Coronation! British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 9: Charles II to William and Mary

In 1660, the Convention Parliament invited the eldest son of Charles I to return to England as King Charles II. Having spent nine years in exile, he promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament. 

The event marked the beginning of the period known as the Restoration. [Image: Charles II in his coronation robes. The crown he wore was made for the occasion, and remains the one in use at coronations today]

The Restoration might as well be called the Counter Revolution. The Revolution of 1649 had abolished the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the bishops. In 1651, Cromwell had effectively abolished the House of Commons. The Restoration of 1660 brought them all back. 

One might shrug and say, "I guess the civil wars, execution of Charles I, and revolution that followed accomplished nothing." But that was far from the case. 

Charles II never forgot his father's fate. On his return, he is alleged to have said, "God has given us the throne, and we intend to enjoy it." Have fun and party was the order of the day. 

The theaters reopened after being banned under Puritan rule, and bawdy comedies were performed. Christmas, which the Puritans also banned in 1646, could once again be celebrated with feasting and jollity. 

It wasn't all cakes and ale. In 1665, London was hit by the Great Plague, the worst (and last) plague epidemic in the city's history. It killed around 100,000 people. The following year, the Great Fire of London destroyed most of the city, including old St. Paul's and many other churches. Many people believed God was punishing England for its sins. But that soon blew over and the party continued.

Despite making many poor decisions, especially in foreign policy, Charles was and remains one of the most popular monarchs in British history. For many people he was and is the Merry Monarch, famous for his good humor, wit, and mistresses as much as anything else. 

The poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, wrote of Charles:

"Restless he rolls from whore to whore, 

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor."

Wilmot is also supposed to have written: 

"We have a pretty, witty king, 

Whose word no man relies on,

He never said a foolish thing, 

And never did a wise one."

It would be a mistake to write Charles off as a hedonistic playboy. He could be serious about his job, and he wanted to be a player on the world stage. He admired and envied the power and wealth of his fellow monarch in France. 

In 1660, Louis XIV was well on his way to becoming an absolute monarch. He was able to rule without serious interference from a troublesome representative assembly or overmighty nobles.  

Like his father, Charles II believed he was king by divine right. But he knew that in practical terms it was not God but Parliament that had given him the throne. To keep it, he needed to avoid the kind of direct conflicts with that body that had cost his father his head. 

Charles II always needed more money for wars and palaces but was reluctant to adopt the arbitrary measures his father had used. Instead, he tried to increase his wealth and power by subterfuge and duplicity. An example is the Treaty of Dover (1670). It was treaty of alliance with Louis XIV of France against the Dutch. That much was public. 

The treaty contained a secret section that Charles did not reveal even to some of his closest advisors. Louis agreed to pay Charles a large sum of money. In return, Charles pledged to restore Catholicism in Britain as soon as it was practicable. 

Whether Charles was sincere about that pledge may well be doubted. He did make an effort to relax the penal laws against Catholics and Protestant Dissenters in 1672 but backed down when faced with strong parliamentary opposition. His pro-French and anti-Dutch foreign policy also angered many in Parliament, who preferred an alliance with the Protestant Netherlands.

For much of his reign the majority in Parliament were firm royalists, but they were also staunch Protestants and supporters of the restored Church of England. By the late 1670s, many of these politicians coalesced into a loose party that became known as the Tories. 

Around that time, suspicions grew that Catholics were plotting to destroy Protestantism in Britain. A shady Anglican minister, Titus Oates, claimed to have uncovered a Catholic conspiracy to kill the king, the so-called Popish Plot. It was pure invention, but the murder of a staunchly Protestant MP, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, convinced many people that the plot was real.   

Oates claimed that Charles' Portuguese and Catholic wife, Catherine of Braganza, was involved in the plot. The hysteria that followed in England and Scotland led to the executions of more than 20 innocent people. [Image: Queen Catherine of Braganza by Peter Lely, 1663-65]

Charles did not believe the plot was real. He interrogated Oates himself and caught him out in several lies and inaccuracies. He had Oates arrested, but Parliament ordered him freed. His accusations became even more bizarre. 

The revelation of the plot led to what was called the Exclusion Crisis. This was an attempt by some members of Parliament to exclude Charles' brother, James, Duke of York, from the throne. 

During the panic over the plot the public had learned that James had secretly converted to Catholicism. Charles had a dozen illegitimate children but fathered no legitimate heir. Queen Catherine had several pregnancies, but each ended in miscarriage. James was therefore next in line.

The politicians who supported the Exclusion Bill became known as the Whigs. They supported a limited monarchy and toleration for all Protestant sects. Most Tories and Charles opposed the Exclusion Bill. 

Charles, with Tory help, was able to prevent passage of the Bill. Public opinion gradually turned against Oates, who was convicted of perjury and imprisoned. Several leading Whigs were executed on questionable evidence for plotting against the monarchy. The Whig leader, Anthony Ashley Cooper (Earl of Shaftesbury) fled to the Netherlands, where he died soon after. 

Charles died of apoplexy (stroke) in 1685. James became King James II (VII in Scotland). [Image: James II and VII by James Riley]

At first, most of the country accepted the new king. The Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, led a rising against James in the West Country but Monmouth's Rebellion was easily and brutally crushed. 

Monmouth and hundreds of others were executed. Hundreds more were transported to the West Indies to work on the sugar plantations. The trials of the rebels became known as the Bloody Assizes. The film Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn deals with these events.

James lacked his older brother's caution. Perhaps the easy defeat of Monmouth's rebellion made him overconfident. He suspended the penal laws against Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants, known as Dissenters. A good thing we might think, but not in the political and religious context of the 1680s.

Charles II had tried todo the same thing and failed. James might have got away with it. But he went on to place Catholics and Dissenters in important positions in the military, government, universities, and judiciary. He packed juries. All in violation of the current law.

Suspicions grew that James was intent on a Catholic coup. Across the Channel in France, Louis XIV had just revoked the Edict of Nantes, which since 1598 had guaranteed toleration of Protestant Huguenots. Refugees were streaming into England with tales of horrific persecution.  

Public fears increased when James' second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son in 1685. Many people were so upset at the news that they eagerly accepted a fake story that the infant was not hers but had been smuggled into the birthing room in a warming pan. 

James had two grown children from his first marriage, daughters Mary and Anne. Both had remained firmly Protestant. As long as they were his heirs, many people were willing to tolerate the elderly James. The newly arrived male child took precedence over the princesses in the line of succession, opening the prospect of a Catholic dynasty. 

The Tories faced a dilemma. They were staunch royalists who supported a powerful monarchy. But they were also fervent defenders of the Protestant Anglican Church. Would they support their king or their church? 

The Whigs had fewer qualms. They opposed absolute monarchy and supported parliamentary sovereignty. As James became more arbitrary in his actions, many Tories became seriously alarmed. In the autumn of 1688, several leading Tories and Whigs met in secret and came up with a plan. 

They invited Prince William of Orange, the Stadtholder (kind of a president) of the Netherlands to bring an army to England and stop James from his reckless course. You may ask why a Dutch prince? [Image: William III, of Orange, 1689]

William was married to James' eldest daughter, Mary. He was also a grandson of Charles I. William accepted the invitation despite the obvious risks. The Netherlands was at war with Louis XIV of France again, and he calculated that if he could turn England into an ally, his country might prevail. 

God, or luck, was on William's side. In November 1688, a favorable "Protestant Wind" blew his fleet quickly across the channel to Torbay in Devon. Auspiciously, they landed unmolested on the 5th of November, anniversary of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot.

William's army marched towards London, picking up English supporters on the way. James initially decided to fight, but in the end, he fled to France. He was actually captured at one point, but William shrewdly ordered the captors to let him go. 

William entered London to great acclaim. He was viewed as the savior of Protestantism. He decided to cash in on his sudden popularity. He called a Convention Parliament to settle the issue uppermost in his mind: who should be the ruler of the British kingdoms. 

Members of Parliament had other concerns. They wanted to ensure that future monarchs would not be able to act arbitrarily. The result was the Declaration of Rights, which later passed into legislation as the Bill of Rights. 

The Declaration placed clear limits on royal power and guaranteed regular and free elections to Parliament. It outlawed "cruel and unusual punishments." It protected freedom of speech and the right not to pay taxes that were not approved by Parliament.

On the future of the monarchy, Parliament debated long and hard. The majority favored declaring that James had abdicated, and Mary, his eldest daughter, should become queen. That solution bypassed his son, violating strict hereditary succession, but few in Parliament were now willing tolerate the idea of a Catholic monarch. 

William refused to accept the job of "gentleman usher" to the Queen. He demanded that he be declared king in his own right. If not, he threatened, he would take his army and navy home, leaving the British kingdoms to the mercy of James and the French. 

To avoid that, Parliament agreed to make William and Mary joint monarchs, the first and only time that has been done. If nothing else, it gave a certain college in Virginia its name. [Image: William and Mary]

More important is the reality that once again, Parliament had decided who the monarch should be. It would not be the last time. 

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British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 8: Oliver Cromwell and the Republic

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the British Isles had no monarch for 11 years. In the history of the monarchy this period is known as the Interregnum ("between reigns"). Officially, the government was a republic, "The Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland."

The revolutionaries who won the Civil War not only killed the king. They abolished the monarchy itself, along with the House of Lords and the bishops. Nominally, power lay initially in the hands of the "Rump" of the Long Parliament, a minority of those elected in 1640. 

It soon became clear, however, that real power had gravitated to the New Model Army. The top army commander, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), became de facto head of the Commonwealth. [Image: Cromwell by Samuel Cooper]

Cromwell was not a monarch, yet he ruled the British Isles as firmly as any king for several years. Prior to the Civil War, he had been a Cambridgeshire country gentleman living a generally unremarkable life. He became an MP in the late 1620s and served in the parliaments elected in 1640. During the war, he rose to high rank and eventually to overall commander. 

After the execution of Charles I, which he had at first opposed and then supported, he served on the Council of State of the new republic and in the "Rump," the remnants of the Long Parliament. 

By 1651, Cromwell had become thoroughly disillusioned with the behavior of the Rump MPs. He used his power as army commander to dissolve it, accusing its members of having become a corrupt and self-perpetuating oligarchy. 

That left him with the problem of what should replace it. He wanted to establish a workable representative government for the Commonwealth. Despite several experiments, he never succeeded. 

In effect, he ruled as a military dictator, dividing the British Isles into districts, each governed by a major general. Some of his supporters wanted him to take the title of king. He refused. Instead, he accepted the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth in 1653. 

To many people in England during the following centuries, Cromwell was a hero who defended the liberty of the people. A statue of him was erected in 1899 outside the Parliament buildings in Westminster. [Image: Cromwell statue]

The statue was controversial. Sincere royalists detested it. Though hardly royalists, Irish Nationalist MPs protested vehemently against it. Most of the Irish reviled Cromwell. In 1649 he had suppressed a royalist revolt in Ireland with brutal ferocity. Rightly or wrongly, he was blamed for atrocities committed by his soldiers. 

Cromwell's Irish campaign and the penal laws against Catholics that followed did more to poison Anglo-Irish relations than anything besides the Famine of the 1840s. Cromwell's name remains a byword among the Irish for English cruelty and tyranny. Winston Churchill called it "the curse of Cromwell."

Cromwell also suppressed a royalist rebellion in Scotland in 1650-51. That produced its own atrocities, but he treated the Scots more leniently than the Irish. Religion explains the difference. 

The Scots were largely Protestant and had been allies against Charles I. Cromwell viewed them as a people "godly but deceived." The Catholic majority in Ireland was simply ungodly, enslaved to the mass and the Pope. 

Cromwell's exact religious views and policies remain something of an enigma. He was a strong believer in Providence, the idea that God was actively engaged in world affairs. Not surprisingly, he considered himself a servant that God had "provided" to make Britain a more moral and godlier place.

As for the organization of religion, Cromwell was an "Independent." He opposed any central church hierarchy, whether bishops in England or presbyters in Scotland. Each congregation, he believed, should be left independent to run its own affairs. 

Cromwell tolerated various interpretations of Protestantism. He also welcomed Jews back to England for the first time since Edward I had banished them in the 13th century. He continued to make life difficult for Catholics, and persecuted some radical Protestant fringe sects, especially the Quakers and Fifth Monarchists. 

The breakdown of traditional authorities and institutions encouraged the spread of surprisingly radical ideas. Historian Christopher Hill entitled a book on the 1650s The World Turned Upside Down. A movement within the army, the Levellers, pushed for a democratic political system. Small groups of people known as Diggers even attempted to establish a communistic society. 

In contrast to the film named after him, starring Richard Harris, Cromwell was not a democrat. He believed in a representative government, but one controlled by men of property. He presented his views at a series of meetings that took place at St. Mary's Church in Putney in 1647, pictured below.

The meetings became known as the Putney Debates. The Levellers demanded a political system of one man, one vote, and freedom of conscience. One of the most memorable statements came from the Leveller leader Colonel Thomas Rainsborough:

"For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under."

Cromwell and his allies rejected the Levellers' demands. When the Levellers continued to agitate for democratic reforms, he crushed them. Democracy would have to wait two more centuries.

Religious innovations also flourished during the Civil War and Republic. Some sects advanced positions embraced by the hippies of the 1960s, including nudity and free love. The "Ranters" argued that the best cure for temptation was to give in to it. For example, an urge to swear should be cured by swearing.  

Several religious sects that "came out" in the 1650s did not last long, but a few are with us today, notably Congregationalists, "Quakers" (Society of Friends), and Baptists. 

Cromwell died in 1658, probably of kidney disease complicated by malaria. He had nominated his son Richard to succeed him as Lord Protector, but Richard lacked his father's political and military skill. The major generals pushed him aside after a few months. he became known as "Tumble Down Dick."

Without a clear leader, Britain seemed destined to descend into chaos and Civil War once again. George Monck, one of Cromwell's major generals, marched his army from Scotland to London and recalled the remnants of the Long Parliament. They voted to restore the monarchy. In 1660, the eldest son of Charles I took the throne, inaugurating the period known as the Restoration. 

PS. After Charles II became king, he moved to avenge his father's execution. The MPs who had signed Charles I's death warrant and remained alive were arrested and executed.  

Cromwell's body was dug up and hanged in chains. It was then tossed into a pit, except for his head. It was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685. It passed through various hands until 1960, when it was buried beneath the floor of a chapel at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. 

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British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 7: James I, Charles I, and the Civil War.

The 17th century began with a new dynasty in England, the Stuarts. It was new in England but old in Scotland. Stuart monarchs had occupied the Scottish throne since the late 14th century. Most of them had been called James, five in all. 

In 1603, James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He had been king of Scotland since 1567. His 57-year reign was the longest in Scottish history. [Image: James VI and I.]

James inherited the Scottish throne as an infant after the forced abdication of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots. During his minority, the government was controlled by a regency. His personal rule in Scotland began in the early 1580s and he ruled effectively there. 

In 1603, James made history as the first monarch to rule the entire British Isles, including Ireland. He styled himself "King of Great Britain and Ireland," although officially no such kingdom existed. 

James promoted a union between England and Scotland, but the idea was unpopular in both countries. He designed a flag for "Great Britain" similar to the one that came into use after the Act of Union in 1707. It incorporated the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George

A more immediate issue for James was religious division in England. Not only division between Catholics and Protestants, but also among different kinds of Protestants. 

Because James was raised a Calvinist in Scotland, English "Puritans" hoped he would "purify" the Church of England of remaining Catholic doctrines, ritual, and structure.

James disappointed them. He insisted on keeping the Church of England as established under Elizabeth I, with its bishops, vestments, and Book of Common Prayer. 

He is perhaps most famous for promoting a new English translation of the Bible, immortalizing himself through the resulting "King James Bible." Few publications in history have ever attained such success.

In the long run, Puritans would prove a more serious threat to the monarchy than Catholics. In the short run, a Catholic conspiracy nearly ended James's reign soon after he became king of England.

The Gunpowder Plot, as it is known to history, was designed to blow up Parliament during its opening session on November 5, 1605, when the king and all the members were present. Fortunately for them, the barrels of gunpowder and one of the plotters were discovered in the cellars the evening before. 

Guy Fawkes was the plotter arrested red-handed. He was an explosives expert who had been fighting for Spain and his faith against England and Protestantism. He was executed for treason, along with several others involved in the plot. The rest were killed in a shootout. 

The foiling of the Gunpowder Plot became a cause for national celebration. Guy Fawkes Night, November 5, was henceforth marked by the burning of "The Guy" in effigy. It still is, although it has been stripped of its sectarian religious trappings and renamed "Bonfire Night."

King and Parliament were united in the response to the Gunpowder Plot, but they soon came into regular conflict, a pattern that would be repeated under his son and grandsons. Religion, taxation, war, and arbitrary actions all played a part in the conflict. James' proclivity to lavish honors, gifts, and power on his close male friends (lovers?) increased resentment. 

A contemporary critic once called James the "the wisest fool in Christendom." Historians used to place the emphasis on fool. More recently, they have been inclined to view him more seriously, particularly his foreign policy. 

He was strongly in favor of peace in Europe. He resisted demands of parliamentary hawks to renew war with Spain or enter the devastating Thirty Years' War in Central Europe (1618-1648). In the first, he failed, but in the second, he succeeded. 

He was moderate for his time in religious matters. Like Elizabeth, he preferred to turn a blind eye to people's private religious practices as long as they conformed outwardly. Yet in hindsight he laid the seeds of the current division of Ireland by encouraging Scots and English Protestants to settle in Ulster (Northern Ireland). 

James suffered from various ailments in his last years, especially arthritis and gout. He died in 1625, probably of dysentery. He was sincerely mourned by many of his subjects. Despite some conflicts, they had enjoyed peace and low taxation for much of his reign, and in 17th century Europe that was rare.

His son and successor Charles I was not so fortunate. During his reign, simmering conflicts between the Crown and the English Parliament came to a head. Charles initially pursued an anti-Spanish policy, which grew out of personal humiliation when he tried unsuccessfully to woo a Spanish princess. He also went to war briefly with France. [Image: Charles I by Van Dyck]

Charles' anti-Spanish foreign policy was broadly popular in England, but he became angry when he could not get Parliament to vote the taxes to support it. His attempts to raise revenue without parliamentary consent and arrest non-payers aroused powerful opposition. In 1628, Parliament presented the king with The Petition of Right, which condemned his arbitrary actions. 

The following year, 1629, Charles dissolved Parliament and vowed to rule without it. He managed to do it for eleven years, the "Personal "Rule" or "Eleven Years Tyranny." During that time, opposition to Charles' rule festered without an outlet. 

The anger was not limited to Charles' arbitrary methods and taxes. Various strands of Radical Protestantism rooted in Calvinist and Anabaptist traditions gained strength during these years. 

The "Puritans" represented an existential threat to the Church of England established by Elizabeth I and supported by James I. They opposed his efforts to enforce conformity to Anglicanism. His marriage to a French Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, increased suspicions that he was a crypto Catholic.

That was not true, but Charles was a staunch defender of the Anglican Church and promoted "popish" ritualism the Puritans opposed. During the 1630s, he tried to weaken Puritanism through prosecutions, sometimes in arbitrary courts. 

His biggest mistake was his attempt to force the Church of Scotland to adopt the Anglican model. In 1637, without consulting the Scottish parliament or kirk (church), he authorized the use of a version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in Scottish churches. 

By this time, most Scots had embraced a strict Calvinist form of worship. They rejected Anglican religious ritual as "popish," and wanted to eliminate bishops. Their views united them to some extent with English Puritans.

When the Book of Common Prayer was introduced in Scotland, it provoked riots. Legend has it that an Edinburgh woman, Jenny Geddes, started it all by denouncing the new book and throwing her stool at a preacher in St. Giles Cathedral. 

The reality was more complex, but the riots expanded into a full-blown rebellion, the "Bishops Wars." Charles raised an army to enforce his will, but he was unable to pay for it. 

Reluctantly, he called Parliament in the spring of 1640. The members refused to fund his army unless he recognized their power to approve all new taxes. Furious, he dissolved the body after a few weeks.  It became known as the "Short Parliament." 

Meanwhile, the Scots' army had invaded northern England and occupied Newcastle and Durham. Faced with opposition within and without, Charles made concessions to the Scots and agreed to elections to a new English parliament. 

The elections went badly for Charles. A huge majority of the new MPs opposed his policies. The "Long Parliament," as it later became known, convened in November 1640. 

Its members immediately began the impeachment of the king's leading councillors for high treason. During the next year, they passed a series of acts restricting royal power and increasing that of Parliament. 

A rebellion in Ireland in 1641 sparked anti-Catholic hysteria in England. Pamphlets were published charging that Queen Henrietta Maria was behind the rising and demanding her impeachment.  

The extreme measures of the most radical MPs gradually increased support for the king in Parliament. Charles alienated much of this sympathy when he tried to arrest five leading members of the opposition as they sat in Parliament. He faced humiliation when he burst into the chamber with soldiers to find that the five had been alerted and fled. No king had ever entered Parliament uninvited.

Soon after, Charles fled London. He began to assemble an army often referred to as the "Cavaliers" for their fancy clothes and long-flowing hair. Parliament also began to raise an army, eventually dubbed "Roundheads" for their closely cropped hair and plain clothes. (These distinctions were not as clear cut as the terms imply.) 

Civil War in England began in the middle of 1642. Historians today see the English Civil War as part of a wider conflict they call the "Wars of the Three Kingdoms." Scotland and Ireland were also involved. It was the bloodiest war ever fought on British soil. 

The war started badly for the parliamentary side at first. It seemed the king would prevail. But by 1644 men like Lord Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell rose to command and reorganized the army. A key reform was selecting officers based on ability rather than birth. The "New Model Army" defeated and captured the king in 1646. 

For more than two years the victors tried to negotiate a settlement with Charles, without success. In 1648, royalists began a second civil war designed to free the king. They were quickly defeated, but Cromwell and his allies decided the monarchy must be abolished. 

In January 1649, a parliamentary tribunal tried Charles for treason against his people. This was an astonishing reversal of the meaning of the act. In law, treason meant an act against the king. 

Charles mounted a vigorous defense, but the outcome was inevitable. On January 30, 1649, he was led out to scaffold in front of Inigo Jones' Banqueting Hall on Whitehall and beheaded. The assembled crowd let forth a loud moan. Many of them dipped handkerchiefs in Charles' blood as a memento. Charles was soon celebrated as a martyr. 

[Image: Execution of Charles I]

For the next eleven years, the British Isles was governed as a republic. For much of that time Oliver Cromwell ruled the three kingdoms , essentially as a military dictator. 

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