J.P.Sommerville

 

 

The Restoration

1660-85
 

Charles II

bullet Charles II was a handsome, lazy, shrewd, womanizing cynic, but he had sound political sense. He accepted the crown of England with its powers restricted by all the legislation passed to May 1642:  he would reign without the prerogative powers exercised through Star Chamber and High Commission. He also agreed to call Parliament every three years.
bullet Charles let Parliament decide who should be punished for their deeds during the Civil War and Interregnum. (In fact, only a few regicides were executed; - the corpses of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Pym bore the brunt of the Royalists' revenge).
bullet Charles, indeed, was content to employ men who had fought against his father, such as George Monck and William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele.
 
During the early years of his reign, Charles II's main minister was his father's advisor, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon.

His daughter, Anne, married Charles II's younger brother James (reigned 1685-88)) and was the mother of Queens Mary (reigned 1688-94)  and Anne (reigned 1702-1712)

In May 1662, Charles II married Catherine of Braganza.
The fact that their marriage was childless was to cause problems later

 

Anglicans and Dissenters

bullet Charles II's supporters in the Cavalier Parliament (which sat from May 1661 to January 1679) were less magnanimous than the King himself. They not only restored the Bishops and the Church of England, but - ignoring both Charles' promises of religious compromise in the Declaration of Breda and his own inclination for a broad toleration - passed a series of statutes against Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers and any others who refused to conform to the re-established Anglican Church.
bullet The Protestant sects were far too deeply rooted and numerous to be wiped out by the merely civil penalties enacted by the Cavalier Parliament. Open Dissenters were excluded from political power and remunerative office, but many prospered in trade and commerce.
 

London's disasters

bulletDuring the reign of Charles II, London - easily the largest city in England with about 400,000 inhabitants - suffered two major calamities.
bulletThe first was the Great Plague of 1665. During this last great outbreak of Bubonic Plague in England, between 70,000 and 100,000 of London's inhabitants died.
bulletHard on the heels of the Great Plague followed the Fire of London  (September 1666) - the loss of life was not nearly so great, but 13,000 families lost their homes.
bullet London also suffered a man-made humiliation in June 1667, when the Dutch Fleet sailed up the Thames estuary to Chatham dock burnt three major battleships and towed away another.
 

The Second Dutch War (1665-7), like the First, was fought to challenge Dutch commercial supremacy. England obtained a tactical superiority in the Battle of Lowestoft that it failed to press home. The attack on the Dutch in the neutral port of Bergen simply turned Denmark against England. Subsequent fights were indecisive even when (as on St. James' Day) they went England's way. The disastrous Battle of Medway  fed war-weariness and England concluded the Peace of Breda (July 1667).

 

The Third Dutch War (1672-74) was fought to assist the French and revenge English pique at their earlier humiliation. The Battle at Sole Bay inflicted heavy damages on both sides, and England's subsequent attempts to destroy the Dutch fleet at Schoonveld and Texel failed. Parliament had no taste for continued expenditure on a war (where the French Navy was perceived as not pulling its weight) and Charles ended hostilities in the Treaty of Westminster (February 1674).

 

Tories and Whigs

bulletThe later years of Charles II saw England deeply divided over politics and religion.
bulletCharles' attempted to extend toleration to both Dissenters and Roman Catholics in The Declaration of Indulgence (1672), but it was regarded in many quarters as an attempt to pave the way for a absolutism and popery.
 


A bedroom fit for a King - luxury 1665 style


 
bulletOverblown fears of Catholicism surfaced in the Popish Plot - a supposed Catholic scheme to murder key Protestants. Attempts to prevent (the Roman Catholic) James from succeeding to the throne on his brother's death led to the Exclusion Crisis, and the emergence of history's first two political parties.
bullet The Whigs wanted royal power to be strictly limited and toleration for Dissenters.
bullet The Tories, in contrast, favored strong royal power and the little or no toleration for those who rejected the established religion.
bullet Charles II was able to prevent foil exclusion and so it was James who succeeded when Charles II died 6 February 1685.
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