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By William E. Steinman:
Part 118, Charles II:
June 27, 2005:
Before we get to Charles II we must answer the question, what happened to the Commonwealth? The answer is Richard Cromwell blew it and so, in a way, did Oliver! It is that simple. The fact is, Richard was unfit to succeed his father. Though he was prevented from naming his son as his successor, Oliver could at least have groomed him for the role. He did not do that well. Hence, when he died in 1658, a rather inept Richard came to power. Richard was proclaimed lord protector of England.
Almost immediately he began to alienate people through clumsy and highhanded methods. First he angered the army by taking it over personally instead of appointing a seasoned officer to the job. Next, the army decided to have its own council for planning. That was an usurpation of Parliament's role and they forbade it. Well, the army council did not accept that. They bullied Richard into dissolving Parliament in 1659. After that, Richard, who owed money to everyone, resigned and skipped out to Europe. Although he later returned to England, he was a nonperson by then. With Richard's abdication, Charles II was restored to the throne. Let us see how that came about.
Clearly Charles II was of the Stuart line and an obvious choice to ascend the Throne. With Cromwell in power however, he lived in Europe where he held court in exile, often in Paris. Before he was exiled, he had made serious efforts to keep his father in power. Even after the execution of Charles I, Charles II tried to recover the throne with the help of the Scots. He was soundly defeated by Cromwell at Worcester in 1651. After that, he was on the run until he escaped to France late in 1651.
In Europe, he tried to get help from the French and Dutch, but Cromwell had headed him off with diplomacy of his own. Cromwell was good at that and the French and Dutch turned a deaf ear to Charles II. Spain was the only choice open to him and he made a treaty with them in 1656. He tried to raise an army with brother James to lead it, but it kind of fizzled out. The fact is, they did not have the resources to field an effective army.
After Oliver Cromwell expired in 1658, things did not improve for Charles. Then he got help from an unexpected source. George Monck, who was a top general under Cromwell, saw disaster looming for England with no solid leadership in sight. He helped to set the stage for Charles' return. Although Charles was not super clever, he did have one very good advisor in Edward Hyde. With Hyde's help Charles made an offer called his Declaration of Breda. Breda is just a city in the Southern Netherlands. The Declaration was Charles' offer of general amnesty, and several other things meant to restore things to the way the were before Charles I screwed them up. With that, Charles II was proclaimed King in May of 1660. He came home to London and everyone was happy. It is probable that a Civil war was averted by restoring the monarchy.
Parliament was in a mood for stability so Charles got even more than he could have hoped for. He got authority to maintain a standing army and absolute power to fire dissidents from positions of power. He got some pretty tough censorship laws on the press and on the public at large. He also got control of education. In addition, Hobbes was back in favor as a key supporter and spokesman for monarchy.
Not all was rosy for Charles. He wanted to have a great deal more religious tolerance for Catholics and other nonconforming folks like Seekers and Quakers. The House of Commons which was strictly loyalist, in every sense of the word, would have none of it. On top of that, he was tied to the Parliament for income. He had little in the way of revenue of his own. As a result, he ran up some pretty heavy debt.
There were other problems on the sea. The commercial rivalry of the Dutch and English resulted in war in 1665. This was called the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It lasted until 1667 and cost England a bundle. It started well enough with the capture of New Amsterdam (New York). However, things went downhill from there. France pitched in on the side of the Dutch. The war was going badly already, when England suffered a plague epidemic in 1665 and the Great Fire of London in 1666. This ended in the Dutch destruction of England's fleet which was docked at Chatham in June 1667. That finished England and the war ended the following month by the Treaty of Breda.
Charles found someone to blame in Edward Hyde, the guy who had helped him recover the throne, Hyde was fired and Charles remained in power, but he had to do something and he did. Somehow, with inside influence, he got France into a Secret Treaty of Dover in 1670. In fact there were two treaties at Dover. The first was formal and involved an alliance of France and England against the Dutch. In fact, Louis XIV really wanted to help England. He wanted to divide up the Netherlands with England.
The secret treaty was an agreement by Charles II to convert England to the Catholic faith. This is something Charles II wanted anyway. In return, Charles was to get a huge stipend and the promise of military support from France in case things went bad in England. He also got another large sum to commit English troops against the Dutch. In addition, Louis was to get English support in his claims to the Spanish throne. Does all this convoluted double dealing remind you of Washington DC?
After all of that folderol, Charles never bother to convert. Louie did not pursue it because England was with him in the war against the Dutch. That was more important to him. Meanwhile, the English people were getting a bit tired of it all. They did not like any alliance with France. They really did not favor the country going Catholic. One problem was, Charles, even if he remained true to the church of England had no heir. This means that his brother James might succeed to the throne and bring his Catholic faith with him.
All of this nonsense culminated in what was called The Popish Plot of 1678. It was a trumped up deal based on the testimony of one big liar, Titus Oats. He charged that the Catholics planned to assassinate Charles in order to bring James to the throne. As a result, Charles was forced to exile his brother James. He also offered a plan to limit the power of James should he happen to ascend the throne. By this time, Charles' court and parliament was riddled with plotters and intrigues of all kinds. Civil war was definitely possible. the plan came to naught. So, however, did the conspiracy.
Charles dismissed a few Parliaments and managed to get control
again. It seems the people preferred Charles to anarchy. They
rallied to Charles' cause. Then with income from France through
another secret treaty and renewed income at home, he reformed
the Treasury and brought solid financial stability to the Kingdom.
When Charles died in 1685, England was in fine shape. He had pretty
much achieved his goals.
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