A patron of the arts and sciences, Charles became known for his affability and friendliness, and for allowing his subjects easy access to his person. But he also showed an almost impenetrable reserve, especially concerning his political agendas. His court gained a reputation for moral laxity.[1] Charles's marriage toCatherine of Braganza produced no surviving children, but the king acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James.
In August 1642, the long-running dispute between Charles I andParliament culminated in the outbreak of theFirst English Civil War. In October, Prince Charles and his younger brotherJames were present at theBattle of Edgehill and spent the next two years based in theRoyalist capital ofOxford. In January 1645, Charles was given his own Council and made titular head of Royalist forces in theWest Country.[4] By spring 1646, most of the region had been occupied byParliamentarian forces and Charles went into exile to avoid capture. FromFalmouth, he went first to theIsles of Scilly, then toJersey, and finally to France, where his mother was already living under the protection of his first cousin, the eight-year-oldLouis XIV.[5] Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646.
During theSecond English Civil War in 1648, Charles moved toThe Hague, where his sisterMary and his brother-in-lawWilliam II, Prince of Orange, seemed more likely to provide substantial aid to the Royalist cause than his mother's French relations.[6] Although part of the Parliamentarian fleet defected, it did not reach Scotland in time to join up with the RoyalistEngager army led by theDuke of Hamilton before it was defeated atPreston by theNew Model Army.[7]
When negotiations with the Scots stalled, Charles authorisedLord Montrose to land in theOrkney Islands with a small army to threaten the Scots with invasion, in the hope of forcing an agreement more to his liking. Montrose feared that Charles would accept a compromise, and so chose to invade mainland Scotland anyway. He was captured and executed. Charles reluctantly promised that he would abide by the terms of atreaty agreed between him and the Scots Parliament atBreda, and support theSolemn League and Covenant, which authorisedPresbyterian church governance across Britain. Upon his arrival in Scotland on 23 June 1650, he formally agreed to the Covenant; his abandonment ofEpiscopal church governance, although winning him support in Scotland, left him unpopular in England. Charles himself soon came to despise the "villainy" and "hypocrisy" of the Covenanters.[10] Charles was provided with a Scottish court, and the record of hisfood and household expenses atFalkland Palace andPerth survives.[11]
Cast gold coronation medal of Charles II, dated 1651
Charles's alliance with the Scots led to theAnglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652. On 3 September 1650, the Covenanters were defeated atDunbar by a much smaller force commanded byOliver Cromwell. The Scots were divided between moderate Engagers and the more radicalKirk Party, who even fought each other. Disillusioned by these divisions, Charles rode north to join an Engager force in October, an event which became known as "the Start", but within two days members of the Kirk Party had recovered him.[12] Nevertheless, the Scots remained Charles's best hope of restoration, and he wascrowned King of Scotland atScone Abbey on 1 January 1651. With Cromwell's forces threatening Charles's position in Scotland, it was decided to mount an attack on England, but many of their most experienced soldiers had been excluded on religious grounds by the Kirk Party, whose leaders also refused to participate, among themLord Argyll. Opposition to what was primarily a Scottish army meant few English Royalists joined as it moved south, and the invasion ended in defeat at theBattle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.Charles managed to escape and landed inNormandy six weeks later on 16 October, even though there was a reward of £1,000 on his head, anyone caught helping him was at risk of being put to death, and he was difficult to disguise, being over 6 ft (1.8 m), which was unusually tall for the time.[13][d]
Under theInstrument of Government passed by Parliament, Cromwell was appointedLord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, effectively placing theBritish Isles under military rule. Charles lived a life of leisure atSaint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris,[15] living on a grant from Louis XIV of 600livres a month.[16] Charles could not obtain sufficient finance or support to mount a serious challenge to Cromwell's government. Despite theStuart family connections through Henrietta Maria and the Princess of Orange, France and theDutch Republic allied themselves with Cromwell's government from 1654, forcing Charles to leave France and turn to Spain for aid, which at that time ruled theSouthern Netherlands.[17]
Charles made theTreaty of Brussels with Spain in 1656. This gathered Spanish support for a restoration in return for Charles's contribution to the war against France. Charles raised a ragtag army from his exiled subjects; this small, underpaid, poorly-equipped and ill-disciplined force formed the nucleus of the post-Restoration army.[18] The Commonwealth made theTreaty of Paris with France in 1657 to join them in war against Spain in the Netherlands. Royalist supporters in the Spanish force were led by Charles's younger brotherJames, Duke of York.[19] At theBattle of the Dunes in 1658, as part of the larger Spanish force, Charles's army of around 2,000 clashed with Commonwealth troops fighting with the French. By the end of the battle Charles's force was about 1,000 and with Dunkirk given to the English the prospect of a Royalist expedition to England was dashed.[20]
After Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658, Charles's initial chances of regaining the Crown seemed slim; Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his sonRichard. But the new Lord Protector had little experience of either military or civil administration. In 1659, theRump Parliament was recalled and Richard Cromwell resigned. During the civil and military unrest that followed,George Monck, the Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy.[21] Monck and his army marched into theCity of London, and forced the Rump Parliament to readmit members of theLong Parliament who had been excluded in December 1648, duringPride's Purge. Parliament dissolved itself, and there was a general election for the first time in almost 20 years.[22] The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority.[23]
Ball given to Charles atThe Hague on his departure to England
The restrictions against royalist candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in aHouse of Commons that was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and Parliamentarians and on religious grounds betweenAnglicans and Presbyterians.[23] The so-calledConvention Parliament assembled on 25 April 1660, and soon afterwards welcomed theDeclaration of Breda, in which Charles promised lenience and tolerance. There would be liberty of conscience, and Anglican church policy would not be harsh. He would not exile past enemies nor confiscate their wealth. There would be pardons for nearly all his opponents except theregicides. Above all, Charles promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament.[24] The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles atBreda on 8 May 1660.[25] In Ireland, aconvention had been called earlier in the year and had already declared for Charles. On 14 May, he was proclaimed king in Dublin.[26]
Charles sailed from his exile in the Netherlands to his restoration in England in May 1660. Painting byLieve Verschuier.
The English Parliament granted Charles an annual income to run the government of £1.2 million,[30] generated largely from customs and excise duties. The grant, however, proved to be insufficient for most of Charles's reign. For the most part, the actual revenue was much lower, which led to attempts to economise at court by reducing the size and expenses of theroyal household[30] and raising money through unpopular innovations such as thehearth tax.[26]
In the latter half of 1660, Charles's joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his siblingsHenry and Mary ofsmallpox. At around the same time,Anne Hyde, the daughter of Lord ChancellorEdward Hyde, revealed that she was pregnant by Charles's brother James, whom she had secretly married. Edward Hyde, who had not known of either the marriage or the pregnancy, was createdEarl of Clarendon and his position as Charles's favourite minister was strengthened.[31]
The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660, and, shortly after Charles'sEnglish coronation, the second English Parliament of the reign assembled. Dubbed theCavalier Parliament, it was overwhelmingly Royalist and Anglican. It sought to discouragenon-conformity to theChurch of England and passed several acts to secure Anglican dominance. TheCorporation Act 1661 required municipal officeholders to swear allegiance;[33] theAct of Uniformity 1662 made the use of the1662Book of Common Prayer compulsory; theConventicle Act 1664 prohibited religious assemblies of more than five people, except under the auspices of the Church of England; and theFive Mile Act 1665 prohibited expelled non-conforming clergymen from coming within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been banished. The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts remained in effect for the remainder of Charles's reign. The Acts became known as theClarendon Code, after Lord Clarendon, even though he was not directly responsible for them and even spoke against the Five Mile Act.[34]
The Restoration was accompanied by social change.Puritanism lost its momentum. Theatres reopened after having been closed during theprotectorship of Oliver Cromwell, and bawdy "Restoration comedy" became a recognisable genre. Theatre licences granted by Charles required that female parts be played by "their natural performers", rather than by boys as was often the practice before;[35] andRestoration literature celebrated or reacted to the restored court, which includedlibertines such asLord Rochester. Of Charles II, Rochester supposedly said:
We have a pretty, witty king, Whose word no man relies on, He never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one[36]
To which Charles is reputed to have replied "that the matter was easily accounted for: For that his discourse was his own, his actions were the ministry's".[37]
In 1665, theGreat Plague of London began, peaking in September with up to 7,000 deaths per week.[38] Charles, his family, and the court fled London in July toSalisbury; Parliament met inOxford.[39] Plague cases ebbed over the winter, and Charles returned to London in February 1666.[40]
After a long spell of hot and dry weather through mid-1666, theGreat Fire of London started on 2 September 1666 inPudding Lane. Fanned by strong winds and fed by wood and fuel stockpiled for winter, the fire destroyed about 13,200 houses and 87 churches, includingSt Paul's Cathedral.[41] Charles and his brother James joined and directed the firefighting effort. The public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire.[42]
Since 1640, Portugal had been fighting awar against Spain to restore its independence after adynastic union of 60 years between the crowns of Spain and Portugal. Portugal had been helped by France, but in theTreaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 Portugal was abandoned by its French ally. Negotiations with Portugal for Charles's marriage toCatherine of Braganza began during his father's reign. Upon the restoration,Queen Luísa of Portugal, acting as regent, reopened negotiations with England that resulted in an alliance.[43] On 23 June 1661, a marriage treaty was signed; England acquired Catherine'sdowry of the port ofTangier in North Africa, theSeven Islands of Bombay in India (which had a major influence on the development of theBritish Empire), valuable trading privileges in Brazil and theEast Indies, religious and commercial freedom in Portugal, and two million Portuguese crowns (equivalent to £300,000 then[e]). Portugal obtained military and naval support against Spain and liberty of worship for Catherine.[45] Catherine journeyed from Portugal toPortsmouth on 13–14 May 1662,[45] but was not visited by Charles there until 20 May. The next day the couple were married at Portsmouth in two ceremonies—a Catholic one conducted in secret, followed by a public Anglican service.[45]
The same year, in an unpopular move, Charlessold Dunkirk to King Louis XIV of France for about £375,000.[46] The channel port, although a valuable strategic outpost, was a drain on Charles's limited finances, as it cost the Treasury £321,000 per year.[47]
Before Charles's restoration, theNavigation Acts of 1650 had hurtDutch trade by giving English vessels a monopoly, and had started theFirst Dutch War (1652–1654). To lay foundations for a new beginning, envoys of theStates General appeared in November 1660 with theDutch Gift.[48] TheSecond Dutch War (1665–1667) was started by English attempts to muscle in on Dutch possessions in Africa and North America. The conflict began well for the English, with the capture ofNew Amsterdam (renamed New York in honour of Charles's brother James, Duke of York) and a victory at theBattle of Lowestoft, but in 1667 the Dutch launched a surprise attack on England (theRaid on the Medway) when they sailed up theRiver Thames to where a major part of the English fleet was docked. Almost all of the ships were sunk except for the flagship,Royal Charles, which was taken back to the Netherlands as aprize.[f] The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of theTreaty of Breda.
As a result of the Second Dutch War, Charles dismissed Lord Clarendon, whom he used as a scapegoat for the war.[49] Clarendon fled to France when impeached forhigh treason (which carried the penalty of death). Power passed to five politicians known collectively by a whimsicalacronym as theCabal—theBaronClifford,Earl ofArlington,Duke ofBuckingham,BaronAshley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) andDuke ofLauderdale. In fact, the Cabal rarely acted in concert, and the court was often divided between two factions led by Arlington and Buckingham, with Arlington the more successful.[50]
In 1668, England allied itself with Sweden and with its former enemy the Netherlands to oppose Louis XIV in theWar of Devolution. Louis made peace with theTriple Alliance, but he continued to maintain his aggressive intentions towards the Netherlands. In 1670, Charles, seeking to solve his financial troubles, agreed to theTreaty of Dover, under which Louis would pay him £160,000 each year. In exchange, Charles agreed to supply Louis with troops and to announce his conversion to Catholicism "as soon as the welfare of his kingdom will permit".[51] Louis was to provide him with 6,000 troops to suppress those who opposed the conversion. Charles endeavoured to ensure that the Treaty—especially the conversion clause—remained secret.[52] It remains unclear whether Charles ever seriously intended to convert.[53]
Meanwhile, by a series of five charters, Charles granted theEast India Company the rights to autonomous government of its territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command fortresses and troops, to form alliances, to make war and peace, and to exercise both civil andcriminal jurisdiction over its possessions in the Indies.[54] Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands ofBombay to the company for a nominal sum of £10 paid in gold.[55] The Portuguese territories that Catherine brought with her as a dowry proved too expensive to maintain;Tangier was abandoned in 1684.[56] In 1670, Charles granted control of the entireHudson Bay drainage basin to theHudson's Bay Company by royal charter, and named the territoryRupert's Land, after his cousinPrince Rupert of the Rhine, the company's first governor.[57]
Although previously favourable to the Crown, the Cavalier Parliament was alienated by the king's wars and religious policies during the 1670s. In 1672, Charles issued theRoyal Declaration of Indulgence, in which he purported to suspend allpenal laws against Catholics and other religious dissenters. In the same year, he openly supported Catholic France and started theThird Anglo-Dutch War.[58]
The Cavalier Parliament opposed the Declaration of Indulgence on constitutional grounds by claiming that the king had no right to arbitrarily suspend laws passed by Parliament. Charles withdrew the Declaration, and also agreed to theTest Act, which not only required public officials to receive thesacrament under the forms prescribed by the Church of England,[59] but also later forced them to denouncetransubstantiation and the Catholic Mass as "superstitious and idolatrous".[60] Clifford, who had converted to Catholicism, resigned rather than take the oath, and died shortly after, possibly from suicide. By 1674, England had gained nothing from the Anglo-Dutch War, and the Cavalier Parliament refused to provide further funds, forcing Charles to make peace. The power of the Cabal waned, and that of Clifford's replacementLord Danby grew.
Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir; her four pregnancies had ended inmiscarriages andstillbirths in 1662, February 1666, May 1668, and June 1669.[2] Charles'sheir presumptive was therefore his unpopular Catholic brother, James, Duke of York. Partly to assuage public fears that the royal family was too Catholic, Charles agreed that James's daughterMary should marry the ProtestantWilliam of Orange.[61] In 1678,Titus Oates, who had been alternately an Anglican andJesuit priest, falsely warned of a "Popish Plot" to assassinate the king, even accusing the queen of complicity. Charles did not believe the allegations, but ordered his chief minister Lord Danby to investigate. While Danby seems to have been rightly sceptical of Oates's claims, the Cavalier Parliament took them seriously.[62] The people were seized with an anti-Catholic hysteria;[63] judges and juries across the land condemned the supposed conspirators; numerous innocent individuals were executed.[64]
Later in 1678, the House of Commons impeached Danby forhigh treason. Although much of the nation had sought war with Catholic France, Charles had secretly negotiated with Louis XIV, trying to reach an agreement under which England would remain neutral in return for money. Danby had publicly professed that he was hostile to France, but had reservedly agreed to abide by Charles's wishes. The House of Commons did not view him as a reluctant participant in the scandal, instead believing that he was the author of the policy. To save Danby from the impeachment trial, Charles dissolved the Cavalier Parliament in January 1679.[65]
The new English Parliament, which met in March of the same year, was quite hostile to Charles. Many members feared that he had intended to use the standing army to suppress dissent or impose Catholicism. However, with insufficient funds voted by Parliament, Charles was forced to gradually disband his troops. Having lost the support of Parliament, Danby resigned his post ofLord High Treasurer, but received a pardon from the king. In defiance of the royal will, the House of Commons declared that the dissolution of Parliament did not interrupt impeachment proceedings, and that the pardon was therefore invalid. When theHouse of Lords attempted to impose the punishment of exile—which the Commons thought too mild—the impeachment became stalled between the two Houses. As he had been required to do so many times during his reign, Charles bowed to his opponents' wishes, committing Danby to theTower of London, in which he was held for another five years.[66]
In Charles's early childhood,William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, was governor of the royal household and Brian Duppa, theDean of Christ Church, Oxford, was his tutor.[67] Neither man thought that the study of science subjects was appropriate for a future king,[68] and Newcastle even advised against studying any subject too seriously.[69] However, as Charles grew older, the surgeonWilliam Harvey was appointed his tutor.[67][70] He was famous for his work on blood circulation in the human body and already held the position of physician to Charles I; his studies were to influence Charles's own attitude to science. As the king's chief physician, Harvey accompanied Charles I to theBattle of Edgehill and, although some details are uncertain,[71][72] he had charge of Prince Charles and the Duke of York in the morning,[73] but the two boys were back with the king for the start of battle.[74][75] Later in the afternoon, with their father concerned for their safety, the two princes left the battlefield accompanied by Sir W. Howard and his pensioners.[76]
During his exile, in France, Charles continued his education, including physics, chemistry and mathematics.[77] His tutors included the clericJohn Earle, well known for his satirical bookMicrocosmographie, with whom he studied Latin and Greek, andThomas Hobbes, the philosopher and author ofLeviathan, with whom he studied mathematics.[78] In France, Charles assisted his childhood friend, theEarl of Buckingham, with his experiments inchemistry andalchemy,[79] with the Earl convinced he was close to producing thephilosopher's stone. Although some of Charles's studies, while abroad, may have helped to pass the time,[80] on his return to England he was already knowledgeable in the mathematics of navigation and was a competent chemist.[81] Such was his knowledge of naval architecture that he was able to participate in technical discussions on the subject withSamuel Pepys,William Petty andJohn Evelyn.[82]
The new concepts and discoveries being found at this time fascinated Charles,[83] not only in science and medicine, but in topics such as botany and gardening.[70][84] A French traveller, Sorbier, while visiting the English court, was astonished by the extent of the king's knowledge.[85] The king freely indulged in his many interests, including astronomy, which had been stimulated by a visit toGresham College, in October 1660, to see the telescopes made by the astronomerSir Paul Neile.[86] Charles was so impressed by what he saw that he ordered his own 36' telescope, which he had installed in the Privy Garden atWhitehall.[87] He would invite his friends and acquaintances to view the heavens through his new telescope and, in May 1661, Evelyn describes his visit to the Garden, with several other scientists, to viewSaturn's rings.[88] Charles also had a laboratory installed in Whitehall, within easy access to his bedroom.[89][87][90]
From the beginning of his reign, Charles appointed experts to assist him in his scientific pursuits. These included:Timothy Clarke, a celebrated anatomist, who performed some dissections for the king;[91]Robert Morison as his chief botanist (Charles had his own botanical garden);[84]Edmund Dickinson, a chemist and alchemist, who was tasked with carrying out experiments in the king's laboratory;[92][93]Sir Thomas Williams, who was skillful in compounding and inventing medicines, some of which were prepared in the royal presence;[94] andNicasius le Febure (or Nicolas LeFevre), who was invited to England as royal professor of chemistry and apothecary to the king's household.[95] Evelyn visited his laboratory with the king.[96]
In addition to his many other interests, the king was fascinated by clock mechanisms[70] and had clocks distributed all around Whitehall, including seven of them in his bedroom.[97]Robert Bruce (later Earl of Ailesbury), a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, complained that the continual noise of the clocks chiming disturbed his sleep, whenever it was necessary for him to stay close by to the king.[98] Also, Charles had a sundial installed in the Privy Garden,[99] by which he could set his personalpocket watch.[100] (For a while, the king personally recorded the performance of the latest spring-balance watch, presented to him byRobert Hooke.[101])
In 1662, Charles was pleased to grant a royal charter to a group of scientists and others who had established a formal society in 1660 to give a more academic and learned approach to science and to conduct experiments in physics and mathematics.[90][102]Sir Robert Moray, a member of Charles's court, played an important part in achieving this outcome, and he was to be the first president of this newRoyal Society. Over the years, Moray was an important go-between for Charles and the Society,[103] and his standing with the king was so high that he was given access to the royal laboratory to perform his own experiments there.[104]
Charles never attended a Society meeting,[105] but he remained aware of the activities there from his discussions with Society members, especially Moray.[99] In addition,Robert Boyle gave him a private viewing of the Boyle/Hookeair-pump,[106][107] which was used at many of the Wednesday meetings. However, Charles preferred experiments that had an immediate practical outcome[100] and he laughed at the efforts of the Society members "to weigh air".[108] He seemed unable to grasp the significance of the basic laws of physics being established at that time, includingBoyle's law andHooke's law and the concept of atmospheric pressure[106] and thebarometer[109] and the importance of air for the support of life.[107]
Although Charles lost interest in the activities of the society, he continued to support scientific and commercial endeavours. He founded the Mathematical School atChrist's Hospital in 1673 and, two years later, following concerns over French advances in astronomy, he founded theRoyal Observatory at Greenwich.[110] He maintained an interest in chemistry and regularly visited his private laboratory.[87][90] There, dissections observed by the king were occasionally carried out.[97] Pepys noted in his diary that on the morning of Friday, 15 January 1669, while he was walking to Whitehall, he met the king, who invited him to view his chemistry laboratory. Pepys confessed to finding what he saw there beyond him.[111]
Charles developed painful gout in later life which limited the daily walks that he took regularly when younger. His keenness was now channelled to his laboratory where he would devote himself to his experiments for hours at a time,[112][113] sometimes helped by Moray.[114] Charles was particularly interested in alchemy, which he had first encountered many years earlier during his exile with the Duke of Buckingham. Charles resumed his experiments with mercury and would spend whole mornings attempting to distill it. Heating mercury in an open crucible releases mercury vapour, which is toxic and may have contributed to his later ill health.[115][116]
Charles faced a political storm over his brother James, a Catholic, being next in line to the throne. The prospect of a Catholic monarch was vehemently opposed by the1st Earl of Shaftesbury (a former member of the Cabal, which had fallen apart in 1673). Lord Shaftesbury's power base was strengthened when the House of Commons of 1679 introduced theExclusion Bill, which sought to exclude the Duke of York from theline of succession. Some even sought to confer the Crown on the ProtestantDuke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles's illegitimate children. TheAbhorrers—those who thought the Exclusion Bill was abhorrent—were namedTories (after a term for dispossessed Irish Catholic bandits), while thePetitioners—those who supported a petitioning campaign in favour of the Exclusion Bill—were calledWhigs (after a term for rebellious Scottish Presbyterians).[117]
Fearing that the Exclusion Bill would be passed, and bolstered by some acquittals in the continuing Plot trials, which seemed to him to indicate a more favourable public mood towards Catholicism, Charles dissolved the English Parliament, for a second time that year, in mid-1679. Charles's hopes for a more moderate Parliament were not fulfilled; within a few months he had dissolved Parliament yet again, after it sought to pass the Exclusion Bill. When a new Parliament assembled at Oxford in March 1681, Charles dissolved it for a fourth time after just a few days.[118] During the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill ebbed, and Charles experienced a nationwide surge of loyalty. Lord Shaftesbury was prosecuted (albeit unsuccessfully) for treason in 1681 and later fled to Holland, where he died. For the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled without Parliament.[119]
Charles's opposition to the Exclusion Bill angered some Protestants. Protestant conspirators formulated theRye House Plot, a plan to murder him and the Duke of York as they returned to London after horse races inNewmarket. A great fire, however, destroyed Charles's lodgings at Newmarket, which forced him to leave the races early, thus inadvertently avoiding the planned attack. News of the failed plot was leaked.[120] Protestant politicians such as theEarl of Essex,Algernon Sydney,Lord Russell and the Duke of Monmouth were implicated in the plot. Essex slit his own throat while imprisoned in the Tower of London; Sydney and Russell were executed for high treason on very flimsy evidence; and the Duke of Monmouth went into exile at the court of William of Orange. Lord Danby and the surviving Catholic lords held in the Tower were released and the king's Catholic brother, James, acquired greater influence at court.[121] Titus Oates was convicted and imprisoned for defamation.[122]
Thus through the last years of Charles's reign, his approach towards his opponents changed, and he was compared by Whigs to the contemporary Louis XIV of France, with his form of government in those years termed "slavery". Many of them were prosecuted and their estates seized, with Charles replacing judges and sheriffs at will and packing juries to achieve conviction. To destroy opposition in London, Charles first disenfranchised many Whigs in the 1682 municipal elections, and in 1683 theLondon charter was forfeited. In retrospect, the use of the judicial system by Charles (and later his brother and heir James) as a tool against opposition helped establish the idea ofseparation of powers between the judiciary and the Crown in Whig thought.[123]
Charles suffered a suddenapoplectic fit on the morning of 2 February 1685, and died four days later at thePalace of Whitehall, at 11:45 am, aged 54.[124] The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors, but a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those ofuraemia, a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction.[125] Charles had a laboratory among his many interests where, prior to his illness, he had been experimenting withmercury. Mercuric poisoning can produce irreversible kidney damage, but the case for that being a cause of his death is unproven.[126] In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments, includingbloodletting,purging andcupping, in the hope of effecting a recovery,[127] which may have exacerbated his uraemia through dehydration, rather than helping to alleviate it.[128]
On his deathbed, Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: "be well toPortsmouth, and let not poorNelly starve".[129] He told his courtiers, "I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying",[130] and expressed regret at his treatment of his wife. On the last evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church, in the presence of FatherJohn Huddleston, though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea originated, is unclear.[131] He was buried inWestminster Abbey "without any manner of pomp"[130] on 14 February.[132]
Charles was succeeded by his brother James II and VII.[133]
The escapades of Charles after his defeat at theBattle of Worcester remained important to him throughout his life. He delighted and bored listeners with tales of his escape for many years. Numerous accounts of his adventures were published, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Restoration. Though not averse to his escape being ascribed to divine providence, Charles himself seems to have delighted most in his ability to sustain his disguise as a man of ordinary origins, and to move unrecognised through his realm. Ironic and cynical, Charles took pleasure in stories that demonstrated the undetectable nature of any inherent majesty he possessed.[134]
Charles's eldest son, theDuke of Monmouth, led a rebellion against James II, but was defeated at theBattle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685, captured and executed. James was eventually dethroned in 1688, in the course of theGlorious Revolution.
In the words of his contemporaryJohn Evelyn, "a prince of many virtues and many great imperfections, debonair, easy of access, not bloody or cruel".[139]John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, wrote more lewdly of Charles:
Restless he rolls from whore to whore A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.[140]
Looking back on Charles's reign, Tories tended to view it as a time of benevolent monarchy whereas Whigs perceived it as a terribledespotism. ProfessorRonald Hutton summarises a polarised historiography:
For the past hundred years, books on Charles II have been sharply divided into two categories. Academic historians have concentrated mainly on his activities as a statesman and emphasised his duplicity, self-indulgence, poor judgement and lack of an aptitude for business or for stable and trustworthy government. Non-academic authors have concentrated mainly on his social and cultural world, emphasising his charm, affability, worldliness, tolerance, turning him into one of the most popular of all English monarchs in novels, plays and films.[141]
Hutton says Charles was a popular king in his own day and a "legendary figure" in British history.
Other kings had inspired more respect, but perhaps only Henry VIII had endeared himself to the popular imagination as much as this one. He was the playboy monarch, naughty but nice, the hero of all who prized urbanity, tolerance, good humour, and the pursuit of pleasure above the more earnest, sober, or material virtues.[142]
James Crofts, later Scott (1649–1685), createdDuke of Monmouth (1663) in England andDuke of Buccleuch (1663) in Scotland. Monmouth was born nine months after Walter and Charles II first met, and was acknowledged as his son by Charles II, but James II suggested that he was the son of another of her lovers, Colonel Robert Sidney, rather than Charles. Lucy Walter had a daughter, Mary Crofts, born after James in 1651, but Charles II was not the father, since he and Walter parted in September 1649.[2]
Letters claiming that Marguerite or Margaret de Carteret bore Charles a son namedJames de la Cloche in 1646 are dismissed by historians as forgeries.[157]
^The traditional date of the Restoration marking the first assembly of King and Parliament together since the abolition of the English monarchy in 1649. The English Parliament recognised Charles as king by unanimous vote on 2 May 1660, and he was proclaimed king in London on 8 May, although royalists had recognised him as such since the execution of his father on 30 January 1649. During Charles's reign all legal documents stating aregnal year did so as if his reign began at his father's death.
^For doubts over his intention to convert before 1685 see, for example,Seaward 2004; for doubts over his intention to convert on his deathbed see, for example,Hutton 1989, pp. 443, 456.
^Marshall J. (2013). Whig Thought and the Revolution of 1688–91. In: Harris, T., & Taylor, S. (Eds.). (2015).The final crisis of the Stuart monarchy: the revolutions of 1688–91 in their British, Atlantic and European contexts (Vol. 16), Chapter 3. Boydell & Brewer.
Cokayne, George E. (1926). "Appendix F. Bastards of Charles II".The Complete Peerage. Vol. VI. Revised and enlarged by Gibbs, Vicary; Edited by Doubleday, H. A., Warrand, D., and de Walden, Lord Howard. London: St Catherine Press.
Doble, C. E., ed. (1885).Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press for the Oxford Historical Society.
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