The Anarchy (1135–1154) – a civil war in England and Normandy between 1135 and 1154 surrounding a succession crisis towards the end of the reign of
Henry I, fought between the supporters of the claim of
King Stephen and that of
Empress Matilda (also known as Empress Maud or Maude). The eventual outcome was the accession of the Angevins in the person of
Henry II.
The English Civil War (1642–1652) – a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("
Roundheads") and Royalists ("
Cavaliers") in the
Kingdom of England over, principally, the manner of its government.
American Revolutionary War (1775–83) - The American Revolution started as a civil war within the British Empire.[nb 1] It became a larger international war in 1778 once France joined.[nb 2]
Monmouth Rebellion (1685) – in England, The Monmouth Rebellion, also known as The Revolt of the West or The West Country rebellion, was an attempt to overthrow
James II, who had become King of England, Scotland and Ireland upon the death of his elder brother
Charles II on 6 February 1685.
^ Some historians name the
1861–1865 war the "Second American Civil War", because in their view, the
American Revolutionary War can also be considered a
civil war (since the term can be used in reference to any war in which one political body separates itself from another political body). They then refer to the Independence War, which resulted in the separation of the
Thirteen Colonies from the
British Empire, as the "First American Civil War".[1][2] A significant number of American colonists stayed loyal to the British Crown and as
Loyalists fought on the British side while opposite were a significant amount of colonists called
Patriots who fought on the American side. In some localities, there was fierce fighting between Americans including gruesome instances of
hanging, drawing, and quartering on both sides.[3][4][5][6]
As early as 1789,
David Ramsay, an American patriot historian, wrote in his History of the American Revolution that "Many circumstances concurred to make the American war particularly calamitous. It was originally a civil war in the estimation of both parties."[7] Framing the American Revolutionary War as a civil war is gaining increasing examination.[8][9][10][1]. You can read part two of his 1789 book in full
here
A group of Bristol, England merchants wrote to King George III in 1775 voicing their “most anxious apprehensions for ourselves and Posterity that we behold the growing distractions in America threaten” and ask for their majesty’s “Wisdom and Goodness” to save them from “a lasting and ruinous Civil War.”[2]. You can read the 1775 petition in full
here
The “constrained voice” is a good synopsis of how the British viewed the American Revolutionary War. From anxiety to a foreboding sense of the conflict being a civil war,[3]
In the early stages of the rebellion by the American colonists, most of them still saw themselves as English subjects who were being denied their rights as such. “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” James Otis reportedly said in protest of the lack of colonial representation in Parliament. What made the American Revolution look most like a civil war, though, was the reality that about one-third of the colonists, known as loyalists (or Tories), continued to support and fought on the side of the crown.[4]
^The Revolution was both an international conflict, with Britain and France vying on land and sea, and a civil war among the colonists, causing over 60,000 loyalists to flee their homes.[5]
France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in 1778, turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict.[6]
Until early in 1778 the conflict was a civil war within the British Empire, but afterward it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain. Meanwhile, the Netherlands, which provided both official recognition of the United States and financial support for it, was engaged in its own war against Britain.[7]
^Thomas Allen. Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War. New York, Harper, 2011.
^Peter J. Albert (ed.). An Uncivil War: The Southern Backcountry During the American Revolution. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1985.
^Alfred Young (ed.). The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1976.
^Armitage, David.
Every Great Revolution Is a Civil WarArchived 2013-12-03 at the
Wayback Machine. In:
Keith Michael Baker and Dan Edelstein (eds.). Scripting Revolution: A Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. According to Armitage, "The renaming can happen relatively quickly: for example, the transatlantic conflict of the 1770s that many contemporaries[who?] saw as a British "civil war" or even "the American Civil War" was first called "the American Revolution" in 1776 by the chief justice of South Carolina,
William Henry Drayton."