Ideas for a Royalist victory in the English Civil War?

True.

But it still seems that if you remove just one, others can step in - Parliament does not have all its eggs in one basket.

A fair point, which is why I'm suggesting burning most of parliaments baskets prior to seeking a decisive battle against the Earl of Essex. :D

The royalist Oxford Army was able to tie down Parliaments main army in indecisive engagements across the midlands for most of the war, but there were a number of opportunities for the royalist regional armies to shift the balance in their favour in the more outlying counties. It OTL, bad luck and occasionally bad planning robbed them of one too many capable commanders (the Earl of Carnarvon, the Earl of Northampton, Charles Cavendish killed or Lord Goring and thers captured) or cost them a battle at the worst possible time. Better fortunes, without any, er...royalist-wanking...alone can have a powerful effect.

It must be remembered that the Parliamentary armies were not meritocracy's at the time of the war however and the Committe of Safety had a bad habit of appointing poor commanders early in the war, with the exceptions of Sir William Waller, and was in the main lucky with the hand it was dealt. The others commanders I've mentioned and others such as Sir Ferdinando Fairfax and Lord Brooke rose to prominence by virtue of their own talents, but the Earl of Bedford and the Earl of Stamford were not the only bad choices made by Pym and his supporters. The loss of too many able commanders in the early years of the war will have a debilitating effect of Parliaments War Effort, and though officers such as Philip Skippon and Oliver Cromwell might rise to command in their place the damage caused in the meantime can have a crippling effect.
 
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