1660 1685 DEATH OF CHARLES 11. 627 who had recently been created Earl of Rochester. Rochester, who was the highest of Tories, pointed out that the law prescribed no means by which the king could be compelled to call a Parliament if he did not wish to do so, and that, after all, the Cavalier Parliament, loyal as it was at first, had made itself very disagreeable to the king during the latter years of its existence. All through the year Charles hesitated and left the question undecided. The king of France, who was renewing his aggressions on the Continent under the guise of legal claims, was ready to do all he could to prevent the meeting of an English Parliament, which would, in all probability, declare against him, and by sending money to Charles from time to time, he saved him from the necessity of asking his subjects for support. 13. Death of Charles II. 1685.-On February 2, 1685, before anything had been decided, Charles was struck down by an apoplectic stroke. It was soon known that he was dying. Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke plainly to him: "It is time," he said, "to speak out; for, sir, you are about to appear before a Judge who is no respecter of persons." The king took no notice, and, after a while, the Duke of York came to his bed-side and asked his brother whether he wished to be reconciled to the Church of Rome. "Yes," murmured the dying man, "with all my heart!' James sent for a priest, directing the bishops and the courtiers to leave the room. Charles was duly reconciled, receiving absolution and the sacraments of the Roman Church. He lingered for some days, and begged pardon of those around him. He had been, he said, an unconscionable time in dying, but he hoped they would excuse it. On February 6 he died. 14. Constitutional Progress. 1660-1685.-The twenty-five years of the reign of Charles II. were years of substantial constitutional progress. Charles did not, indeed, acknowledge that Parliament had that right of directing the choice of his ministers which the Long Parliament had upheld against his father in the Grand Remonstrance; but though he took care that his ministers should be responsible to himself and not to Parliament, he had also taken care, on the whole, to adapt the selection of his ministers to the changing temper of Parliament and the nation. Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby had all been allowed to disappear from office when Parliament turned against them. The formation of Parliamentary parties, again, was itself a condition of Parliamentary strength. The Cavalier Parliament had been weakened in its later years by the uncertainty of its aims. At one time the king's reliance upon France and his tendency to rest his government on armed force provoked a majority to vote against him. At another time some concession made by him to their wishes brought Dress of ladies of quality: from Sandford's Coronation Procession of James II. strengthened the power of Parliament. The intemperance of Charles's adversaries had indeed given him the upper hand for the time, but, if ever the day came when a king made himself unpopular, a Parliament opposed to him would be all the stronger if its majority were of one mind in supporting definite principles under definite leaders. Charles II., in short, did not live to see the establishment of Parliamen round a majority to his side. In the latter years of Charles's reign this uncertainty was at an end. Charles had thrown his dependence on France and the army into the background, and in a struggle, the successful issue of which would bring no personal advantage to himself, had taken his stand on the intelligible principle of defending his brother's succession. He had consequently rallied round the throne all who thought the maintenance of order to be of supreme importance, whilst all who suspected that the order which Charles maintained was hurtful and oppressive combined against him. This sharp division of parties ultimately Ordinary attire of women of the lower classes: from tary government, but he unwittingly prepared the way for it. 15. Prosperity of the Country.-The horror of a renewal of civil war, which was partly the result of sad experience, was also 1681-1685 THE CITY OF LONDON 629 the result of the growth of the general well-being of the community. The population of England now exceeded 5,000,000. Rents were rising, and commerce was rapidly on the increase. Fresh colonies-amongst them Pennsylvania and Carolina-were founded in America. In England itself the growth of London was an index to the general prosperity. In those days the City was the home of the merchants, who did not then leave the place where their Coach of the latter half of the seventeenth century: from Loggan's business was done to spend the evening and night in the suburbs. Living side by side, they clung to one another, and their civic ardour created a strength which weighed heavily in the balance of parties. The opposition of the City to Charles I. had given the victory to Parliament in the civil war, and its dislike of military government had done much to bring about the Restoration. The favour of the City had been the chief support of Shaftesbury, and it was only by Wagon of the second half of the seventeenth century: from Loggan's Oxonia Illustrata. overthrowing its municipal institutions that Charles II. had succeeded in crippling its power to injure him. In the meantime a new forest of houses was springing up on sites between Lincoln's Inn and what is now known as Soho Square, and round St. James's Church. The Court and the frequent meetings of Parliament attracted to London many families which, a generation earlier, would have lived entirely in the country. 16. The Coffee Houses.-Nothing has made a greater change in the material habits of Europeans than the introduction of warm beverages. Chocolate first made its way into England in the time of the Commonwealth, but it was for some time regarded merely as a medicine, not to be taken by the prudent except under a physician's orders, though those interested in its sale declared that it was suitable for all, and would cure every possible complaint. Chocolate was soon followed by coffee, and coffee soon became fashionable, not as a medicine, but as a pleasant substitute for beer and wine. The introduction of tea was somewhat later. Reaping and harvesting in the second half of the seventeenth century; Cambridge in the distance from Loggan's Cantabrigia Illustrata. It was in the reign of Charles II. that coffee-houses arose in London, and became places of resort, answering the purposes of the modern clubs. They soon acquired political importance, matters of state being often discussed in them, and the opinion of their frequenters carrying weight with those who were directly concerned with Government. The gathering of men of intellectual prominence to London was a marked feature of the time, and, except at the universities, there was scarcely a preacher or a theological writer of note who was not to be found either in the episcopate or at the head of a London parish. 1681-1685 PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY 631 17. Condition of London. The arrangements for cleanliness did not keep pace in London with the increased magnificence of the dwellings. The centre of Lincoln's Inn Fields, for instance, was a place where rubbish was shot, and where beggars congregated. St. James's Square was just as bad, whilst filthy and discoloured streams poured along the gutters, and carts and carriages splashed mud and worse than mud over the passengers on foot. At the beginning of the reign of Charles II. the streets were left in darkness, and robbers made an easy prey of those who ventured out after dark. Young noblemen and gentlemen when drunk took pleasure in knocking down men and insulting women. These were they of whom Milton was thinking when he declared that In luxurious cities, when the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, Something was, however, done before the end of the reign to mitigate the dangers arising from darkness. One man obtained a patent for lighting London, and it was thought a great thing that he placed a lantern in front of one door in every ten in winter only, between six and midnight. 18. Painting. The art of the time, so far as painting was concerned, was entirely in the hands of foreigners. Van Dyck, a Fleming, from Antwerp, had left to the world numerous representations of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, of Strafford and Laud, and of the ladies and gentlemen who thronged the Court. An Englishman, Samuel Cooper, made posterity acquainted with the features of Cromwell (see p. 567). Charles II. again called in the services of a foreigner, whose real name was Van der Goes, but who called himself Lely, because his father's house on the borders of Germany and the Netherlands was known by the sign of the Lily. Lely painted Court beauties and Court gentlemen. He had far less power than Van Dyck of presenting on canvas the mind which lies behind the features, and in many cases those who sat to him had minds less worthy of being presented than those with which Van Dyck had to do. When Charles II. wished for a painting of the sea and of shipping he had to send for a Dutch painter, Vandevelde; whilst an Italian, Verrio, decorated his ceilings with subjects taken from heathen mythology. 19. Architecture. In architecture alone English hands were |