The Treaty of Ripon

Thanks to the booklet published by the city's civic society, I came across the plaque in a Ripon backwater.

The Treaty of Ripon put an end to the Bishops' Wars of 1639-40 between England and Scotland. These were caused by Charlies I's attempt to impose an Episcopalian system of church government upon Scotland.

Defeat in these wars, and their expense, forced Charles to abandon his attempt to govern without a parliament and were thus a Cause of the Civil War.

The English puritans were sympathetic to the Scots' resistance to High Anglicanism but suspicious of what they saw as their attempts to interfere in English business. Again, this attitude prefigured the concerns of the Commonwealth era.

The late Conrad Russell writes: There was more to it than that.