CHARLES II 1660-1685

• Charles made it clear that he believed in the Divine right of Kings and was returning to England on the 11th year of his reign that began in 1660 after his Fathers execution.
• Charles passed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion in 1660, that pardoned parliamentarians that fought against the royalists in the Civil war but condemned the 49 people and 2 unnamed executioners responsible for death of his Father under the guise of Treason.
• Charles declared that Cromwell be disinterred from his resting place in Westminster Abbey and be executed for regicide.
• Thomas Osborne, the Earl of Danby pursued a foreign policy that favoured the Dutch as he was Anglican, he was elected because Charles suspended repayments to his creditors in the Stop of Exchequer (1672) and had to ask for parliamentary grants, the price demanded was the withdrawal of the Act of Indulgence.
• Charles realised he had overstepped his power by asking for parliamentary grants and hired Danby to resolve the issue and handle the countries finances.
• Religious beliefs were varied across England even after the restoration of the Laudian Church in 1662 as Quakers, Presbyterians and Catholics were still present.
• The secret Treaty of Dover signed on the 1st of June 1670, with France and kept hidden from the public stated that in the foreseeable future Charles would publicly declare that he was a Catholic, would suspend Parliament and receive grants from France in order to rule without them.
• Charles believed that the Anglo-Dutch wars were too expensive for England, harboured support for French Catholics and felt they did not need to meddle however the Protestants in Parliament supported the Dutch and England had a long history of fighting for the freedom of the Netherlands from Catholicism.
• Charles failed to produce a legitimate heir with his wife Catherine of Braganza and had many mistresses instead, including his bastard son the Duke of Monmouth who would become a hinderance later during the exclusion crisis, 1679 - 1681.
• Tories believed in hereditary succession, encouraging Charles to produce an heir whilst the Whigs wanted a monarch who listen to the tide of the people, they were willing to explore other options rather than traditional succession.
• Charles purged the Whigs of their positions in Parliament as they pioneered the exclusion of his brother from the throne, Shaftesbury who had made numerous attempts to place Monmouth on the throne fled alongside him to the Netherlands to avoid persecution in 1682.
• Thomas Osborne (Earl of Danby) wrote to the English Ambassador in France asking Louis XIV for money, in direct opposition to Parliament who were amidst establishing a pro-dutch, anti-french policy.
• Colonel Monck fought beside Cromwell in the important victory over the Scots at Dunbar on September 3, 1650.
• Colonel Monck failed to recognise the new military regime put forward by Lambert after Richard Cromwell resigned in May of 1659, he then led an army from Scotland against Lambert in January 1660 and recalled the Rump Parliament.
• Charles’s Declaration of Breda on the 4th of April 1660 was issued at Monck’s urging after encouraging the King to sign the declaration from the protestant Netherlands rather than catholic France.
• Charles passed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion in August 1660 which pardoned those who had fought against the royalists in the Civil War (except those who directly signed Charles' death warrant), offered liberty to tender consciences, fair pay for the army and put parliament in charge of settling debates regarding Royalist's estates.
• The Earl of Danby served as the Lord High Treasurer from 1673-1679.
• Charles was born on the 29th May 1630 and took the English throne on the 29th May 1660.
• At birth, Charles was named the Duke of Cornwall and the Duke of Rothersay.
• On his 8th birthday (1638) Charles was named the Prince of Wales, a title that had been designated to the 1st in line for the throne since the 14th century.
• Brian Duppa, the Dean of Christchurch at Oxford was Charles' senior tutor and followed the political and religious guidance of William Laud.
• Whilst his family fled to live in exile in 1644, Charles II stayed involved in English affairs during the tumultuous decade of the 1640's.
• In the Spring of 1645, Charles II commands the Royalist cause in the West Country with the support of Edward Hyde (Clarendon).
• Charles II was kept in England to be used as a bargaining chip by Charles I for foreign aid in the Civil War with a marriage alliance to a Catholic power.
• Foreign monarchs were repelled to help Charles I and II retain the throne of England after the Battle of Naseby (14/6/45).
• From 1647-48, Charles II fled to reconnect with his family in the French court in Rouen and then Paris.
• Charles II and Henrietta Maria tried to gain support in Europe for the royalist cause but:


  Spain could not afford a foreign war.

  France (led by Louis XIV) was immersed in its own Civil dispute the 'Fronde' from 1648-1653.

  The Netherlands was furiously Protestant.

  Germany was the place of origin of Lutheran ideals.
• From 1654 onwards, Charles II relocated his court to the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) after the Anglo-Spanish war erupted and continued until 1660.
• Charles II did not have traditional views on sex outside of marriage and gained a reputation of seditiously courting women of the French court.
• Charles' first illegitimate child was born April 1649 in Rotterdam (Dutch Republic) to mother Lucy Walter who was part of a prominent Welsh gentry family that had also fled the English Civil War.
• In 1659, George Monk called for the dissolution of Parliament and fresh elections for the first time since 1640 which formed the Convention Parliament.
• General George Monk, the Duke of Albemarle and Governor of Scotland marched his army to London in 1660 and arranged for Charles II's return.
• George Monk was a royalist general during the Civil War and arrested in January 1644 at the Battle of Nantwich where he spent his 2 years in prison writing 'Observations on Military and Political Affairs'.
• Cromwell made George Monk the commander-in-chief in Scotland from 1655-1660.
• In the Convention Parliament (1659), Monk gathered a Junto of British nobles, gentry and moneyed classes who believed Charles should return.
• The Declaration of Breda (4/4/60) was drawn up by the King in waiting, Edward Hyde, the 1st Earl of Clarendon and James Butler, the 1st Duke of Ormonde.
• In 1661 Parliament ordered that Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton's bodies were to be exhumed, hung, cut down, beheaded at Tyburn then left on 20ft poles and displayed on the roof of Westminster Hall (the location of the trial of Charles I).
• Cromwell's head remained displayed on the roof of Westminster Hall until at least 1684 and was not recalled until 1710.