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108-536: The Test Acts were a series of penal laws originating in Restoration England , passed by the Parliament of England , that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Catholics and nonconformist Protestants . The underlying principle was that only people taking communion in the established Church of England were eligible for public employment, and

216-564: A " Popish Plot " to assassinate the king, even accusing the queen of complicity. Charles did not believe the allegations, but ordered his chief minister Lord Danby to investigate. While Danby seems to have been rightly sceptical about Oates's claims, the Cavalier Parliament took them seriously. The people were seized with an anti-Catholic hysteria; judges and juries across the land condemned the supposed conspirators; numerous innocent individuals were executed. Later in 1678, Danby

324-631: A Catholic, being next in line to the throne. The prospect of a Catholic monarch was vehemently opposed by the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (a former member of the Cabal, which had fallen apart in 1673). Lord Shaftesbury's power base was strengthened when the House of Commons of 1679 introduced the Exclusion Bill , which sought to exclude the Duke of York from the line of succession . Some even sought to confer

432-506: A declaration against transubstantiation and also of receiving the sacrament within three months after admittance to office. The oath for the Test Act 1673 was: I, N , do declare that I do believe that there is not any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or in the elements of the bread and wine , at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever. The act

540-651: A foolish thing, And never did a wise one To which Charles is reputed to have replied "that the matter was easily accounted for: For that his discourse was his own, his actions were the ministry's". In 1665, the Great Plague of London began, peaking in September with up to 7,000 deaths per week. Charles, his family, and the court fled London in July to Salisbury ; Parliament met in Oxford . Plague cases ebbed over

648-461: A formal society in 1660 to give a more academic and learned approach to science and to conduct experiments in physics and mathematics. Sir Robert Moray , a member of Charles's court, played an important part in achieving this outcome, and he was to be the first president of this new Royal Society . Over the years, Moray was an important go-between for Charles and the Society, and his standing with

756-661: A life of leisure at Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, living on a grant from Louis XIV of 600 livres a month. Charles could not obtain sufficient finance or support to mount a serious challenge to Cromwell's government. Despite the Stuart family connections through Henrietta Maria and the Princess of Orange, France and the Dutch Republic allied themselves with Cromwell's government from 1654, forcing Charles to leave France and turn to Spain for aid, which at that time ruled

864-532: A message that reached Charles at Breda on 8 May 1660. In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year and had already declared for Charles. On 14 May, he was proclaimed king in Dublin. Charles set out for England from Scheveningen , arrived in Dover on 25 May 1660 and reached London on 29 May, his 30th birthday. Although Charles and Parliament granted amnesty to nearly all of Cromwell's supporters in

972-541: A public Anglican service. The same year, in an unpopular move, Charles sold Dunkirk to King Louis XIV of France for about £375,000. The channel port, although a valuable strategic outpost, was a drain on Charles's limited finances, as it cost the Treasury £321,000 per year. Before Charles's restoration, the Navigation Acts of 1650 had hurt Dutch trade by giving English vessels a monopoly, and had started

1080-429: A recognisable genre. Theatre licences granted by Charles required that female parts be played by "their natural performers", rather than by boys as was often the practice before; and Restoration literature celebrated or reacted to the restored court, which included libertines such as Lord Rochester . Of Charles II, Rochester supposedly said: We have a pretty, witty king, Whose word no man relies on, He never said

1188-445: A reputation for moral laxity. Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza produced no surviving children, but the king acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James. Charles was born at St James's Palace on 29 May 1630, eldest surviving son of Charles I , king of England , Scotland and Ireland , and his wife Henrietta Maria , sister of Louis XIII of France . Charles

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1296-782: A victory at the Battle of Lowestoft , but in 1667 the Dutch launched a surprise attack on England (the Raid on the Medway ) when they sailed up the River Thames to where a major part of the English fleet was docked. Almost all of the ships were sunk except for the flagship, Royal Charles , which was taken back to the Netherlands as a prize . The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of

1404-471: The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion , 50 people were specifically excluded. In the end nine of the regicides were executed: they were hanged, drawn and quartered , whereas others were given life imprisonment or excluded from office for life. The bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were subjected to posthumous decapitations . The English Parliament granted Charles an annual income to run

1512-633: The Act of Uniformity 1662 made the use of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer compulsory; the Conventicle Act 1664 prohibited religious assemblies of more than five people, except under the auspices of the Church of England; and the Five Mile Act 1665 prohibited expelled non-conforming clergymen from coming within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been banished. The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts remained in effect for

1620-570: The Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe . Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands . A political crisis after Cromwell's death in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he

1728-710: The British Empire until King George III ascended to the throne and allowed the Tories back into the Government in 1763. Even then, the Whig party remained a political monolith and only fragmented in response to the American and French Revolutions . The Penal Laws were introduced into Ireland in the year 1695, disenfranchising nonconformists in favour of the minority established Church of Ireland , aligned with

1836-553: The Dean of Christ Church, Oxford , was his tutor. Neither man thought that the study of science subjects was appropriate for a future king, and Newcastle even advised against studying any subject too seriously. However, as Charles grew older, the renowned surgeon William Harvey was appointed his tutor. He was famous for his work on blood circulation in the human body and already held the position of physician to Charles I; his studies were to influence Charles's own attitude to science. As

1944-510: The Declaration of Breda , in which Charles promised lenience and tolerance. There would be liberty of conscience, and Anglican church policy would not be harsh. He would not exile past enemies nor confiscate their wealth. There would be pardons for nearly all his opponents except the regicides . Above all, Charles promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament. The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return,

2052-552: The Disarming Act of 1716. The Papists Act 1732 ( 6 Geo. 2 . c. 5) was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of Great Britain during the reign of George II . Its long title was "An Act for allowing further time for the Inrolment of Deeds and Wills made by Papists, and for Relief of Protestant Purchasers and Lessees". The Whig single party state would continue to dominate the political and religious life of

2160-508: The Earl of Essex , Algernon Sydney , Lord Russell and the Duke of Monmouth were implicated in the plot. Essex slit his own throat while imprisoned in the Tower of London; Sydney and Russell were executed for high treason on very flimsy evidence; and the Duke of Monmouth went into exile at the court of William of Orange. Lord Danby and the surviving Catholic lords held in the Tower were released and

2268-586: The East Indies , religious and commercial freedom in Portugal and two million Portuguese crowns (equivalent to £300,000 then ); while Portugal obtained military and naval support against Spain and liberty of worship for Catherine. Catherine journeyed from Portugal to Portsmouth on 13–14 May 1662, but was not visited by Charles there until 20 May. The next day the couple were married at Portsmouth in two ceremonies—a Catholic one conducted in secret, followed by

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2376-541: The English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oates 's fabrication of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles's brother and heir presumptive , James, Duke of York , had become a Catholic. The crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories and, after the discovery of

2484-649: The Eucharist was never a part of the test in Scotland as it was in England and Ireland. The necessity for subscription to the Confession of Faith by persons holding a university office was removed in an act of 1853. The act provided that in place of subscription every person appointed to a university office was to subscribe a declaration according to the form in the act, promising not to teach any opinions opposed to

2592-730: The First Dutch War (1652–1654). To lay foundations for a new beginning, envoys of the States General appeared in November 1660 with the Dutch Gift . The Second Dutch War (1665–1667) was started by English attempts to muscle in on Dutch possessions in Africa and North America. The conflict began well for the English, with the capture of New Amsterdam (renamed New York in honour of Charles's brother James, Duke of York) and

2700-524: The House of Commons should make a declaration against transubstantiation, invocation of saints, and the sacrificial nature of the Mass . The effect of this was to exclude Catholics from both houses, and in particular the " Five Popish Lords " from the House of Lords , a change motivated largely by the alleged Popish Plot . The Lords deeply resented this interference with their membership; they delayed passage of

2808-664: The Indemnity Act 1727 relieved Nonconformists from the requirements in the Test Act 1673 and the Corporation Act 1661 that public office holders must have taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in an Anglican church. An exception was at Oxbridge , where nonconformists and Catholics could not matriculate (Oxford) or graduate (Cambridge) until 1871. Similar laws were introduced in Scotland with respect to

2916-581: The Palace of Whitehall , at 11:45 am, aged 54. The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors, but a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of uraemia , a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction. Charles had a laboratory among his many interests where, prior to his illness, he had been experimenting with mercury . Mercuric poisoning can produce irreversible kidney damage, but

3024-760: The Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866 respectively. Religious tests for officers of the ancient universities were repealed by the Universities Tests Act 1871 for England, the University of Dublin Tests Act 1873, and the Universities (Scotland) Act 1889 . Penal law (British) In 1553, following the death of her half-brother, Edward VI , and deposing his choice of successor, Lady Jane Grey , Mary I of England seized

3132-720: The Presbyterian Church of Scotland and also in Ireland , where the minority Anglican Church of Ireland had penal laws set up in its favour to allow the Anglo-Irish minority to maintain control of land, law and politics as part of the Protestant Ascendancy . The Naturalisation and Restoration of Blood Act 1609 {Repealed by Naturalization Act 1870 } ( 7 Jas. 1 . c. 2) provided that all such as were naturalized or restored in blood should receive

3240-660: The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 . Sir Robert Peel took the lead for the government in the repeal and collaborated with Anglican Church leaders. The application of the 1828 and 1829 acts to Irish acts was uncertain and so the Test Abolition Act 1867 ( 30 & 31 Vict. c. 62) repeated the 1829 repeal more explicitly. The 1661, 1672 and 1678 acts were repealed by the Promissory Oaths Act 1871 , Statute Law Revision Act 1863 , and

3348-595: The Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, some Whig leaders were executed or forced into exile. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681 and ruled alone until his death in 1685. Following his restoration, Charles became known for his affability and friendliness, and for allowing his subjects easy access to his person. However, he also showed an almost impenetrable reserve, especially concerning his political agendas. His court gained

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3456-594: The Southern Netherlands . Charles made the Treaty of Brussels with Spain in 1656. This gathered Spanish support for a restoration in return for Charles's contribution to the war against France. Charles raised a ragtag army from his exiled subjects; this small, underpaid, poorly-equipped and ill-disciplined force formed the nucleus of the post-Restoration army. The Commonwealth made the Treaty of Paris with France in 1657 to join them in war against Spain in

3564-595: The Third Anglo-Dutch War . The Cavalier Parliament opposed the Declaration of Indulgence on constitutional grounds by claiming that the king had no right to arbitrarily suspend laws passed by Parliament. Charles withdrew the Declaration, and also agreed to the Test Act , which not only required public officials to receive the sacrament under the forms prescribed by the Church of England, but also later forced them to denounce transubstantiation and

3672-441: The Third Anglo-Dutch War ; after the fall of the Cabal ministry, the pro-Dutch First Danby ministry came to power. In addition to this, 1673 was also the year that it became public knowledge that James, Duke of York , heir to the throne, had converted to Catholicism. Initially, the act did not extend to peers , but in 1678 the act was extended by a further act ( 30 Cha. 2. St. 2 ) which required that all peers and members of

3780-665: The Treaty of Breda . As a result of the Second Dutch War, Charles dismissed Lord Clarendon, whom he used as a scapegoat for the war. Clarendon fled to France when impeached for high treason (which carried the penalty of death). Power passed to five politicians known collectively by a whimsical acronym as the Cabal —the Baron Clifford , Earl of Arlington , Duke of Buckingham , Baron Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) and Duke of Lauderdale . In fact,

3888-401: The public domain :  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " Penal Laws ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Charles II of England Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England , Scotland, and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. Charles II was

3996-574: The state religion in all three of his kingdoms. When negotiations with the Scots stalled, Charles authorised Lord Montrose to land in the Orkney Islands with a small army to threaten the Scots with invasion, in the hope of forcing an agreement more to his liking. Montrose feared that Charles would accept a compromise, and so chose to invade mainland Scotland anyway. He was captured and executed. Charles reluctantly promised that he would abide by

4104-576: The "villainy" and "hypocrisy" of the Covenanters. Charles was provided with a Scottish court, and the record of his food and household expenses at Falkland Palace and Perth survives. Charles's alliance with the Scots led to the Anglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652. On 3 September 1650, the Covenanters were defeated at Dunbar by a much smaller force commanded by Oliver Cromwell . The Scots were divided between moderate Engagers and

4212-521: The 1682 municipal elections, and in 1683 the London charter was forfeited. In retrospect, the use of the judicial system by Charles (and later his brother and heir James) as a tool against opposition, helped establish the idea of separation of powers between the judiciary and the Crown in Whig thought. Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of 2 February 1685, and died four days later at

4320-514: The Cabal rarely acted in concert, and the court was often divided between two factions led by Arlington and Buckingham, with Arlington the more successful. In 1668, England allied itself with Sweden, and with its former enemy the Netherlands, to oppose Louis XIV in the War of Devolution . Louis made peace with the Triple Alliance , but he continued to maintain his aggressive intentions towards

4428-549: The Catholic Lord Clifford could not accept this oath which ran contrary to his beliefs, so resigned his position in government and the Cabal ministry completely unravelled by 1674. Foreign nations and their agents also had a vested interest in lobbying either way on the issue, as the leaders of the Cabal ministry (Arlington and Clifford) were allied with Catholic France against the Protestant Dutch in

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4536-565: The Catholic Mass as "superstitious and idolatrous". Clifford, who had converted to Catholicism, resigned rather than take the oath, and died shortly after, possibly from suicide. By 1674, England had gained nothing from the Anglo-Dutch War, and the Cavalier Parliament refused to provide further funds, forcing Charles to make peace. The power of the Cabal waned, and that of Clifford's replacement Lord Danby grew. Queen Catherine

4644-511: The Commons thought too mild—the impeachment became stalled between the two Houses. As he had been required to do so many times during his reign, Charles bowed to the wishes of his opponents, committing Danby to the Tower of London , in which he was held for another five years. In Charles's early childhood, William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle , was governor of the royal household and Brian Duppa,

4752-426: The Crown on the Protestant Duke of Monmouth , the eldest of Charles's illegitimate children. The Abhorrers —those who thought the Exclusion Bill was abhorrent—were named Tories (after a term for dispossessed Irish Catholic bandits), while the Petitioners —those who supported a petitioning campaign in favour of the Exclusion Bill—were called Whigs (after a term for rebellious Scottish Presbyterians). Fearing that

4860-461: The English Reformation was published soon after her death. In 1570 Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, citing as his reasons heresy , Caesaropapism , and the religious persecution by the State of the illegal and underground Catholic Church in England and Wales , and in Ireland , by releasing the Papal bull Regnans in Excelsis . In response: While some of the Penal Laws were much older, they took their most drastic shape during

4968-474: The English court, was astonished by the extent of the king's knowledge. The king freely indulged in his many interests, including astronomy, which had been stimulated by a visit to Gresham College , in October 1660, to see the telescopes made by the astronomer Sir Paul Neile . Charles was so impressed by what he saw that he ordered his own 36' telescope which he had installed in the Privy Garden at Whitehall . He would invite his friends and acquaintances to view

5076-429: The Exclusion Bill angered some Protestants. Protestant conspirators formulated the Rye House Plot , a plan to murder him and the Duke of York as they returned to London after horse races in Newmarket . A great fire, however, destroyed Charles's lodgings at Newmarket, which forced him to leave the races early, thus inadvertently avoiding the planned attack. News of the failed plot was leaked. Protestant politicians such as

5184-416: The Exclusion Bill would be passed, and bolstered by some acquittals in the continuing Plot trials, which seemed to him to indicate a more favourable public mood towards Catholicism, Charles dissolved the English Parliament, for a second time that year, in mid-1679. Charles's hopes for a more moderate Parliament were not fulfilled; within a few months he had dissolved Parliament yet again, after it sought to pass

5292-478: The Exclusion Bill. When a new Parliament assembled at Oxford in March 1681, Charles dissolved it for a fourth time after just a few days. During the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill ebbed, and Charles experienced a nationwide surge of loyalty. Lord Shaftesbury was prosecuted (albeit unsuccessfully) for treason in 1681 and later fled to Holland, where he died. For the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled without Parliament. Charles's opposition to

5400-412: The Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy. Monck and his army marched into the City of London , and forced the Rump Parliament to re-admit members of the Long Parliament who had been excluded in December 1648, during Pride's Purge . Parliament dissolved itself, and there was a general election for the first time in almost 20 years. The outgoing Parliament defined

5508-508: The House of Commons failed to view him as a reluctant participant in the scandal, instead believing that he was the author of the policy. To save Danby from the impeachment trial, Charles dissolved the Cavalier Parliament in January 1679. The new English Parliament, which met in March of the same year, was quite hostile to Charles. Many members feared that he had intended to use the standing army to suppress dissent or impose Catholicism. However, with insufficient funds voted by Parliament, Charles

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5616-454: The Indies. Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands of Bombay to the company for a nominal sum of £10 paid in gold. The Portuguese territories that Catherine brought with her as a dowry proved too expensive to maintain; Tangier was abandoned in 1684. In 1670, Charles granted control of the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin to the Hudson's Bay Company by royal charter, and named the territory Rupert's Land , after his cousin Prince Rupert of

5724-426: The Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital in 1673 and, two years later, following concerns over French advances in astronomy, he founded the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. He maintained an interest in chemistry and regularly visited his private laboratory. There, dissections were occasionally carried out, and observed by the king. Pepys noted in his diary that on the morning of Friday, 15 January 1669, while he

5832-440: The Netherlands. In 1670, Charles, seeking to solve his financial troubles, agreed to the Treaty of Dover , under which Louis would pay him £160,000 each year. In exchange, Charles agreed to supply Louis with troops and to announce his conversion to Catholicism "as soon as the welfare of his kingdom will permit". Louis was to provide him with 6,000 troops to suppress those who opposed the conversion. Charles endeavoured to ensure that

5940-428: The Netherlands. Royalist supporters in the Spanish force were led by Charles's younger brother James, Duke of York . At the Battle of the Dunes in 1658, as part of the larger Spanish force, Charles's army of around 2,000 clashed with Commonwealth troops fighting with the French. By the end of the battle Charles's force was about 1,000 and with Dunkirk given to the English the prospect of a Royalist expedition to England

6048-408: The Parliamentarian fleet defected, it did not reach Scotland in time to join up with the Royalist Engager army led by the Duke of Hamilton before it was defeated at Preston by the New Model Army . At The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter , who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married. Her son, James Crofts (afterwards Duke of Monmouth and Duke of Buccleuch ),

6156-439: The Protestant Church of England . The laws' principal victims were members of the Catholic Church , numbering over three quarters of the population in the south, and adherents of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland , a majority of the population in Ulster . These laws included: The laws were eventually repealed, beginning in the 1770s by the 1774 Quebec Act and the Papists Act 1778 . The British Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791

6264-416: The Rhine , the company's first governor. Although previously favourable to the Crown, the Cavalier Parliament was alienated by the king's wars and religious policies during the 1670s. In 1672, Charles issued the Royal Declaration of Indulgence , in which he purported to suspend all penal laws against Catholics and other religious dissenters. In the same year, he openly supported Catholic France and started

6372-451: The Treaty—especially the conversion clause—remained secret. It remains unclear if Charles ever seriously intended to convert. Meanwhile, by a series of five charters, Charles granted the East India Company the rights to autonomous government of its territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command fortresses and troops, to form alliances, to make war and peace, and to exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over its possessions in

6480-402: The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford . In the late 17th and 18th centuries, many non-conformist Protestants successfully evaded the political disabilities imposed by the Test Act by taking communion in the Church of England as required, while otherwise attending non-conformist meetings. High churchmen and Tories , empowered late in Queen Anne 's reign, sought to close this loophole with

6588-405: The act as long as possible, and managed to greatly weaken it by including an exemption for the future James II , effective head of the Catholic nobility, at whom it was largely aimed. In Scotland, a religious test was imposed immediately after the Reformation , and by a 1567 law no one was to be appointed to a public office or to be a notary who did not profess Calvinism . The Scottish Test Act

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6696-550: The case for that being a cause of his death is unproven. In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments, including bloodletting , purging and cupping , in the hope of effecting a recovery, which may have exacerbated his uraemia through dehydration, rather than helping to alleviate it. On his deathbed, Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: "be well to Portsmouth , and let not poor Nelly starve". He told his courtiers, "I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such

6804-495: The cleric John Earle , well known for his satirical book Microcosmographie , with whom he studied Latin and Greek, and Thomas Hobbes , the philosopher and author of Leviathan , with whom he studied mathematics. In France, Charles assisted his childhood friend, the Earl of Buckingham , with his experiments in chemistry and alchemy , with the Earl convinced he was close to producing the philosopher's stone . Although some of Charles's studies, while abroad, may have helped to pass

6912-455: The divine authority of Scripture or to the Confession of Faith, and to do nothing to the prejudice of the Church of Scotland or its doctrines and privileges. All tests were finally abolished by an act of 1889. The necessity of receiving the sacrament as a qualification for office was repealed in Ireland in 1780 and in 1828 in England and Wales . Provisions requiring the taking of oaths and declarations against transubstantiation were repealed by

7020-451: The efforts of the Society members "to weigh air". He seemed unable to grasp the significance of the basic laws of physics being established at that time, including Boyle's Law and Hooke's Law and the concept of atmospheric pressure and the barometer and the importance of air for the support of life. Although Charles lost interest in the activities of the society, he continued to support scientific and commercial endeavours. He founded

7128-490: The eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France . After Charles I's execution at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War , the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth , with a republican government eventually led by Oliver Cromwell . Cromwell defeated Charles II at

7236-474: The electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority. The restrictions against royalist candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in a House of Commons that was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and Parliamentarians and on religious grounds between Anglicans and Presbyterians. The so-called Convention Parliament assembled on 25 April 1660, and soon afterwards welcomed

7344-493: The firefighting effort. The public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire. Since 1640, Portugal had been fighting a war against Spain to restore its independence after a dynastic union of sixty years between the crowns of Spain and Portugal. Portugal had been helped by France, but in the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 Portugal was abandoned by its French ally. Negotiations with Portugal for Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza began during his father's reign and upon

7452-400: The government of £1.2 million, generated largely from customs and excise duties. The grant, however, proved to be insufficient for most of Charles's reign. For the most part, the actual revenue was much lower, which led to attempts to economise at court by reducing the size and expenses of the royal household and raising money through unpopular innovations such as the hearth tax . In

7560-444: The heavens through his new telescope and, in May 1661, Evelyn describes his visit to the Garden, with several other scientists, to view Saturn's rings . Charles also had a laboratory installed, in Whitehall, within easy access to his bedroom. From the beginning of his reign, Charles appointed experts to assist him in his scientific pursuits. These included: Timothy Clarke , a celebrated anatomist, who performed some dissections for

7668-497: The king was so high that he was given access to the royal laboratory to perform his own experiments there. Charles never attended a Society meeting, but he remained aware of the activities there from his discussions with Society members, especially Moray. In addition, Robert Boyle gave him a private viewing of the Boyle/Hooke air-pump , which was used at many of the Wednesday meetings. However, Charles preferred experiments that had an immediate practical outcome and he laughed at

7776-634: The king's Catholic brother, James, acquired greater influence at court. Titus Oates was convicted and imprisoned for defamation. Thus through the last years of Charles's reign, his approach towards his opponents changed, and he was compared by Whigs to the contemporary Louis XIV of France, with his form of government in those years termed "slavery". Many of them were prosecuted and their estates seized, with Charles replacing judges and sheriffs at will and packing juries to achieve conviction. To destroy opposition in London, Charles first disenfranchised many Whigs in

7884-554: The king's chief physician, Harvey accompanied Charles I to the Battle of Edgehill and, although some details are uncertain, he had charge of Prince Charles and the Duke of York in the morning, but the two boys were back with the king for the start of battle. Later in the afternoon, with their father concerned for their safety, the two princes left the battlefield accompanied by Sir W. Howard and his pensioners. During his exile, in France, Charles continued his education, including physics, chemistry and mathematics. His tutors included

7992-469: The king's household. Evelyn visited his laboratory with the king. In addition to his many other interests, the king was fascinated by clock mechanisms and had clocks distributed all around Whitehall, including seven of them in his bedroom. Robert Bruce (later Earl of Ailesbury), a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, complained that the continual noise of the clocks chiming disturbed his sleep, whenever it

8100-464: The king; Robert Morison as his chief botanist (Charles had his own botanical garden); Edmund Dickinson , a chemist and alchemist, who was tasked with carrying out experiments in the king's laboratory; Sir Thomas Williams , who was skillful in compounding and inventing medicines, some of which were prepared in the royal presence; and Nicasius le Febure (or Nicolas LeFevre), who was invited to England as royal professor of chemistry and apothecary to

8208-520: The latter half of 1660, Charles's joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his siblings Henry and Mary of smallpox . At around the same time, Anne Hyde , the daughter of Lord Chancellor Edward Hyde , revealed that she was pregnant by Charles's brother James, whom she had secretly married. Edward Hyde, who had not known of either the marriage or the pregnancy, was created Earl of Clarendon and his position as Charles's favourite minister

8316-637: The more radical Kirk Party , who even fought each other. Disillusioned by these divisions, Charles rode north to join an Engager force in October, an event which became known as "the Start", but within two days members of the Kirk Party had recovered him. Nevertheless, the Scots remained Charles's best hope of restoration, and he was crowned King of Scotland at Scone Abbey on 1 January 1651. With Cromwell's forces threatening Charles's position in Scotland, it

8424-587: The next two years based in the Royalist capital of Oxford . In January 1645, Charles was given his own Council and made titular head of Royalist forces in the West Country . By spring 1646, most of the region had been occupied by Parliamentarian forces and Charles went into exile to avoid capture. From Falmouth , he went first to the Isles of Scilly , then to Jersey , and finally to France, where his mother

8532-776: The passing of the Occasional Conformity Bill in 1711, however the Act was repealed after the Hanoverian Succession with the return to power of the Whig political party , who were generally allied with non-conforming Protestants. This led, as well, to a systematic political purge of both real and suspected Tories. In the wake of the Jacobite Rising of 1715 , the British parliament also passed

8640-484: The possessor of several other associated titles. At or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales , though he was never formally invested. In August 1642, the long-running dispute between Charles I and Parliament culminated in the outbreak of the First English Civil War . In October, Prince Charles and his younger brother James were present at the Battle of Edgehill and spent

8748-570: The reign of Charles II , especially the laws known as the Clarendon Code and the Test Act . The four penal laws collectively known as Clarendon Code are named after Charles II's chief minister Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon , though Clarendon was neither their author nor fully in favour of them. These included: Combined with the Test Act 1673 , the Corporation Act 1661 excluded all nonconformists from holding civil or military office, and prevented them from being awarded degrees by

8856-538: The remainder of Charles's reign. The Acts became known as the Clarendon Code , after Lord Clarendon, even though he was not directly responsible for them and even spoke against the Five Mile Act. The Restoration was accompanied by social change. Puritanism lost its momentum. Theatres reopened after having been closed during the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell, and bawdy " Restoration comedy " became

8964-636: The restoration, Queen Luísa of Portugal , acting as regent, reopened negotiations with England that resulted in an alliance. On 23 June 1661, a marriage treaty was signed; England acquired Catherine's dowry of the port of Tangier in North Africa, the Seven Islands of Bombay in India (which had a major influence on the development of the British Empire ), valuable trading privileges in Brazil and

9072-564: The sacrament of the Lord's Supper . It was not, however, until the reign of Charles II that actually receiving communion in the Church of England was made a precondition for holding public office . The earliest imposition of this test was by the Corporation Act 1661 requiring that, besides taking the Oath of Supremacy , all members of corporations were, within one year after election, to receive

9180-434: The sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Church of England. The Corporation Act 1661 was followed by the Test Act 1673 ( 25 Cha. 2 . c. 2) (the long title of which is "An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants"). This act enforced upon all persons filling any office, civil, military or religious, the obligation of taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and subscribing to

9288-476: The severe penalties pronounced against recusants , whether Catholic or nonconformist, were affirmations of this principle. Although theoretically encompassing all who refuse to comply with Anglicanism in a dragnet approach, in practice the nonconformist Protestants had many defenders in Parliament and were often exempted from some of these laws through the regular passage of Acts of Indemnity : in particular,

9396-618: The terms of a treaty agreed between him and the Scots Parliament at Breda , and support the Solemn League and Covenant , which authorised Presbyterian church governance across Britain. Upon his arrival in Scotland on 23 June 1650, he formally agreed to the Covenant; his abandonment of Episcopal church governance, although winning him support in Scotland, left him unpopular in England. Charles himself soon came to despise

9504-622: The throne, and soon after repealed the religious legislation of her brother and father, Henry VIII , through the First Statute of Repeal ( 1 Mar. Sess. 2 . c. 2). Restoring England, Wales and Ireland to the Roman Catholic Church. An English inquisition was established to identify, exile, convert, or prosecute non-conforming Catholics, with over 300 Protestant dissenters branded heretics, and killed, and many more exiled in her five-year reign. A list of Protestant martyrs of

9612-506: The time, on his return to England he was already knowledgeable in the mathematics of navigation and was a competent chemist. Such was his knowledge of naval architecture that he was able to participate in technical discussions on the subject with Samuel Pepys , William Petty and John Evelyn . The new concepts and discoveries being found at this time fascinated Charles, not only in science and medicine, but in topics such as botany and gardening. A French traveller, Sorbier, while visiting

9720-582: The winter, and Charles returned to London in February 1666. After a long spell of hot and dry weather through mid-1666, the Great Fire of London started on 2 September 1666 in Pudding Lane . Fanned by strong winds and fed by wood and fuel stockpiled for winter, the fire destroyed about 13,200 houses and 87 churches, including St Paul's Cathedral . Charles and his brother James joined and directed

9828-544: Was a reward of £1,000 on his head, anyone caught helping him was at risk of being put to death, and he was difficult to disguise, being over 6 ft (1.8 m), which was unusually tall for the time. Under the Instrument of Government passed by Parliament, Cromwell was appointed Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, effectively placing the British Isles under military rule. Charles lived

9936-604: Was already living under the protection of his first cousin, the eight-year-old Louis XIV . Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646. During the Second English Civil War in 1648, Charles moved to The Hague , where his sister Mary and his brother-in-law William II, Prince of Orange , seemed more likely to provide substantial aid to the Royalist cause than his mother's French relations. Although part of

10044-488: Was dashed. After the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, Charles's initial chances of regaining the Crown seemed slim; Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard . However, the new Lord Protector had little experience of either military or civil administration. In 1659, the Rump Parliament was recalled and Richard Cromwell resigned. During the civil and military unrest that followed, George Monck ,

10152-556: Was decided to mount an attack on England, but many of their most experienced soldiers had been excluded on religious grounds by the Kirk Party, whose leaders also refused to participate, among them Lord Argyll . Opposition to what was primarily a Scottish army meant few English Royalists joined as it moved south, and the invasion ended in defeat at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. Charles managed to escape and landed in Normandy six weeks later on 16 October, even though there

10260-540: Was followed in Ireland in 1793. Finally in 1829 Catholic emancipation was enacted, largely due to Irish political agitation organised under Daniel O'Connell in the 1820s. Sectarianism between Catholics and Protestants persisted through the 20th century, and its effects can still be seen, particularly in Northern Ireland , today. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in

10368-427: Was forced to gradually disband his troops. Having lost the support of Parliament, Danby resigned his post of Lord High Treasurer , but received a pardon from the king. In defiance of the royal will, the House of Commons declared that the dissolution of Parliament did not interrupt impeachment proceedings, and that the pardon was therefore invalid. When the House of Lords attempted to impose the punishment of exile—which

10476-413: Was impeached by the House of Commons on the charge of high treason . Although much of the nation had sought war with Catholic France, Charles had secretly negotiated with Louis XIV, trying to reach an agreement under which England would remain neutral in return for money. Danby had publicly professed that he was hostile to France, but had reservedly agreed to abide by Charles's wishes. Unfortunately for him,

10584-470: Was necessary for him to stay close by to the king. Also, Charles had a sundial installed in the Privy Garden, by which he could set his personal pocket watch . (For a while, the king personally recorded the performance of the latest spring-balance watch, presented to him by Robert Hooke . ) In 1662, Charles was pleased to grant a royal charter to a group of scientists and others who had established

10692-671: Was one of Charles's many illegitimate children who became prominent in British society. Despite his son's diplomatic efforts to save him, the execution of Charles I took place in January 1649, and England became a republic . On 5 February, the Covenanter Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II as "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland" at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh , but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he agreed to establish Presbyterianism as

10800-424: Was particularly interested in alchemy, which he had first encountered many years earlier, during his exile with the Duke of Buckingham. Charles resumed his experiments with mercury and would spend whole mornings attempting to distill it. Heating mercury in an open crucible releases mercury vapour, which is toxic and may have contributed to his later ill health. Charles faced a political storm over his brother James,

10908-632: Was passed in 1681 but rescinded in 1690. Later attempts to exclude Scotland from the English Test Acts were rejected by the Parliament of Scotland . In 1707, anyone bearing office in any university, college or school in Scotland was to profess and subscribe to the Confession of Faith . All persons were to be free of any oath or test contrary to or inconsistent with the Protestant religion and Presbyterian Church government. The reception of

11016-557: Was passed in the parliamentary session that began on 4 February 1673 ( Gregorian calendar ). The act is, however, dated 1672 in some accounts due to the Julian calendar then in force in England. One of the immediate reasons that the "Country Party" (proto-Whigs) in Parliament pushed for this was to break up the Cabal ministry — members of the Court Party of powerful statement under Charles II , who had divergent religious interests —

11124-434: Was received in London to public acclaim. After 1660, all legal documents stating a regnal year did so as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. Charles's English Parliament enacted the Clarendon Code , to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England . Charles acquiesced to these new laws even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance . The major foreign policy issue of his early reign

11232-591: Was strengthened. The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660, and, shortly after Charles's English coronation , the second English Parliament of the reign assembled. Dubbed the Cavalier Parliament , it was overwhelmingly Royalist and Anglican. It sought to discourage non-conformity to the Church of England and passed several acts to secure Anglican dominance. The Corporation Act 1661 required municipal officeholders to swear allegiance;

11340-525: Was the Second Anglo-Dutch War . In 1670, he entered into the Treaty of Dover , an alliance with his cousin, King Louis XIV of France . Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, and Charles secretly promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence , but

11448-722: Was their second child (the first being a son born about a year before, who had died within a day). He was baptised on 27 June in the Chapel Royal by William Laud , a future archbishop of Canterbury , and during his infancy was supervised by the Protestant Countess of Dorset . His godparents included his maternal uncle Louis XIII and maternal grandmother, Marie de' Medici , the Dowager Queen of France, both of whom were Catholics. At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay , and

11556-579: Was unable to produce an heir; her four pregnancies had ended in miscarriages and stillbirths in 1662, February 1666, May 1668, and June 1669. Charles's heir presumptive was therefore his unpopular Catholic brother, James, Duke of York. Partly to assuage public fears that the royal family was too Catholic, Charles agreed that James's daughter, Mary , should marry the Protestant William of Orange . In 1678, Titus Oates , who had been alternately an Anglican and Jesuit priest, falsely warned of

11664-422: Was walking to Whitehall, he met the king who invited him to view his chemistry laboratory. Pepys confessed to finding what he saw there beyond him. Charles developed painful gout in later life which limited the daily walks that he took regularly when younger. His keenness was now channelled to his laboratory where he would devote himself to his experiments, for hours at a time, sometimes helped by Moray. Charles

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