Chapter XXXVII CHARLES II AND CLARENDON. 1660-1667 LEADING DATES REIGN OF CHARLES II., A.D. 1660-1685-CHARLES II. LANDS AT Dover, N May 25, 1660, Charles II. landed at Dover, amid shouting crowds. On his thirtieth birthday, May 29, he entered London, amid greater and equally enthusiastic crowds. At Blackheath was drawn up the army which had once been commanded by Cromwell. More than anything else, the popular abhorrence of military rule had brought Charles home, while the army itself, divided in opinion, and falling under the control of Monk, was powerless to keep him away. When the king reached Whitehall he confirmed Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and other statutes by which the royal power had at various times been limited. Something more than Acts of Parliament was needed to limit the power of the king. It had been found useless to bind Charles I. by Acts of Parliament, because he tried again and again to introduce foreign armies into England to set Parliament at naught. Charles II. was, indeed, a man of far greater ability than his father, and was quite as ready as his father to use foreign help to get his way at home. In the first year after his return he tried to get money both from the Dutch and from the Spaniards in order to make himself independent of Parliament, but his character was very different from his father's, in so far as he always knew-what Charles I. never knew-how much he could do with impunity. Having none of his father's sense of duty, he was always inclined to give way whenever he found it unpleasant to resist. He is reported to have said that he was determined that, whatever else 1660 happened, he would not go on his travels again, and he was perfectly aware that if a single foreign regiment were brought by him into England, he would soon find himself again a wanderer on the Continent. The people wished to be governed by the king, but also that the king should govern by the advice of Parliament. The restoration was a restoration of Parliament even more than a restoration of the king. The Privy Council of Charles II. was, at the advice of Monk, composed of Cavaliers and Presbyterians. It was, however, too numerous to direct the course of government, and Charles adopted his father's habit of consulting, on important matters, a few special ministers, who were usually known as the Junto. The supreme direction of affairs fell to Hyde, the Lord Chancellor. Charles was too indolent and too fond of pleasure to control the government himself, and was easily guided by Hyde, who was thoroughly loyal to him, and an excellent man of business. Hyde stood to the king's other advisers very much in the position of a modern Prime Minister, but he carefully avoided introducing the name. In religion and politics he was still what he had been in 1641, a warm supporter of episcopacy and the Prayer Book. In politics he was the same as the Convention Parliament, and this made his position stronger. The Cavaliers in it naturally accepted the legislation of the Long Parliament, up to August, 1641, when Charles I. left for Scotland, as their own party had concurred in it. The Presbyterians, on the other hand, who now represented the party which had formerly been led by Pym and Hampden, saw no reason to distrust Charles II. as they had distrusted his father, and were, therefore, ready to abandon the demand for further restrictions on the royal power, on which they had vehemently insisted in the latter part of 1641 and in the earlier part of 1642. In constitutional matters, therefore, Cavaliers and Presbyterians were fused into one, on the basis of taking up the relations between the Crown and Parliament as they stood in August, 1641. This view of the situation was favored by the lawyers, one of whom, Sir Orlando Bridgman, pointed out that, though the king was not responsible, his ministers were; and for the time everyone seemed to be satisfied with this way of keeping up the indispensable understanding between king and Parliament. What would happen if a king arose who, like Charles I., deliberately set himself against Parliament, no one cared to inquire. 1660 Of the four articles of the Declaration of Breda, three were concerned with politics, and these were adopted by Parliament, with such modifications as it pleased to make. The estates of the king and of the bishops and chapters were taken out of the hands of those who had acquired them. An Act of Indemnity was passed, in which, however, there were many exceptions, and, in the end, thirteen regicides, together with Vane, were executed, and the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw dug up and hanged. Many regicides and others were punished with imprisonment and loss of goods, while others, again, who escaped, remained exiles till their death. Money was raised in order that the army might be paid as had been promised, after which it was disbanded. Feudal dues and purveyance were abolished, and an excise voted to Charles in their place. The whole revenue of the Crown was fixed at 1,200,000l. On ecclesiastical matters the two parties were less harmonious. The Cavaliers wanted to restore episcopacy and the Prayer Book. The Presbyterians were ready to go back in religion, as in politics, to the ideas of August, 1641, and to establish a modified episcopacy, in which bishops would be surrounded with clerical councilors, whose advice they would be bound to take. To this scheme Charles gave his approval, and it is probable that if nothing else had been in question Parliament would have accepted it. Charles, however, had an object of his own. His life was dissolute, and, being without any religious convictions, he cherished, like some other dissolute men of that time, a secret attachment to the Church of Rome. In order to do that Church a good turn, he now asked for a toleration in which all religions should be included. The proposal to include Roman Catholics in the proposed toleration wrecked the chances of modified episcopacy. Cavaliers and Presbyterians were so much afraid of the Roman Catholics that when a bill for giving effect to the scheme for uniting episcopacy and presbyterianism was brought into Parliament, it was rejected through fear lest it should be a prelude to some other tolerationist measure favoring the Roman Catholics. On December 29, 1660, the Convention Parliament was dissolved. No one in the Convention Parliament had had any sympathy with the Independents, and still less with the more fanatical sects which had received toleration when the Independents were in power. The one thing which the people of England as a body specially de |