Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649)[a] was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.

John Pym, 20 May 1584 to 8 December 1643, was a politician and administrator from London, who played a major role in establishing what became the modern English Parliamentary system. One of the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 was a major step in sparking the First English Civil War, his use of procedure to out manoeuvre opponents was unusual for the period. Although this meant he was respected by contemporaries rather than admired, in 1895 historian Goldwin Smith described him as "the greatest member of Parliament that ever lived".

The Protestation Returns are the closest record we have to a census from 1642. By order of the House of Commons, all adult men were asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the Protestant religion in 1642. Their names were duly inscribed in a list in each parish, and the list sent back to Parliament. In a few areas such as Cornwall, people wrote their own names, and women were included.
But usually a local official wrote out all the names.
The Protestation Returns survive for about a third of English counties.

On Tuesday, January 4th, 1642, King Charles I committed an act of violence that made the Great Civil War almost inevitable; he went to the House of Commons at the head of a body of armed men and attempted to arrest five members of Parliament - John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holies, Arthur Haslerig and William Strode. The attempt failed. The King’s move had been expected, and by the time he had arrived at Westminster Hall, the five members were being conveyed by barge to a secret hiding-place in the City of London.

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, KG (13 April 1593 (N.S.) – 12 May 1641), was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War.
He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1640 he was Lord Deputy of Ireland, where he established a strong authoritarian rule.
Recalled to England, he became a leading advisor to the King, attempting to strengthen the royal position against Parliament.
When Parliament condemned Lord Strafford to death, Charles reluctantly signed the death warrant and Strafford was executed.[1] He had been advanced several times in the Peerage of England during his career, being created 1st Baron Wentworth in 1628,[2][3] 1st Viscount Wentworth in late 1628 or early 1629, and, finally, 1st Earl of Strafford in January 1640.[2][4]
He was known as Sir Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baronet, between 1614 and 1628.

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, KG (/ˈvɪlərz/ VIL-ərz; 28 August 1592 – 23 August 1628), was an English courtier, statesman, and patron of the arts. He was a favourite and self-described "lover" of King James VI and I. Buckingham remained at the height of royal favour for the first three years of the reign of James's son, King Charles I, until he was assassinated.

William Laud (LAWD; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms; he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 and executed towards the end of the First English Civil War in January 1645.

Dame Cicely Veronica Wedgwood, OM, DBE, FBA, FRHistS (20 July 1910 – 9 March 1997) was an English historian who published under the name C. V. Wedgwood. Specializing in the history of 17th-century England and continental Europe, her biographies and narrative histories are said to have provided a clear, entertaining middle ground between popular and scholarly works.

In 1637 Charles I ordered the use of a new prayer book in Scotland, which was similar to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. This was met with widespread resistance and many Scots believed that Charles's Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was trying to re-introduce Catholic practices. Scottish Church leaders took the Negative Confession, with its strident anti-Catholicism, as their inspiration in the campaign against Charles's ecclesiastical policies.[8] In 1638 Archibald Johnston and Alexander Henderson reprinted the Confession in the National Covenant, which was signed across Scotland.

John Knox (1505–1572), a Scot who had spent time studying under Calvin in Geneva, returned to Scotland and urged his countrymen to reform the Church in line with Calvinist doctrines. After a period of religious convulsion and political conflict culminating in a victory for the Protestant party at the Siege of Leith the authority of the Catholic Church was abolished in favour of Reformation by the legislation of the Scottish Reformation Parliament in 1560. The Church was eventually organised by Andrew Melville along Presbyterian lines to become the national Church of Scotland. King James VI and I moved the Church of Scotland towards an episcopal form of government, and in 1637, James' successor, Charles I and William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted to force the Church of Scotland to use the Book of Common Prayer. What resulted was an armed insurrection, with many Scots signing the Solemn League and Covenant. The Covenanters would serve as the government of Scotland for nearly a decade, and would also send military support to the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II, despite the initial support that he received from the Covenanters, reinstated an episcopal form of government on the church.