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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