal development in the seventeenth century) - I'm guessing that these will be passing mentions of the conflict, which won't be representative of actual scholarly work in the field.
  • Six Wikipedia mirror sites;
  • Eight pieces about David Peace's book on the 1980s miners' strikes.
A quick skim through the next few pages of hits look pretty similar - the occasional thing that might be vaguely relevant, but it's predominantly Wikipedia mirror sites and stuff about Peace's book. The Third English Civil War stuff must be coming from somewhere, but I can't find where that is. Girth Summit (blether) 15:22, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Google Scholar for "Third Civil War" + Cromwell

Sorry, I keep adding to this wall of text, as I continue to dig into this. This Google Scholar search is a lot more promising, as I'm seeing lots of hits for the "Third Civil War" (I added 'Cromwell' because it turns out that there have been three or more civil wars in all sorts of different places, which was confusing the search). From the snippets it gives me, I can't tell how many of these mentions are the term seeing normal service, and how many are critiques of the term (certainly there will be some of each). I'm not convinced that it's a COMMONNAME, but it's clearly a phrase which has been used by some people to describe the conflict.
I am far less confident that a significant number of people have ever included the word 'English' in the phrase though, and I don't understand why we've chosen call this conflict by that name (unless it's just for uniformity between the articles?). If anyone can point me at any previous discussions that might help me understand the history I'd be happy to read them. Girth Summit (blether) 17:48, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Renamed

In the absence of any comments in opposition, I've gone ahead and boldly moved this to English invasion of Scotland (1650). Happy to discuss if anyone disagrees. Girth Summit (blether) 09:46, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Girth Summit, I think you made a very strong case for it! MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:13, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
MichaelMaggs, thanks! From what I've been able to find, there's just no reason why we should be calling it this. I'll take this opportunity to add one more voice I found discussing the question of whether this series of battles should be thought of as part of the English Civil War. Malcolm Wanklyn, Decisive Battles of the English Civil War, (2006): "Finally, I would exclude the Battle of Worcester. This may seem illogical as Preston is included, but I see the so-called Third Civil War of 1649-52 as nothing of the sort so far as England was concerned. What happened at Worcester was not a battle between Englishmen fighting for political and/or religious systems, but the defeat of a Scottish invasion..." Girth Summit (blether) 10:22, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:English invasion of Scotland (1650)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Tayi Arajakate (talk · contribs) 17:01, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Comments

  • "... went to war with his Scottish subjects in the Bishops' Wars. These had arisen from the Scots' refusal to accept Charles's attempts to reform the Scottish Kirk to bring it into line with English religious practices." I would suggest specifying the "Scottish subjects" as the Covenanters movement and referring to them as Covenanters afterwards since Scottish royalists exist, for the sake of clarity.
    It's true that Charles imagined that the Scottish people would rise up in support of him once he was on Scottish soil, but that didn't happen. The Scottish army that opposed the king was commissioned by the Scottish parliament. I believe therefore that 'his Scottish subjects' is accurate, and I think that changing it to say 'with the Covenanters' would give a false impression that it was some particular faction that he was fighting.
That's alright then. Though as an alternative, I would suggest elaborating the parliament's commission as well since it wasn't a generic England–Scotland war either; Scottish royalists seem to have been a non-insignificant part of it. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
So, there were Scottish nobles acting on behalf of the King, but no significant Scottish armies; Charles had an English army, and attempted to land forces from elsewhere on Scottish soil, but there was no Scottish army worth mentioning fighting on behalf of the king. There's quite a memorable story (I think it's in Woolrych) about Hamilton attempting to land an army at Leith, to be met by a crowd led by his own mother, pistol in hand, declaring that if he had a foreign army disembark on Scottish soil she would shoot him herself. You're right that it wasn't a normal England versus Scotland war; rather, it was a king who didn't understand the Scottish religious and political landscape attempting to enforce his will on a reluctant people. My fear is that go into it in sufficient detail to give the reader a proper understanding, we would essentially derail this article - I do feel it's better to sum it up in this way, and then allow the reader to find out more about that conflict by clicking on the link. (Note to self, and possible to GtM - Bishops' Wars could do with some attention at some point, it's quite thin.) Girth Summit (blether) 14:33, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Understood, I suppose it is fine as is then. Tayi Arajakate Talk 11:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
  • "... in part caused by Charles's defeat in the Bishops' Wars and his need to fund them, the relationship between Charles and his English Parliament also broke down in armed conflict ..." The "also" seems unnecessary and fund whom? If I'm not missing anything it isn't very clear from the citations; Bennett 2005 just mentions the year the conflict began and Bleiberg & Soergel 2005 mentions that the relationship broke down during negotiations over revenue shortages.
    'fund them' means to fund the Bishops' Wars
    I've removed 'also'
Alright but could the sourcing be improved here since from what I can see the Bishops' War isn't explicitly mentioned as having contributed to the shortage? Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Gog the Mild, I've commented on the issues below - could you look at this one, I think you wrote this bit and have access to the sources in question? Let me know if you want me to scour Woolrych or look at other sources. Girth Summit (blether) 15:28, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Apologies. Unusually for us there seems to have been some confusion between the collaborators. At least, I got confused! Sorry GS. I have re-cited the offending sentence, which hopefully addresses the issue. But could we pause while Girth Summit checks? Having messed this up once, I am twitchy.
Gog the Mild I think what you've done in just removing that part of the sentence is the best approach - it's impossible to summarise the causes of the First English Civil War succinctly, and we don't really need to say why it happened here, just that it happened. Tayi Arajakate - I believe that this is the last of the outstanding issues, can you check to see whether we've missed anything? Thanks again for the very thorough review. Girth Summit (blether) 15:41, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict)After consultations with a leading expert on the period we have been informed "That if we are trying to boil down the 'causes of the First English Civil War' to a couple of sentences, we're on a hiding to nothing - it's got lots of causes, and scholars still argue about which are the most important." So I have gone with summary style and removed the bit on the Bishops' War and its funding.
Girth Summit and Gog the Mild, I have checked and there are no outstanding issues, so I'm going to promote the article now. Excellent work on it in general and good luck for FAC! Tayi Arajakate Talk 17:34, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
  • "Royalists", "Parliamentarians", "English Parliament", etc are inconsistently capitalised and uncapitalised. In the titles of "king of England" and "king of Britain", the "king" should also be capitalised, and not when it's not part of a title.
Sloppy of me. I believe all uses of k/King are now in compliance with WP:JOBTITLES. Other capitalisation standardised. Note that in "all civil office-holders, parliamentarians and clerics", " A parliamentary committee" and "new parliamentary elections" the lower case p is deliberate.
Looks good in general, two instances of King of Britain and King of England each are still uncapitalised though, they would fall under point three of WP:JOBTITLES as they are addressed as the title itself. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
I think I've got the caps right now - GtM, revert any you disagree with please. Girth Summit (blether) 14:16, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
It looks good now. Tayi Arajakate Talk 11:49, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
  • "... declared his son, also Charles, king of Britain." This is a bit awkward to read, suggest using "Charles II" instead of "also Charles".
Done.
  • This is just a suggestion but I think the paragraph under prelude can just be moved under "English invasion of Scotland", it's a short section and there is already overlap with the first paragraph of the latter section.
Done.
  • "Their aim was to increase their forces to 36,000 men ..." This should be "over 36,000" per the citation.
    True; done
  • "... Leslie had some 8,000–9,500 infantry and 2,000–3,000 cavalry ..." The 8,000 figure as the lower estimate is not present in the citation, it says that the number on foot was likely more even on both sides without providing a specific figure. Would it be possible to improve the sourcing here?
Bleh! I am not sure what has gone wrong here. The figures now match the source, with an an text warning over fluctuations to reflect the sources hand waving uncertainty.
  • "freedom of manoeuvre" Shouldn't this be "freedom to manoeuvre"? And shouldn't "if needs be" be "if need be"?
freedom of manoeuvre is a minority usage, but a common and acceptable one.
if needs be seems to be an acceptable but much less common usage, so I have changed it.
Alright, didn't realise "freedom to manoeuvre" was the less used form so no change required. "If needs be" is still unchanged in the article though. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Apologies. Done.
  • "What military support for Charles ..." This doesn't sound very encyclopedic, I would instead suggest something like "The sparse military support that existed for ..."
Really!? Rephrased.
Ye, at least from what I understand, "what" used in the sense of "whatever" is informal no? Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Er, no. Eg note the quotation in Wiktionary wikt:whatever.
Hmm, alright. Tayi Arajakate Talk 11:55, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
  • "A force of 1,500 gathered in Lancashire and from the Isle of Man and commanded by the Earl of Derby ..." Two repeated "and"s, I would suggest rephrasing.
Oops. Done.
  • "... would remain there until Charles II's restoration to the throne in 1660. Charles managed to escape to the continent." In this, I think the part about Leslie being imprisoned till 1660 should come at the end of the paragraph, otherwise it could sound like Charles escaped to the continent after restoration.
Good point. And it is basically trivia. So I have relegated it to a footnote.
Looks good. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
  • The article consistently wikilinks outcomes of battles to the page of the respective battle without naming the battle in text itself which I think at times can be confusing especially for the smaller ones. In the same vein, I don't think terms like siege or rout need to be wikilinked being fairly commonly understood.
I would be happy to unlink the battles, but do not see the need to clutter the article with the full names of tangential engagements. Siege and rout unlinked. (In passing, I have been specifically asked to link both in past FACS; some reviewers don't understand WP:OVERLINK. I am pretty certain we will be asked to link "besiege" when this goes to FAC.)
I'd say the links to the specific battles are more relevant to the topic and should stay either way, but it can get a bit confusing on what links to what when say "attacked in force" and "outflanked" are both wikilinked if that makes sense so I'd just suggest delinking words such as outflanked, sacked, bombarded, choke point, etc since they all should be commonly understood or even simply intuitive in their use; I guess booty could be changed to loot or plunder. This isn't a big deal though and if you think it will cause problems at FAC, it can be left as is. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
I lean very much towards your view, and if you want them out I will take them out and leave them out. But I can just imagine the puzzled tones of the FAC reviews as to why I have been unusually sloppy re linking.
If you ask me, I'd say removing them would be better but I will leave that to your discretion. Tayi Arajakate Talk 11:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
  • In the lead "... exasperated by the duplicity of Charles ..." should be removed since it's not mentioned the body and the context not established in the lead.
Good spot. Rereading the source, we have unpacked the summary style in the main text a little and slightly tweaked the lead. See what you think.
It looks great now. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
  • "The Scots, commanded by David Leslie, retreated to Edinburgh and refused battle" The comma is unnecessary, suggest specifying it as a "pitched battle" as well.
I disagree, but if you could specify which one you mean we could then debate more precisely. Link added.
Sorry about that, I meant the first one. Also, I meant stating pitched battle in text itself.
The main sentence is "The Scots retreated to Edinburgh and refused battle" with "commanded by David Leslie" inserted as a sub clause and commaed off. I struggle to see how removing the first comma leaves a grammatical, or even meaningful, sentence. My collaborator will be more expert than me at going technical on this.
I agree with GtM here - this is a parenthetical phrase inserted into the main clause, commas are needed before and after it.
Leslie was refusing all battle, not just pitched ones. Besides, the standard phrase for the military tactic is refused battle, from to refuse battle. Eg see the last two entries on this page.
Also agree here 'refuse battle' is the usual way to describe this.
Alright I won't insist on it but for what its worth, to elaborate on my reasoning, I don't think removing the comma causes any grammatical issues, it would be a simple sentence where "The Scots commanded by David Leslie" would act as a single noun clause. Regarding the other one, Leslie was still engaging in raids i.e at Musselburgh and harassing them during their retreat to Dunbar, I think leaving it as is in the lead gives the impression that there was no confrontation at all. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
  • The article could do well with a map of the various locations and routes described in it.
Maps added
Hi Tayi Arajakate and thanks for the thorough review. We have, I think, addressed all of your comments now. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Gog the Mild and Girth Summit, sorry for delaying this one so much. I've properly gone through the article now and it's more or less a good article as is. I have also responded to the replies above and added a few remaining points, note most of the points are either just suggestions or very minor issues. There are a couple places where sourcing may need to be improved, including the seventh point by the way which hasn't been addressed. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
You haven't delayed it unduly and we are both grateful for the review, especially how thorough and informed it is. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Ref 31 should be pages 483–484.
    Well-spotted, fixed.
  • "After in-fighting between factions in Parliament and the army, Cromwell ruled over the Protectorate as Lord Protector until his death in 1658." It isn't entirely clear in this sentence that the Commonwealth and the Protectorate are the same.
True. "Protectorate" swapped for "Commonwealth", which I think resolves this and is accurate, the Protectorate being part of the Commonwealth period. Girth Summit? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, this is fine in my view. The Protectorate refers to the governance of the Commonwealth by a Lord Protector - it didn't replace the Commonwealth, it was just a new way of governing it. Girth Summit (blether) 14:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
  • "General George Monck, still governor of Scotland ..." Monck becoming the governor is not mentioned before this.
It was copy edited out somewhere. As was his Wikilink! Wikilink added. Let me find a source for his term as governor. GS?
Hmm. I'm not certain that 'still governor' is the right way of putting this. Cromwell left Monck behind with 5,000 men to pacify Scotland when he went down to squash Charles at Worcester, but after the fighting was done Monck didn't stay in Scotland - he went down to Bath for some R&R, before taking to sea as naval general in the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1653. He was then sent to Scotland as commander-in-chief in 1654 to suppress the Glencairn's rising (Woolrych, p=572); later, while remaining commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he was appointed to the ten-strong council that Cromwell appointed to govern Scotland in 1655, acting as right-hand-man to the council's president, Lord Broghill. (Woolrych, p=590) So, I think we could replace 'still governor' with 'then commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland'? Girth Summit (blether) 15:26, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and changed this bit, citing Woolrych. Girth Summit (blether) 13:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I completed overlooked one thing, the templates. The article has an English Civil Wars template but the topic of the article doesn't directly fall under them so it should be removed. In the same vein, there's a small battle (Upton) before Worcester listed in the English invasion of Scotland (1650) template, could a line mentioning it be added in the article? Tayi Arajakate Talk 12:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Ah, good point. Campaignbox swapped. Re Upton, no. Someone has fairly pointlessly split off Upton from Battle of Worcester based entirely on a 1905 source. There is no policy nor guideline reason for including all the trivia people stuff into campaignboxes in the main article (happy to be corrected on this) and I don't see that it needs to be mentioned on its own merits.
Looks good now. Re Upton, my concern was regarding comprehensiveness, if it is largely not considered a distinct battle from Worchester then it doesn't need a separate mention. Tayi Arajakate Talk 12:23, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Assessment

  1. Comprehension: The comprehension is generally good.
    2. Pass Pass
    Criteria Notes Result
    (a) (prose) The prose is clear, concise and understandable. Pass Pass
    (b) (MoS) The article is compliant with the manual of style. Pass Pass
  2. Verifiability: The article is verifiable.
    3. Pass Pass
    Criteria Notes Result
    (a) (references) The article has a list of references and in-line citations for all content in the body. Pass Pass
    (b) (citations to reliable sources) Sources used are high quality reliable sources. Pass Pass
    (c) (original research) No original research found. Pass Pass
    (d) (copyvio and plagiarism) No copyright violations or plagiarism found. Pass Pass
  3. Comprehensiveness: The article is comprehensive.
    4. Pass Pass
    Criteria Notes Result
    (a) (major aspects) The article broadly covers all major aspects. Pass Pass
    (b) (focused) The article remains on topic with unnecessary deviations Pass Pass
  4. Neutrality: The article is neutral.
    5. Pass Pass
    Notes Result
    The article compliant with the policy on neutral point of view. Pass Pass
  5. Stability: The article is stable.
    6. Pass Pass
    Notes Result
    No content disputes or edit warring present. Pass Pass
  6. Illustration: The article is well illustrated.
    7. Pass Pass
    Criteria Notes Result
    (a) (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales) No copyright issues found. Pass Pass
    (b) (appropriate use with suitable captions) Captions and use are good. Pass Pass

Article title (2021 revisited)

See above #Article title

Winston Churchill once said of Neville Chamberlain that he "looked at foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe" (the Chamberlain family were prominent in local government in Birmingham). I think that we have this problem with this article title. That it may depend on which end of the drainpipe one is located.

In Anglo centric writing it is viewed as either a continuation of the second civil war or as the third civil war. I refer you for example to Trevor Royle's "Civil War:The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638–1660" where his chapters are "Part 3: The Second and Third Civil Wars".

It was certainly not just an "English invasion of Scotland (1550)", because the more important events happened in Worcestershire in 1651 after the Scottish invasion of England. For better or worse the victors of the English Civil Wars were powerful enough to impose their will on the other Two Kingdoms and the Principality of Wales in what they referred to as the "Commonwealth".

If the Scottish invasion had been the success that they hoped, the London government would have still done the same thing (but possibly leaning more to the interests of the Scots). So In my view, given that there seems to be agreement that it is convenient on Wikipedia to divide up the English struggle into three parts, I think it is better to use the title "Third English Civil War" for this article than "English invasion of Scotland (1650)".

So I am going to revert the change under WP:RMUM. -- PBS (talk) 13:53, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

PBS, please consider the points raised by myself above in the section 'Article Title' - this was discussed, although I accept that you weren't around at the time to take part in the discussion. One editor explicitly supported the move; Gog the Mild also supported it - he didn't mention it, but I was collaborating with him on the article, and can assure you that he agreed. Please also consider the fact that the article has been through GA and FAC since the move. I ask that you self-revert, and engage in discussion. Girth Summit (blether) 17:28, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Girth Summit. MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:30, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

This issue was addressed a long time ago on the English Civil War Talk page so I will try not to repeat that conversation as it will be archived.  In summary: Because the topic is so large it was decided to split the Great Rebellion as EB1911 calls it, into thee parts and not use that name.

Before the American Civil War there was no need to disimbaguate the name, as anyone in British Empire or America, would have known to which civil war the author was referring (if (s)he did not explicitly identify the conflict), whether s(he) thought of it as the "English" or "British" Civil War. Prior to fairly recently most people used English and British interchanagebly, indeed on the European mainland it is still quite common. The agreement which came about on Wikipedia partly by talk page discussion and partly in editing was for most of the details of the War in Scotland to be in  one article. The Irish wars in another one or two, and the English war(s) in four. An overview and subsidiary articles.

The first issue is that there have been more than one civil war in the Anglosphere, so that it is necessary to disambaguate the Article Title to clarify whether one means the war fought in America in the 19th century or the wars fought in Great Britain and Ireland during the 17th century. Whether or not English Civil War is the best name it does meet WP:COMMONNAME for the conflict that started with the Battle of Powick Bridge (1642) and ended with the Battle of Worcester (1652) and English is a natural disimbaguator. One that is done the  the first second and third are best described with English as a natural disimbaguator and the AT attribute of "Consistency".

Are you using a descriptive or commonname name for the title?  If the former then please explain why that name and not the "Third Scottish invasion of England"?  See my reference to drain-pipes above.

As to common name. You did not address my point about Trevor Royle. I used him as an example because I have his book to hand and it is listed as a reference. However  please do a search on Google Books using [ "third english civil war" OR "third British civil war" OR "third civil war" "Worcester]. When I do that the first three books returned two use Royle's "Third [English] Civil War" as a descriptor

  • "Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642-1651" by Stanley D. M. Carpenter (2005)
  • "The Concise Encyclopedia of the Revolutions and Wars of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1639-1660" by Stephen C. Manganiello (2004)

The third book returned is

  • "Cromwell Against the Scots: The Last Anglo-Scottish War 1650-1652 (Revised Edition)" by John D. Grainger (2021) the text was not available to me but shows up due to the description provided by the publisher "Although also known as the Third English Civil War, the author makes it clear that this was the last war between the Scots and English as separate states..."

— PBS (talk) 13:28, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

PBS, I think you're missing the point here - your change back to the original name move was seriously out of process. WP:RMUM does not apply here - the move was not undiscussed. I put forward extensive reasoning on the article's talk page, Gog the Mild (who I was collaborating with) commented, and invited Harrias (a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Wars of the Three Kingdoms task force) to comment. MichaelMaggs agreed. Nobody contested it. I'm sorry you weren't around to chime in, but it was not undiscussed, and you have no grounds to undo the move citing RMUM.
In the month-and-a-half since the move, the article has been reviewed (and passed) at GA, and is currently at FAC with multiple supports, including one by Harrias - all the while with the explanation of the page move on the talk page. Many experienced editors have looked at this, and have all either voiced support, or at least voiced no objection. You cannot argue that it was undiscussed, so RMUM is no defence of your unilateral move.
With regards to your points above, I would vigorously contest some of them. The majority of scholars whose work I have reviewed do not include the Scottish campaign up to Worcester as an extension of the second ECW, or as a part of the English Civil War at all - I think I demonstrated convincingly in my original rationale, but I can bring more sources if needs be. Yes, a few people call it that, but they are few in number, and outweighed by the scholars who criticise the use of the term - it was proposed, and never caught on. The conflict was certainly a part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms, as are the Bishops' Wars and the conflicts in Ireland - but they are distinct from the ECW.
The examples you cite above do not persuade me. Trevor Royle is a prolific author and broadcaster, but he is not an academic historian, and as far as I know his work is not peer-reviewed or published by scholarly imprints - in other words, he's a popular historian, and while I do not say that his work is unreliable, it shouldn't be given the same weight as peer reviewed scholarly monographs and edited collections. I have been able to find a very small number of actual scholars who use the term "Third English Civil War", but I have found more scholars criticising the term as inaccurate, misleading, etc, and even more who talk about the conflict without mentioning the phrase at all.
FWIW, before I approached the article, I discussed it with a close friend who is the chair of early modern British history at a Russell Group English university, and who has written extensively on the 1640s. The first comment she had was "Why do you call it the Third English Civil War? Nobody calls it that any more, and very few people ever did." That's why I started digging through sources looking for examples of usage, because I found it hard to believe that we had it as wrong as she thought we did. I managed to convince myself she was right - it's a rarely used term, which misrepresents both the conflict, and the modern scholarly view of the conflict.
I wouldn't mind having a conversation with you about what the article should be called, and I'm not wedded to the current descriptive title, but 'Third English Civil War' is highly inappropriate. So again: please self-revert your out-of-process page move. Thank you. Girth Summit (blether) 18:38, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
My position, in brief:
  • I was tagged into this back in July, but was very inactive at the time, so didn't comment.
  • I did, however, pick up the notification and read through the argument made. My first reaction was in defence of the old (and current) title, "Third English Civil War". That, in my head, was the right and proper name of the article.
  • I then flicked through my books and the internet, and discovered that "Third English Civil War" isn't really a COMMONNAME, and if used at all is a bit of an anachronism.
  • I'm not in love with the title "English invasion of Scotland in 1650", not least because the scope of the article extends beyond 1650. But, I really don't have a better suggestion, which was probably part of the reason that I didn't comment at the time.
  • I will also briefly note that while "Third English Civil War" isn't a COMMONNAME, "English invasion of Scotland in 1650" is even less so. But again, I don't have a better suggestion.
There you go, hope that mind dump helps! Harrias (he/him) • talk 21:08, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
We need to go with a descriptive title, because there is no COMMONNAME-compliant name for the conflict. The one I picked has its issues, of course, but at least it has the advantage of not having been expressly criticised in multiple peer-reviewed works by some of the most prominent scholars in the field.
An alternative might be Anglo-Scottish war (1650-1651) - that's what Wheeler calls it, and it's neutral and descriptive. Happy to consider other suggestions, provided we do not stick with 3rd ECW. Girth Summit (blether) 21:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
WP:RMUM does not apply here because it should have been obvious to you that it was a contentious move as per "It seems unlikely that anyone would reasonably disagree with the move", do you think my objection to the move is unreasonable? However even if you do think it unreasonable, I am exercising the right to move it back as stated "If you disagree with such a move, and the new title has not been in place for a long time, you may revert the move". It was at the article title since "September 2006" or for almost 15 years. It has been at the new title for about a month and a half, a short time in comparison.
One of your arguments previously is that the English Civil War either with the end of the First Civil War or the Second Civil War and the execution of the King. This would be a surprise to most people who know anything about the conflict because most histories record that the Battle of Worcester in 1651 was the end of the Civil War. Do you dispute this? -- PBS (talk) 15:08, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
PBS, you invoked RMUM in your edit summary when you reverted the move - if you agree that it doesn't apply, I don't understand why you did that. This was not an undiscussed move - that's the point I'm making. But if you insist on having a formal page move discussion, despite the discussion prior to the move and the multiple layers of review that have taken place since it, I suppose that is what is going to have to happen. The current article title is "seriously misleading", to quote Austin Woolrych.
Please would you drop the 'people who know anything about the conflict' stuff? I assure you that I know a bit about the period, and that I consulted with scholars of international renown before I approached the article, read the sources they suggested, and concluded that they were onto something with regards to the title. I'd also be grateful if you'd leave out the drainpipe metaphors - you seem to be suggesting that I'm looking at this through a Scottish lens, but I am basing most of my argument on the writing of English scholars.
Yes, I dispute the idea that most histories of the English Civil War record that it ended at Worcester. I think you are conflating the English Civil War with the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms/British Civil Wars/Wars of the Covenant (the name of the wider series of conflicts is contested - Wikipedia plumps for Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which I don't have a problem with). Histories that cover the whole shebang tend to go up to Worcester; those that cover the English Civil War tend to stop at Preston. I've linked three of these above, by Robert Ashton, John Morrill, Mike Braddick; there are plenty more. Almost nobody uses the phrase "Third English Civil War" in any way; most of those who do are invoking it to explain why it is inaccurate, as the Grainger source you mention above seems to be doing.
I have provided quotes by the likes of Austin Woolrych (it is "seriously misleading to describe the campaigns of 1650-1 as the Third Civil War") and Malcolm Wanklyn ("the so-called Third Civil War of 1649-52 as nothing of the sort so far as England was concerned"), explicitly scorning the use of the phrase. I've cited John Philipps Kenyon and Jane Ohlmeyer, explaining that whatever Worcester was the end of, it is inaccurate to call it 'English'. Do you really still think that this is the best name for the article? That seems utterly perverse to me. Would you be willing to accept a compromise, such as "Anglo-Scottish War (1650-52)", which is descriptive rather than a proper name (the conflict has no widely agreed-upon proper name), and is also how Grainger and Wheeler describe it? Or do you insist on a formal move discussion? Girth Summit (blether) 16:47, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
A mistake in my last posting which I have fixed. WP:RMUM does apply here for the reasons I stated in my last post. As to the rest of you post, I think you are cherry picking over the date of the end of the Civil War, and I think we need to hear from more editors. To that end I have already posted a note on the talk page of the English Civil War inviting them here are will also add one to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. -- PBS (talk) 16:57, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
PBS, I am not cherry-picking - I am presenting the results of a review of the sources I have been able to lay hands on. Do you deny that they are impeccable sources, by the leading scholars in the field? If you can point to sourcing of similar quality that says differently I'd be very interested to review it. Girth Summit (blether) 18:15, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
And, FWIW, you have heard from other editors - MichaelMaggs and Gog the Mild have already explicitly supported a change of title, and Harrias agrees that 3rd ECW is at best anachronistic. It's not like I'm on my own here. Girth Summit (blether) 18:16, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

As far as I recall it's always referred to as the third civil war.Slatersteven (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Slatersteven, please review the whole discussion above, and my original rationale for the move. It has always been referred to as the third English civil war on Wikipedia. In discussion with a distinguished scholar on the period before I approached this article with the view to improving it to FA standard, I learned that it was a mystery to her and her colleagues why we refer to it in that way; according to her, no modern scholars now call it that, and very few ever did. I found it hard to believe that we could have got it so wrong for so long, so I went to the sources, and discovered that she was right - I have been able to find very few modern, scholarly sources that even use the term, and almost all of the ones that use it do so in the context of criticising it. Gog the Mild conducted his own review, and agreed. Harrias, who was initially minded to support the 3ECW title, also conducted a review, and agrees that it is not the COMMONNAME, and is anachronistic.
We should be following modern WP:SCHOLARSHIP, which is clear on the point: it wasn't an English civil war, it was a war between the independent countries of Scotland and England, with a tiny number of English Royalists fighting on the Scottish side in the final battle. Girth Summit (blether) 18:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Girth Summit put forward a very convincing case to rename the page in the first instance. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:39, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Just to add to the mix, the entry in my copy of The Oxford Companion to Military History (written by Dr Ian Gentles, an expert on the period) is titled "British Civil Wars", and explicitly uses the "Third Civil War" to refer to Cromwell's invasion of Scotland and the doomed counter-invasion by Charles II that ended at Worcester. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Info: a copy of that snippet can be found here. MichaelMaggs (talk) 04:28, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Peacemaker67, I haven't read that particular source, but I assume that if he is writing about the "British Civil Wars" (a phrase used by Kenyon and Ohlmeyer), he is writing about the wider series of conflicts, not exclusively the English Civil Wars? Omitting the word 'English' addresses the point made by Kenyon and Ohlmeyer about that word being inaccurate for this conflict, but it doesn't address the point that Woolrych and Wanklyn make about it not being a civil war at all, but a war between two separate countries (I'm sure I don't need to tell you that this was pre-union). That issue is why Stuart Wheeler calls it the "last Anglo-Scottish war", which I see from PBS's post above that John D. Grainger also does. I would be perfectly happy with "Anglo-Scottish war (1650-1652)" that as a compromise title for this article. Girth Summit (blether) 16:42, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
The entry starts "(1638-52)" and starts with the bloodless conflict in spring 1639 and ends, as I said, with Cromwell's invasion and Charles' counter-invasion. Other than his own The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1945-1653, Gentles uses Kenyon's The Civil Wars of England, Young and Holmes' The English Civil War: A Military History of the Three Civil Wars 1641-1651, and Carlton's Going to the Wars. They may bear a look. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 20:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Kenyon doesn't use "Third Civil War". The phrase appears a single time in his book, on page 196, when he is talking about a decision that "could even have led to a third civil war, this time between rival army contingents", and it's clear from the context that he does not believe a third civil war ever took place. He does describe the Dunbar to Worcester campaign in detail, but does so without giving it a particular name. Carlton is talking about the 'British Civil Wars' (rather than the English Civil Wars), and he does use "Third Civil War", without the word 'English' - ditto for Young and Holmes (but given that they wrote that book in 1974, I'm not sure how relevant it remains in a discussion about what modern scholarship calls the conflict: the 2000 edition doesn't appear to have had much revision, it still has a preface dated 1973, with no new foreword).
All of these sources, however, pre-date the criticism that the phrase "Third Civil War" came in for in the early 2000s by the likes Woolrych. It's possible that an argument could be made for "Third Civil War" (without 'English') being a COMMONNAME in the 20th century (although it was by no means universal even then), but the field has moved on now: it's widely recognised that describing it as a civil war is obviously misleading, and scholarly sources written in the last 20 years seem to have stopped using it. Girth Summit (blether) 17:56, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

New suggestions for the article title

Proposal: Anglo-Scottish War (1650–1652)

It's been several days now since anyone has commented. I'd like to be able to make progress with this article, which was in the closing stages of an FAC review when its name was reverted back to the current one. I think that I have been clear above (note also the section Article title) about the problems I perceive with the current title, and a number of people have voiced their agreement. That said, Harrias has said that while he agreed that Third Civil War was anachronistic, he was not overly enamored with the title I changed it to (English Invasion of Scotland (1650)), and obviously PBS wasn't happy with that or they wouldn't have reverted the change. I'm therefore proposing the title above - Anglo-Scottish War (1650–1652) - as a compromise. It is neutral, in that it mentions both Scotland and England (each of which invaded the other during the war); it gives the full date range of the conflict (Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650, and the main Scottish force was crushed at Worcester in 1651, but a few Scottish strongholds held out until 1652); it avoids giving the false impression that the conflict was a civil war in any meaningful sense; and it aligns closely with how modern scholars refer to the conflict (and indeed two of the 21st-century sources cited in the long conversations above using that exact phrase for it). I'd be grateful if other editors would be willing to support this so that we can come to a consensus and get over this current roadblock; naturally, I'd be eager to consider alternatives if anyone wants to propose any. Pinging all of those who have commented in this discussion, or who have been involved in reviewing the article (at GA, DYK and FAC) since its original rename: @Gog the Mild, MichaelMaggs, Harrias, PBS, Tayi Arajakate, Gerda Arendt, BuySomeApples, Theleekycauldron, Slatersteven, Richard Nevell, Peacemaker67, Wehwalt, Nikkimaria, Chidgk1, Tim riley, Dudley Miles, and Eddie891: Girth Summit (blether) 11:43, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

  • Support. Well-argued. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:47, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Weak Support everything I have read calls it the third civil war, but as Scotland was a sovereign nation it may not be correct to call it a civil war.Slatersteven (talk) 12:03, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I have changed the subheading to bold because this has not been discussed enough. Not all of us have day to day use of the internet and there is no hurry over this issue.

If there is to be a new title then it needs to go through the WP:RM#CM process.

More so as there are a lot of problems with the current structure and FAC (or whatever) does not affect the article as presented to a reader. It is much more an issue for editors. This article needs a lot of work. just to give you one minor example of what I mean. "Exasperated by Charles's duplicity and by Parliament's refusal to stop negotiating with him and accept the army's demands" which "Charles" which "Parliament" which "army" (why is it lower case)?. It also has some real structural issues. The amount of space taken up with discussing the Bishops war and other Scottish issues. The much larger section on the English invasion, and the relative paucity of the Scottish Invasion which make it look like an after thought rather than the important part of the war. This is why I put in my original comments about how the conflict is viewed.

While "Proposal: Anglo-Scottish War (1650–1652)" is a better name than the previous name. It is still only a descriptive name (one swallow a summer does not make). It is arguable if it was an Anglo-Scottish War and it is arguable if 1652 is the correct termination date. Contrary to your (User:Girth Summit) argument that some scholars have dismissed Third Civil War as a title, they may consider it not to be the best name, but the fact that the criticize it indicates that they think it is common coin. I remind you what WT:AT says "The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize." -- PBS (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I have reinstated the level three section header, which makes it easier for people to comment on this section.
Discussion of the content of the article should probably go in a separate section, or could be addressed at the ongoing FAC, if you like, but it doesn't contribute to this discussion about the article title. And no, the fact that it has been dismissed by the scholarly community does not mean that they accept it as common coin - Woolrych says "it seriously misleading to describe the campaigns of 1650-1 as the Third Civil War, as has become the fashion in some quarters." 'As has become the fashion in some quarters' is not the same as saying 'this is the standard name'. There is JD Grainger, in the source you linked yourself above: "...in some accounts the 'Third Civil War', which is a complete misnomer". Again: 'in some accounts' =/= 'usually known as'.
Now, you said that you wanted to hear other voices. Why don't we let people comment on whether or not they support my proposed compromise, or if they have any other suggestions (perhaps someone will have a better idea). Then, if you insist on going through the RM process, at least we will have agreed on a new title to propose in that discussion. Girth Summit (blether) 13:11, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
PBS, there is nothing wrong with trying to hammer out a rough consensus for a new name prior to putting an RM discussion in place. In removing my section heading, you literally just removed the new title I was proposing so it wasn't even clear what people were supporting! Please just allow people to express their view without trying to disrupt the process. Girth Summit (blether) 14:24, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
It was not my intention to remove you proposal and I make a mistake not reinserting it when I changed the section name. However I do not think it should be a sub-section header, so I have altered it again, for the same reason, but I have placed you proposal in bold at the start of the subsection. I am more than happy to have other people contribute ideas, but this section must be seen in context and not a WP:RM process.
Although much better than "English invasion of Scotland (1650) ", I do not see the "Anglo-Scottish War (1650–1652)" as a "compromise". I see it as a fall back position. I make this point because you seem to be suggesting that it is not a common name but another descriptive name am I right in that assumption?
My point about Woolrych and the like, is he would not waste ink unless he thought that the name was in use; and frequently used. If another name(s) is/are in frequent use what is it/are they? BTW I am using frequent here as in WP:UCRN but Wikipedia editors usual use COMMONNAME as as short hand for the same thing. It does not mean "standard name", there will of course be alternatives, but of the names used which other ones are as frequently used? I ask this because the section also say "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources". This is usually applied only if there are more appropriate names use for the same topic, for example the Boston Massacre has that as the article title even thought it is an inaccurate name, this sentence in the is commonly used as a get out of jail card for articles about medicine (eg the article heart attack). So typically it allows for a less than the most common name to be used, but still one that is commonly used. -- PBS (talk) 15:24, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
I am obviously proposing this as a descriptive name, I've already said that no COMMONNAME exists and that we need a descriptive one. 'Third English Civil War' is most certainly not the COMMONNAME, it has almost never been used by anyone. Girth Summit (blether) 15:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
What about "Third Civil War" without natural disambiguation? -- PBS (talk) 16:24, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
PBS, that's not as bad, but it's still anachronistic - the sources don't call it that any more. First Civil War, yes, all the sources still call it that; Second Civil War, yes as well; but Third Civil War, no. It's just not looked at through that lens any more: the sources have moved away from calling it a civil war entirely, because it is "seriously misleading" (Woolrych), a "complete misnomer" (Grainger) and it was "nothing of the sort" (Wanklyn). We shouldn't be continuing to misrepresent the subject because it gives us a convenient nametag to hang our hat on - we need a descriptive title that matches the current understanding of the conflict. Girth Summit (blether) 16:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I see Woolrych made his comment in 2002, So I formulated a search in the 21st publications in Google Scholar and Google books using ("Third-Civil-War"|"Third-English-Civil-War")+(Worcester|Cromwell) they return lots of papers and books. I have not looked through them in detail (these are just raw searches), but there seems to be plenty of articles and books mentioning the "Third [English] Civil War" in 21st Cenury: Google Scholar Google Books -- PBS (talk) 17:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

PBS, I have looked at searches like this in detail though (as I discuss at the top of this page). Some of the hits in the searches you give there are by people talking about a book by David Pearce on the miners' strikes of the 1980s (which he describes as the third English civil war). Some of them are not actually referencing the conflict, but talking about the prospect of a third civil war being a threat in people's minds. Some are references to different conflicts altogether (there have been lots of places that have experienced three civil wars). Some have content obviously cribbed from our article. Some are using the phrase explicitly to criticise it. Some are scholars in different fields, who aren't specialists in the politics of the time, referring to things happening 'at the time of the third civil war', which they may very well have got from us! There are examples of all of these in the first page of hits of both of your searches. What I've not been able to find is any significant use by modern scholars in the relevant discipline, referring to it by that name - and I did look for them. Girth Summit (blether) 17:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Pollution of Google searches with commercial versions of Wikipedia articles is and always has been a problem. I looked through the first 25 pages returned by Google Books and could not find David Pearce book. Using the searches I placed above on which Google search page did you find it? However even removing unsuitable sources such as novels and unreliable sources, or those that use the term to mean something else, there are plenty of 21st century reliable sources returned by the searches. For any one reading this thread WP:AT states "Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize." this negates the need for the article name to appear just in "modern scholars in the relevant discipline", because although desirable, the article title is to help readers find the article as it is used in reliable sources. Using a descriptive name such as is being suggested is unlikely to receive as many searches as names which are used in reliable sources.
WP:AT "Other encyclopedias are among the sources that may be helpful in deciding what titles are in an encyclopedic register, as well as what names are most frequently used." www.britannica.com has an article "English Civil Wars" and a subsection in that "Second and third English Civil Wars (1648–51)". The Concise Encyclopedia of the Revolutions and Wars of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1639-1660 by Stephen C. Manganiello (2004) page 528 Section heading "Third Civil War" — PBS (talk) 19:02, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Pearce's book was the subject of the first hit of your Google Scholar search. The best sources all call it sonething else, and titles ought not to be actively misleading, as this one is. I wonder when the most recent source that can be found actually making the case for it being a civil war, or defending the use of that name, was published. Girth Summit (blether) 22:09, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Footnote opinions about the article title

When there is some dispute over appropriate titles, that have significant academic support there are options (WP:ASSERT). One thing that could be done is to place a footnote after the use first use of "Third English Civil War" mentioning the more recent prominent historians who have pointed out that in their opinion this is a misleading title and possibly mentioning their alternatives in the footnote in bold (this is done in the articles Wars of the Three Kingdoms and Peninsular War). This would have the advantage of bringing this article up in searches on other less common names. Another alternative is to have a brief section called "Terminology" (as is done in English Civil War#Terminology). However I think if this option was to be followed then the alternative names would need to be used by a significant number of sources otherwise there are "undue weight" issues. -- PBS (talk) 10:10, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I do think that wherever we end up with the title we have proved that there is relevant academic discussion about the name "Third (English) Civil War", and that discussion should be included in the article. Harrias (he/him) • talk 10:17, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree that academic discussion of the terminology ought to be discussed in the article. I will need some additional research - I would like to get a sense of when people started using this term, who first proposed it, etc. That should be included. I still remain very strongly convinced that the current title is wrong - there should be a redirect from Third English Civil War, and very possibly from Third Civil War too. I'll add that I dispute the first sentence that is currently in the lead - this conflict was not part of the English Civil War. None of the sources I've read treat it as such, and I've added links to several sources above by leading scholars who write histories of the English Civil War that stop at 1649. This conflict clearly happened as a result of the outcome of the English Civil War, but it isn't treated as a part of it by any sources I've looked at. I suspect that this is another anachronism. Girth Summit (blether) 15:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Afterthought, regarding to PBS's point about alternative names: the point I've been trying to make above is that most scholars I've read don't give it a name, they refer to it descriptively. I list some examples of ways that people refer to it above, there are plenty of others, but since they are referring to it descriptively without naming it, each author's phrasing is a bit different. 'Anglo-Scottish war (1950–1952)' is the closest thing to a proper name I've seen in print, and it's used by two of the sources discussed above. Girth Summit (blether) 15:44, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
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