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The
CommonWealth and the Restoration Settlement
The death of Cromwell in September 1658 left the commonwealth
with no driving force or stability. The returned parliament had no impetus
to carry on and the intervention of General Monk, the commander of the Scottish
army, lead to the return of the royalist element to parliament. The re-elected
parliament began negotiations with Charles II for his return. On 29 April
1660 a vote to restore Charles was passed and by June he was back in England,
his sovereignty returned. However, this restoration was blighted by many problems.
The previous twenty years had seen massive changes in government and the power
of the church. England's Monarchy had moved from one of power and success
to complete impotence. The people of England had overpowered authority and
delighted in change. Even late in the Restoration, playwrights reflected through
allegory on the turbulent nature of the English nation during the Restoration.
For example Thomas Otway's Venice Preserved:
You are an Englishman; when treason's hatching
One might have thought you'd not have been behindhand.1
The vast majority of people wanted stability and peace, but a sense of uncertainty and the fear of instability still permeated everything in Restoration politics. Over the next forty years fear of rebellion and conspiracy would fuel public suspicion and the government's actions.
The
Dutch Wars 1665-7 and 1672-4
Argument for the second Anglo-Dutch war was the protection of
English trade in Europe and the East Indies. If such a war were lost it would
leave the Dutch with naval supremacy and would push England out of the East
Indies altogether. Yet in 1664 the Commons and Lords made the decision to
ask King Charles II to protect English trade. The war would add to the already
burdened government treasury and it was decided that the huge total of £2,500,000
was to be raised over three years to pay for the war. War was declared on
22 February 1665 and by June a decisive victory was won by the English at
Lowestoft, they had crippled the Dutch fleet and sent it home tail between
legs. Samuel Pepys commented that, 'a greater victory [was] never known in
the world.'2 They had won the battle
but not the war. This early victory lulled the English into a false sense
of security. At the end of 1665 England did not have the funds to continue
a prolonged war. To make matters worse the bubonic plague raged all the summer
and autumn of 1665. Alliances predating the Restoration meant that in January
1666 France and Denmark also declared war on England. 1 June 1666, the Four
Days Battle took place off the coast of England, both sides were heavily damaged
but the stronger Dutch force eventually overcame the English fleet. Thursday,
13 June 1667 the Dutch burnt the English fleet at Medway and captured the
flagship Royal Charles and the Unity. Appalling mismanagement of the naval
defences led to this Dutch victory, which was both costly and humiliating
for the English. 21 July 1667, King Charles signed the treaty of Breda and
peace was restored with France and the United Provinces. The treaty involved
the surrender of conquests and the war seemed to end in a draw. However, the
specifics of the treaty intensified competition between the two nations and
set the scene for the Third Anglo-Dutch war. Charles had also made a secret
treaty with Louis XIV in which Charles would agree to bring England under
the Roman Catholic umbrella and in return Louis would provide funding for
Charles' government. On 17 March 1672 the English government declared war
on the Dutch, a month prior to this an Anglo-French treaty of naval co-operation
turned the tables on the Dutch, which meant that this time they would face
both the English and the French. Another indecisive battle in May 1672 left
neither side victorious. In England Charles had introduced his Declaration
of Indulgence, which allowed nonconformists to worship privately. This
created great fear of Roman Catholic revival in England and was on the whole
very unpopular. Opposition to the war was also growing and Charles was struggling
to please both France and England. In 1673 Charles took a great step in bowing
to the wishes of Parliament and cancelling the Declaration of Indulgence,
this meant that James Duke of York was no longer able to serve in the Navy
as he was a Roman Catholic. Further battles led to no decisive victory and
by 11 February 1674 Charles agreed to end the war with the Dutch. The Dutch
and the French continued to fight it out and in this way England gained a
great deal through neutrality.
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Plague
1665-1666 |
Burying the dead. 5 Click on the picture to see a weekly mortality bill. Some of the deaths are quite unusual. |
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First above picture, the aftermath of the fire.9 |
At 2:00am on Sunday 2 September 1666 a bakery in Pudding Lane, London Bridge caught fire and so began the Great Fire of London. The fire burnt for four days and four nights and by Thursday had burnt itself out. At first the fire on the bridge was underestimated by all in London. The Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bludworth is quoted as saying 'A woman might piss it out.'7 Pepys himself thought little of the fire at first glance 'I thought it far enough off; and so went to bed again, and to sleep.'8 People soon became astounded by the ferocity of the fire and did little to check its rapid growth. Bludworth would not take the only action that could prevent further damage, the demolition of houses in the path of the flames, because, as he said 'Who will pay for the damage?' Londoners started to congest the streets trying to move all their belongings to a safe distance, instead of containing the fire they made the situation hundreds of times worse, anyone fighting the fire had great difficulty moving through crowded streets. Soon shouts of 'To arms, to arms!' added a new element of confusion to the disaster. Rumours had started to circulate that the fire was due to Papist revolt or that the Dutch had invaded. Xenophobia reached such heights that several suspected conspirators were badly beaten and armed militia were sent out to round up rioters. Fire fighters were eventually organised and set about demolishing houses to prevent the spread, but by this time the fire was too fierce and overtook their work, the sparks from the fire could travel hundreds of feet and kindle roof tops behind the fire fighters. Even King Charles and his brother James Duke of York helped fight the fire but all attempts to contain the now apocalyptic flames were futile. The fire finally died only when the wind changed direction and sent it burning back towards the smouldering ruins of the old City. All in all 436 acres of the City were engulfed, 13,200 houses had been lost and some 200,000 people made homeless. Of these refugees Dryden wrote the poem Annus Mirabilis. The most in fields like herded beasts lie down All the public administration buildings, the General Post Office, Newgate prison and most of the food markets had been consumed. Yet London recovered remarkably quickly and in less than ten years the city was rebuilt, with wider streets and safer buildings.
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This three-year period saw several separate factors come together to create a crisis for the Stuart sovereign. The existence of large a standing army, some drawn from Ireland, fuelled fears that the King might rule by force. Two men came forward with the story of a papist plot to assassinate the King and take over the country. The two men involved were Israel Tonge, a highly anti-papist former Oxford Don, and Titus Oates, once an Anglican clergyman, chaplain, and one time Roman Catholic convert. Oates had also spent time on the continent at a Jesuit seminary. By chance their elaborate story was backed by two pieces of crucial evidence. First, James' right hand man, Edward Coleman, was named as a conspirator in the plot; on investigation it was discovered that he had been corresponding with French papists about returning the Catholic Church to England. Edward was later tried and executed for treason in December. Secondly, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey , the original magistrate before whom Oates testified, was found mysteriously murdered. Parliament panicked and the government could not calm it; the King dissolved parliament. James' conversion to the Catholic faith had worried the country and all feared for the future of the Protestant Church of England. The Popish plot only heightened these worries and Charles sent James to Brussels. However, this did not stabilise the situation and the Commons tried to vote to exclude James from the throne. The point of exclusion was fought for over the next three years, but Charles would not bow down to parliament on this issue and when he died in 1685 James succeeded to the throne. |
 Pictured above is Titus Oates, surrounding him are the seven priests sent to their deaths by his testimony.13 |
Revolution:
William and Mary 1689
On 11 June 1685 the Duke of Monmouth, Charles' illegitimate son landed
in Dorset and soon raised an army of almost 4000 men. However, by July the
Duke's army was being swept away by a well organised and much larger government
army. Over several months the rebel army was slowly massacred or taken prisoner
and tried. Monmouth's support highlighted to James the instability of his
situation and the country's fear of popery. Over the next three years James
could not be dissuaded from following his plan and bringing Catholicism back
as England's official religion. Slowly Protestants were removed from parliament
and local government and replaced with papists, the Irish army was purged
and nearly all the officers were replaced with Catholics. These actions put
James' throne in jeopardy as resentment to papal infiltration was rising all
over England. In early 1688 William of Orange, James' son in law, was put
under considerable pressure to stop James' Roman Catholic conversion of England
and on the 5 November William landed with a small force of some 14,000 men.
William soon found huge support for his invasion as James' support disappeared
entirely and he was eventually forced to flee to France. William had only
intended to oversee free elections in England and was now in the unexpected
position of holding complete control. James refused to return and William
and Marry soon became the joint sovereigns of England in 1689. So ended the
troubled forty-year Stuart Restoration.
1 Restoration Plays,
ed. Robert G.Lawrence, Everyman J. M. Dent 1999, p.338.
2 Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel
Pepys, The Globe edition, Macmillian & Co Ltd 1905, p.317.
3 David Ogg, England in the Reign
of Charles II, Vol. I, Oxford at the Clarendon Press 1934, p.291.
4 James Leasor, The Plague and The
Fire, George Allen & Unwin LTD 1962, p.185.
5 H. Douglas-Irvine, History of
London, Constable & Company LTD 1912, facing p.230.
6 James Leasor, The Plague and The
Fire, George Allen & Unwin LTD 1962, p.186.
7 Ibid., p.189.
8 Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel
Pepys, The Globe edition, Macmillian & CO LTD 1905, p.412.
9 H. Douglas-Irvine, History of
London, Constable & Company LTD 1912, facing p.240.
10 The
Oxford Illustrated History of Britain,
ed. Kenneth O. Morgan, Oxford University Press 1984, facing
p.321.
11 James Leasor, The Plague and
The Fire, George Allen & Unwin LTD 1962, p.221.
12 Liza Picard, Restoration London,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1997, inside front cover.
13 The
Oxford Illustrated History of Britain,
ed. Kenneth O. Morgan,
Oxford University Press 1984, facing p.337.