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Charles II of England

Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685)[c] 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
Charles in Garter robes by John Michael Wright or studio, c. 1660–1665
King of England, Scotland and Ireland
Reign29 May 1660[a]
6 February 1685
Coronation23 April 1661
PredecessorCharles I (1649)
SuccessorJames II & VII
King of Scotland
Reign30 January 1649 –
3 September 1651[b]
Coronation1 January 1651
PredecessorCharles I
SuccessorMilitary government
Born29 May 1630
(N.S.: 8 June 1630)
St James's Palace, London, England
Died6 February 1685 (aged 54)
(N.S.: 16 February 1685)
Whitehall Palace, London, England
Burial14 February 1685
Westminster Abbey, London, England
Spouse
(m. 1662)
Illegitimate children
detail...
HouseStuart
FatherCharles I of England
MotherHenrietta Maria of France
Signature

Charles II was 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. But England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. The political crisis that followed Cromwell's death in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he 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 laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his early reign 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 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 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.

Traditionally considered one of the most popular English kings,[1] Charles is known as the Merry Monarch, a reference to the liveliness and hedonism of his court. He acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses, but left no legitimate children and was succeeded by his brother, James.

Early life, civil war and exile

 
Charles II as an infant in 1630, painting attributed to Justus van Egmont

Charles II 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 was their second child, the first being a son born about a year before who died within a day.[2] 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.[3] At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, along with several other associated titles. At or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested.[2]

In August 1642, the long-running dispute between his father and Parliament culminated in the outbreak of the First English Civil War. In October, Charles and his younger brother James were present at the Battle of Edgehill and spent the next two years based in the Royalist capital of Oxford. In January 1645, he was given his own Council and made titular head of Royalist forces in the West Country.[4] 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 was already living under the protection of his first cousin, the eight-year-old Louis XIV.[5] 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.[6] Although part of 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.[7]

 
Portrait by William Dobson, c. 1642 or 1643

At The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter, who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married.[8] Her son, James Crofts (afterwards Duke of Monmouth and Duke of Buccleuch), was one of Charles's many illegitimate children who became prominent in British society.[2] 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 "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland" at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh,[9] but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he agreed to establish Presbyterianism as 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 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 the "villainy" and "hypocrisy" of the Covenanters.[10] Charles was provided with a Scottish court, and the record of his food and household expenses at Falkland Palace and Perth survives.[11]

 
Cast gold coronation medal of Charles II, dated 1651

His coronation led to the Anglo-Scottish war (1650–1652) and 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 the more radical Kirk Party, who even fought each other. Disillusioned by these divisions, in October Charles rode north to join an Engager force, an event which became known as "the Start", but within two days members of the Kirk Party had recovered him.[12] 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 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 after six weeks landed in Normandy on 16 October, despite a reward of £1,000 on his head, risk of death for anyone caught helping him and the difficulty in disguising Charles, who, at over 6 ft (1.8 m), was unusually tall for the time.[13][d]

 
Charles in exile, painted by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1653

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 a life of leisure at Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris,[15] living on a grant from Louis XIV of 600 livres a month.[16] 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 for aid to Spain, which at that time ruled the Southern Netherlands.[17]

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.[18] The Commonwealth made the Treaty of Paris with France in 1657 to join them in war against Spain in the Netherlands. Royalist supporters in the Spanish force were led by Charles's younger brother James, Duke of York.[19] 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 was dashed.[20]

Restoration

After the death of 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 resigned. During the civil and military unrest that followed, George Monck, the Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy.[21] 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.[22] The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority.[23]

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.[23] The new so-called Convention Parliament assembled on 25 April 1660, and soon afterwards welcomed 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.[24] The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at Breda on 8 May 1660.[25] 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.[26]

 
Charles sailed from his exile in the Netherlands to his restoration in England in May 1660. Painting by Lieve Verschuier.

He 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 the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, 50 people were specifically excluded.[27] In the end nine of the regicides were executed:[28] they were hanged, drawn and quartered, whereas others were given life imprisonment or simply excluded from office for life. The bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were subjected to the indignity of posthumous decapitations.[29]

The English Parliament granted him an annual income to run the government of £1.2 million,[30] 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[30] and raise money through unpopular innovations such as the hearth tax.[26]

In the latter half of 1660, Charles's joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his youngest brother, Henry, and sister, Mary, of smallpox. At around the same time, Anne Hyde, the daughter of the 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 was strengthened.[31]

Clarendon Code

 
Coronation portrait: Charles was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661.[32]

The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660, and, shortly after the 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;[33] the Act of Uniformity 1662 made the use of the Anglican 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 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.[34]

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 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;[35] and Restoration literature celebrated or reacted to the restored court, which included libertines such as John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. Of Charles II, Wilmot supposedly said:

We have a pretty, witty king,
Whose word no man relies on,
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one[36]

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".[37]

Great Plague and Great Fire

In 1665, the Great Plague of London began, peaking in September with up to 7,000 deaths per week.[38] Charles, his family, and the court fled London in July to Salisbury; Parliament met in Oxford.[39] Plague cases ebbed over the winter, and Charles returned to London in February 1666.[40]

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.[41] Charles and his brother James joined and directed the firefighting effort. The public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire.[42]

Foreign policy and marriage

 
Dutch engraving of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza

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 the restoration, Queen Luísa of Portugal, acting as regent, reopened negotiations with England that resulted in an alliance.[43] On 23 June 1661, a marriage treaty was signed; England acquired Catherine's dowry of Tangier (in North Africa) and the Seven Islands of Bombay (the latter having a major influence on the development of the British Empire in India), together with trading privileges in Brazil and the East Indies, religious and commercial freedom in Portugal and two million Portuguese crowns (about £300,000); while Portugal obtained military and naval support against Spain and liberty of worship for Catherine.[44] Catherine journeyed from Portugal to Portsmouth on 13–14 May 1662,[44] 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 a public Anglican service.[44]

The same year, in an unpopular move, Charles sold Dunkirk to his first cousin King Louis XIV of France for about £375,000.[45] The channel port, although a valuable strategic outpost, was a drain on Charles's limited finances.[e]

 
Charles II in profile on a medal struck in 1667 by John Roettier to commemorate the Second Dutch War

Before Charles's restoration, the Navigation Acts of 1650 had hurt Dutch trade by giving English vessels a monopoly, and had started 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.[47] 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 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.[f] The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of 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.[48] 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 CabalClifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) and Lauderdale. In fact, 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.[49]

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 the Netherlands. In 1670, Charles, seeking to solve his financial troubles, agreed to the Treaty of Dover, under which Louis XIV 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".[50] Louis was to provide him with 6,000 troops to suppress those who opposed the conversion. Charles endeavoured to ensure that the Treaty—especially the conversion clause—remained secret.[51] It remains unclear if Charles ever seriously intended to convert.[52]

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 the Indies.[53] Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands of Bombay to the company for a nominal sum of £10 paid in gold.[54] The Portuguese territories that Catherine brought with her as a dowry proved too expensive to maintain; Tangier was abandoned in 1684.[55] 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 the Rhine, the company's first governor.[56]

Conflict with Parliament

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 the Third Anglo-Dutch War.[57]

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,[58] but also later forced them to denounce transubstantiation and the Catholic Mass as "superstitious and idolatrous".[59] 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, as did opposition towards him and the court. Politicians and peers believed that Charles II favoured a pro-French foreign policy that desired to emulate the absolutist (and Catholic) sovereignty of Louis XIV. In numerous pamphlets and parliamentary speeches between 1675 and 1678, "popery and arbitrary government" were decried for fear of the loss of English liberties and freedoms.[60]

 
Charles was presented with the first pineapple grown in England in 1675. Painting by Hendrick Danckerts.

Charles's wife Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir; her four pregnancies had ended in miscarriages and stillbirths in 1662, February 1666, May 1668, and June 1669.[2] 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.[61] In 1678, Titus Oates, who had been alternately an Anglican and Jesuit priest, falsely warned of 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.[62] The people were seized with an anti-Catholic hysteria;[63] judges and juries across the land condemned the supposed conspirators; numerous innocent individuals were executed.[64]

Later in 1678, Danby 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, 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.[65]

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 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 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.[66]

Science

 
Portrait by John Riley, c. 1683–1684

In Charles's early childhood, William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, was governor of the royal household and Brian Duppa, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was his tutor.[67] Neither man thought that the study of science subjects was appropriate for a future king,[68] and Newcastle even advised against studying any subject too seriously.[69] However, as Charles grew older, the renowned surgeon William Harvey was appointed his tutor.[67][70] 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 the king's chief physician, Harvey accompanied Charles I to the Battle of Edgehill and, although some details are uncertain,[71][72] he had charge of Prince Charles and the Duke of York in the morning[73] but the two boys were back with the king for the start of battle.[74]: 79 [75] 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.[74]: 130 

During his exile, in France, Charles continued his education, including physics, chemistry and mathematics.[76] His tutors included 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.[77] In France, Charles assisted his childhood friend, the Earl of Buckingham, with his experiments in chemistry and alchemy,[78][79]: 27  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 the time,[80] on his return to England he was already knowledgeable in the mathematics of navigation and was a competent chemist.[81] 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.[82]

The new concepts and discoveries being found at this time fascinated Charles,[83] not only in science and medicine, but in topics such as botany and gardening.[70]: 18 [84] A French traveller, Sorbier, while visiting the English court, was astonished by the extent of the king's knowledge.[85] As king, Charles now 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.[86] 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.[87] The king would invite his friends and acquaintances to view 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.[88] Charles also had a laboratory installed, in Whitehall, with easy access to his bedroom.[89][87][90] There, he carried out experiments of his own,[91]: 149  or observed those carried out by his staff.[92]

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 the king;[93] Robert Morison as his chief botanist (Charles had his own botanical garden);[84] Edmund Dickinson, a chemist and alchemist, who was tasked with carrying out experiments in the king's laboratory;[94] Sir Thomas Williams, who was skillful in compounding and inventing medicines, some of which were prepared in the royal presence;[95] and Nicasius le Febure (or Nicolas LeFevre), who was invited to England as royal professor of chemistry and apothecary to the king's household,[96] (Evelyn records visiting his laboratory with the king).[97]

In addition to his many other interests, the king was fascinated by clock mechanisms[70]: 20  and had clocks distributed all around Whitehall, including seven of them in his bedroom.[98] Robert Bruce (later to become the Earl of Ailesbury), a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, complained that the continual noise of the clocks chiming disturbed his sleep, whenever it was necessary for him to stay close by to the king.[99] Also, Charles had a sundial installed in the Privy Garden,[100] by which he could set his personal pocket watch.[101] (For a while, the king personally recorded the performance of the latest spring-balance watch, presented to him by Robert Hooke.[102])

In 1662, Charles was pleased to grant a royal charter to a group of scientists and others who had established a formal society in 1660 to give a more academic and learned approach to science and to conduct experiments in physics and mathematics.[90][103] 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,[104] and his standing with the king was so high that he was given access to the royal laboratory to perform his own experiments there.[105]

Charles never attended a Society meeting,[106] but he remained aware of the activities there from his discussions with Society members, especially Morey.[100] In addition, Robert Boyle gave him a private viewing of the Boyle/Hooke air-pump,[107][108] which was used at many of the Wednesday meetings. However, Charles preferred experiments which had an immediate practical outcome[101] and he laughed at the efforts of the Society members "to weigh air".[109] 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[107] and the barometer[110] and the importance of air for the support of life.[108]

Although Charles lost interest in the activities of the society, he continued to support scientific and commercial endeavours. He founded 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.[111] He maintained an interest in chemistry and regularly visited his private laboratory.[87][90] There, dissections were occasionally carried out, and observed by the king.[98] Pepys noted in his diary that on the morning of Friday, 15 January 1669, while he 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.[112]

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,[113][114] sometimes helped by Moray.[115] Charles 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.[116][117]

Later years

Charles faced a political storm over his brother James, a Catholic, being next in line to the throne. The prospect of a Catholic monarch was vehemently opposed by the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (previously Baron Ashley and a 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 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).[118]

Absolute monarch

Fearing that 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 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.[119] 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.[120]

Charles's opposition to 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.[121] Protestant politicians such as 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 the king's Catholic brother, James, acquired greater influence at court.[122] Titus Oates was convicted and imprisoned for defamation.[123]

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 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.[124]

Death

Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of 2 February 1685, and died aged 54 at 11:45 am, four days later, at the Palace of Whitehall.[125] The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors; however, 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).[126] 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 the case for this being a cause of his death is unproven.[127] In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments including bloodletting, purging and cupping in hopes of effecting a recovery,[128] which may have exacerbated his uraemia through dehydration instead of helping alleviate it.[129]

On his deathbed Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: "be well to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve".[130] He told his courtiers, "I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying",[131] and expressed regret at his treatment of his wife. On the last evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church in the presence of Father John Huddleston, though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea originated, is unclear.[132] He was buried in Westminster Abbey "without any manner of pomp"[131] on 14 February.[133]

Charles was succeeded by his brother James II and VII.

Legacy

 
Statue of Charles II as a Roman Caesar, erected 1685, Parliament Square, Edinburgh

The escapades of Charles after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester remained important to him throughout his life. He delighted and bored listeners with tales of his escape for many years. Numerous accounts of his adventures were published, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Restoration. Though not averse to his escape being ascribed to divine providence, Charles himself seems to have delighted most in his ability to sustain his disguise as a man of ordinary origins, and to move unrecognised through his realm. Ironic and cynical, Charles took pleasure in retailing stories which demonstrated the undetectable nature of any inherent majesty he possessed.[134]

Charles had no legitimate children, but acknowledged a dozen by seven mistresses,[135] including five by Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, for whom the Dukedom of Cleveland was created. His other mistresses included Moll Davis, Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Killigrew, Catherine Pegge, Lucy Walter and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. As a result, in his lifetime he was often nicknamed "Old Rowley", the name of his favourite racehorse, notable as a stallion.[136]

His subjects resented paying taxes that were spent on his mistresses and their children,[137] many of whom received dukedoms or earldoms. The present Dukes of Buccleuch, Richmond, Grafton and St Albans descend from Charles in unbroken male line.[138] Diana, Princess of Wales, was descended from two of Charles's illegitimate sons: the Dukes of Grafton and Richmond. Diana's son, William, Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne, is likely to be the first British monarch descended from Charles II.

Charles's eldest son, the Duke of Monmouth, led a rebellion against James II, but was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685, captured and executed. James was eventually dethroned in 1688, in the course of the Glorious Revolution.

 
Statue of Charles II (c. 1682) in ancient Roman dress by Grinling Gibbons at the Royal Hospital Chelsea

In the words of his contemporary John Evelyn, "a prince of many virtues and many great imperfections, debonair, easy of access, not bloody or cruel".[139] John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, wrote more lewdly of Charles:

Restless he rolls from whore to whore
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.[140]

Looking back on Charles's reign, Tories tended to view it as a time of benevolent monarchy whereas Whigs perceived it as a terrible despotism. Professor Ronald Hutton summarises a polarised historiography:

For the past hundred years, books on Charles II have been sharply divided into two categories. Academic historians have concentrated mainly on his activities as a statesman and emphasised his duplicity, self-indulgence, poor judgement and lack of an aptitude for business or for stable and trustworthy government. Non-academic authors have concentrated mainly on his social and cultural world, emphasising his charm, affability, worldliness, tolerance, turning him into one of the most popular of all English monarchs in novels, plays and films.[141]

Hutton says Charles was a popular king in his own day and a "legendary figure" in British history.

Other kings had inspired more respect, but perhaps only Henry VIII had endeared himself to the popular imagination as much as this one. He was the playboy monarch, naughty but nice, the hero of all who prized urbanity, tolerance, good humour, and the pursuit of pleasure above the more earnest, sober, or material virtues.[142]

The anniversary of the Restoration (which was also Charles's birthday)—29 May—was recognised in England until the mid-nineteenth century as Oak Apple Day, after the Royal Oak in which Charles hid during his escape from the forces of Oliver Cromwell. Traditional celebrations involved the wearing of oak leaves but these have now died out.[143] Charles II is depicted extensively in art, literature and media. Charleston, South Carolina, and South Kingstown, Rhode Island, are named after him.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

The official style of Charles II was "Charles the Second, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc."[144] The claim to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English monarch since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled.

Honours

Arms

Charles's coat of arms as Prince of Wales was the royal arms (which he later inherited), differenced by a label of three points Argent.[145] His arms as monarch were: Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland).

 
 
 
Coat of arms as Prince of Wales
Coat of arms of Charles II as king (outside Scotland)
Coat of arms of Charles II used as king in Scotland

Issue

By Lucy Walter (c. 1630 – 1658):

  • James Crofts, later Scott (1649–1685), created Duke of Monmouth (1663) in England and Duke of Buccleuch (1663) in Scotland. Monmouth was born nine months after Walter and Charles II first met, and was acknowledged as his son by Charles II, but James II suggested that he was the son of another of her lovers, Colonel Robert Sidney, rather than Charles. Lucy Walter had a daughter, Mary Crofts, born after James in 1651, but Charles II was not the father, since he and Walter parted in September 1649.[2]

By Elizabeth Killigrew (1622–1680), daughter of Sir Robert Killigrew, married Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon, in 1660:

By Catherine Pegge:

By Barbara Villiers (1641–1709), wife of Roger Palmer, 1st Earl of Castlemaine, and created Duchess of Cleveland in her own right:

By Nell Gwyn (1650–1687):

By Louise Renée de Penancoet de Kérouaille (1649–1734), created Duchess of Portsmouth in her own right (1673):

By Mary 'Moll' Davis, courtesan and actress of repute:[150]

Other probable mistresses include:

Letters claiming that Marguerite or Margaret de Carteret bore Charles a son named James de la Cloche in 1646 are dismissed by historians as forgeries.[156]

Genealogical table

The House of Stuart and their relations[157]
James I of England
1566–1625
Anne of Denmark
1574–1619
Henry IV of France
1553–1610
Marie de' Medici
1575–1642
Elizabeth
1596–1662
Charles I of England
1600–1649
Henrietta Maria of France
1609–1669
Louis XIII of France
1601–1643
Rupert of the Rhine
1619–1682
Sophia of Hanover
1630–1714
Charles II of England
1630–1685
Mary
1631–1660
William II of Orange
1626–1650
Anne Hyde
1637–1671
James II of England
1633–1701
Mary of Modena
1658–1718
Henrietta
1644–1670
Philip I of Orléans
1640–1701
Louis XIV of France
1638–1715
George I of Great Britain
1660–1727
William III of England
1650–1702
Mary II of England
1662–1694
Anne of Great Britain
1665–1714
James Francis Edward
1688–1766
Marie Louise of Orléans
1662–1689
Anne Marie of Orléans
1669–1728

Notes

  1. ^ The traditional date of the Restoration marking the first assembly of King and Parliament together since the abolition of the English monarchy in 1649. The English Parliament recognised Charles as king by unanimous vote on 2 May 1660, and he was proclaimed king in London on 8 May, although royalists had recognised him as such since the execution of his father on 30 January 1649. During Charles's reign all legal documents stating a regnal year did so as if his reign began at his father's death.
  2. ^ From the death of his father to his defeat at the Battle of Worcester
  3. ^ All dates in this article unless otherwise noted are given in the Julian calendar with the start of year adjusted to 1 January (see Old Style and New Style dates).
  4. ^ One thousand pounds was a vast sum at the time, greater than an average workman's lifetime earnings.[14]
  5. ^ It cost the Treasury £321,000 per year.[46]
  6. ^ The ship's transom is on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

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  • The Royal Household (2009). Charles II (r. 1660–1685). Official website of the British Monarchy. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
  • Uglow, Jenny (2009). A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game. Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-21733-5.
  • Weber, Harold (1988). Representations of the King: Charles II and His Escape from Worcester. Studies in Philology. Vol. 85. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 489–509.
  • Weir, Alison (1996). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy (Revised ed.). Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7448-9.
  • Wynne, S. M. (2004), "Catherine (1638–1705)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4894 (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Further reading

  • Edie, Carolyn (1965), "Succession and Monarchy: The Controversy of 1679–1681", American Historical Review, 70 (2): 350–370, doi:10.2307/1845634, JSTOR 1845634
  • Hanrahan, David C. (2006), Charles II and the Duke of Buckingham: The Merry Monarch and the Aristocratic Rogue, Stroud: Sutton, ISBN 0-7509-3916-8
  • Harris, Tim (2005), Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms, 1660–1685, London: Allen Lane, ISBN 0-7139-9191-7
  • Keay, Anna (2008), The Magnificent Monarch: Charles II and the Ceremonies of Power, London: Hambledon Continuum, ISBN 978-1-84725-225-8
  • Kenyon, J. P. (1957), "Review Article: The Reign of Charles II", Cambridge Historical Journal, XIII: 82–86, doi:10.1017/S1474691300000068
  • Miller, John (1985), Restoration England: The Reign of Charles II, London: Longman, ISBN 0-582-35396-3
  • Ogg, David (1934), England in the Reign of Charles II, Oxford University Press
  • Ollard, Richard (1966), The Escape of Charles II After the Battle of Worcester, London: Hodder & Stoughton
  • Ollard, Richard (1979), The Image of the King: Charles I and Charles II, London: Hodder & Stoughton
  • Pepys, Samuel (1956), King Charles Preserved: An Account of his Escape after the Battle of Worcester dictated by the King Himself to Samuel Pepys, Emmaus, Pennsylvania: The Rodale Press. Dictated in 1680.
  • Wilson, Derek (2003), All The King's Women: Love, Sex and Politics in the Life of Charles II, London: Hutchinson, ISBN 0-09-179379-3
  • Yorke, Philip Chesney (1911). "Charles II." . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 912–916.

External links

  •   Quotations related to Charles II of England at Wikiquote
  •   Works by or about Charles II of England at Wikisource
Charles II of England
Born: 29 May 1630 Died: 6 February 1685
Regnal titles
Preceded by King of Scotland
1649–1651
Vacant
Military government
Vacant
Title last held by
Charles I
King of England and Ireland
1660–1685
Succeeded by
Vacant
Military government
King of Scotland
1660–1685
British royalty
Vacant
Title last held by
Charles
Duke of Cornwall
Duke of Rothesay

1630–1649
Vacant
Title next held by
James Francis Edward
Prince of Wales
1638–1649

charles, england, charles, 1630, february, 1685, king, scotland, from, 1649, until, 1651, king, england, scotland, ireland, from, 1660, restoration, monarchy, until, death, 1685, charles, iicharles, garter, robes, john, michael, wright, studio, 1660, 1665king,. Charles II 29 May 1630 6 February 1685 c 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 IICharles in Garter robes by John Michael Wright or studio c 1660 1665King of England Scotland and Ireland more Reign29 May 1660 a 6 February 1685Coronation23 April 1661PredecessorCharles I 1649 SuccessorJames II amp VIIKing of ScotlandReign30 January 1649 3 September 1651 b Coronation1 January 1651PredecessorCharles ISuccessorMilitary governmentBorn29 May 1630 N S 8 June 1630 St James s Palace London EnglandDied6 February 1685 aged 54 N S 16 February 1685 Whitehall Palace London EnglandBurial14 February 1685Westminster Abbey London EnglandSpouseCatherine of Braganza m 1662 wbr Illegitimate childrendetail James Scott 1st Duke of Monmouth Charlotte FitzRoy Countess of Yarmouth Charles FitzCharles 1st Earl of Plymouth Catherine FitzCharles Charles FitzRoy 2nd Duke of Cleveland Henry FitzRoy 1st Duke of Grafton Charlotte Lee Countess of Lichfield George FitzRoy 1st Duke of Northumberland Charles Beauclerk 1st Duke of St Albans Charles Lennox 1st Duke of Richmond Lady Mary TudorHouseStuartFatherCharles I of EnglandMotherHenrietta Maria of FranceSignatureCharles II was 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 But England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth and the country was a de facto republic led by Oliver Cromwell Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651 and Charles fled to mainland Europe Cromwell became virtual dictator of England Scotland and Ireland Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands The political crisis that followed Cromwell s death in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy and Charles was invited to return to Britain On 29 May 1660 his 30th birthday he 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 laws known as the Clarendon Code designed to shore up the position of the re established Church of England Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance The major foreign policy issue of his early reign 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 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 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 Traditionally considered one of the most popular English kings 1 Charles is known as the Merry Monarch a reference to the liveliness and hedonism of his court He acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses but left no legitimate children and was succeeded by his brother James Contents 1 Early life civil war and exile 2 Restoration 2 1 Clarendon Code 2 2 Great Plague and Great Fire 3 Foreign policy and marriage 4 Conflict with Parliament 5 Science 6 Later years 6 1 Absolute monarch 6 2 Death 7 Legacy 8 Titles styles honours and arms 8 1 Titles and styles 8 2 Honours 8 3 Arms 9 Issue 10 Genealogical table 11 Notes 12 References 13 Bibliography 14 Further reading 15 External linksEarly life civil war and exile Edit Charles II as an infant in 1630 painting attributed to Justus van Egmont Charles II 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 was their second child the first being a son born about a year before who died within a day 2 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 3 At birth Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay along with several other associated titles At or around his eighth birthday he was designated Prince of Wales though he was never formally invested 2 In August 1642 the long running dispute between his father and Parliament culminated in the outbreak of the First English Civil War In October Charles and his younger brother James were present at the Battle of Edgehill and spent the next two years based in the Royalist capital of Oxford In January 1645 he was given his own Council and made titular head of Royalist forces in the West Country 4 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 was already living under the protection of his first cousin the eight year old Louis XIV 5 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 6 Although part of 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 7 Portrait by William Dobson c 1642 or 1643 At The Hague Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married 8 Her son James Crofts afterwards Duke of Monmouth and Duke of Buccleuch was one of Charles s many illegitimate children who became prominent in British society 2 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 King of Great Britain France and Ireland at the Mercat Cross Edinburgh 9 but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he agreed to establish Presbyterianism as 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 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 the villainy and hypocrisy of the Covenanters 10 Charles was provided with a Scottish court and the record of his food and household expenses at Falkland Palace and Perth survives 11 Cast gold coronation medal of Charles II dated 1651 His coronation led to the Anglo Scottish war 1650 1652 and 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 the more radical Kirk Party who even fought each other Disillusioned by these divisions in October Charles rode north to join an Engager force an event which became known as the Start but within two days members of the Kirk Party had recovered him 12 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 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 after six weeks landed in Normandy on 16 October despite a reward of 1 000 on his head risk of death for anyone caught helping him and the difficulty in disguising Charles who at over 6 ft 1 8 m was unusually tall for the time 13 d Charles in exile painted by Philippe de Champaigne c 1653 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 a life of leisure at Saint Germain en Laye near Paris 15 living on a grant from Louis XIV of 600 livres a month 16 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 for aid to Spain which at that time ruled the Southern Netherlands 17 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 18 The Commonwealth made the Treaty of Paris with France in 1657 to join them in war against Spain in the Netherlands Royalist supporters in the Spanish force were led by Charles s younger brother James Duke of York 19 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 was dashed 20 Restoration EditFurther information Restoration 1660 After the death of 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 resigned During the civil and military unrest that followed George Monck the Governor of Scotland was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy 21 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 22 The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority 23 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 23 The new so called Convention Parliament assembled on 25 April 1660 and soon afterwards welcomed 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 24 The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return a message that reached Charles at Breda on 8 May 1660 25 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 26 Charles sailed from his exile in the Netherlands to his restoration in England in May 1660 Painting by Lieve Verschuier He 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 the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion 50 people were specifically excluded 27 In the end nine of the regicides were executed 28 they were hanged drawn and quartered whereas others were given life imprisonment or simply excluded from office for life The bodies of Oliver Cromwell Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were subjected to the indignity of posthumous decapitations 29 The English Parliament granted him an annual income to run the government of 1 2 million 30 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 30 and raise money through unpopular innovations such as the hearth tax 26 In the latter half of 1660 Charles s joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his youngest brother Henry and sister Mary of smallpox At around the same time Anne Hyde the daughter of the 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 was strengthened 31 Clarendon Code Edit Coronation portrait Charles was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661 32 The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660 and shortly after the 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 33 the Act of Uniformity 1662 made the use of the Anglican 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 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 34 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 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 35 and Restoration literature celebrated or reacted to the restored court which included libertines such as John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester Of Charles II Wilmot supposedly said We have a pretty witty king Whose word no man relies on He never said a foolish thing And never did a wise one 36 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 37 Great Plague and Great Fire Edit In 1665 the Great Plague of London began peaking in September with up to 7 000 deaths per week 38 Charles his family and the court fled London in July to Salisbury Parliament met in Oxford 39 Plague cases ebbed over the winter and Charles returned to London in February 1666 40 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 41 Charles and his brother James joined and directed the firefighting effort The public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire 42 Foreign policy and marriage Edit Dutch engraving of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza 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 the restoration Queen Luisa of Portugal acting as regent reopened negotiations with England that resulted in an alliance 43 On 23 June 1661 a marriage treaty was signed England acquired Catherine s dowry of Tangier in North Africa and the Seven Islands of Bombay the latter having a major influence on the development of the British Empire in India together with trading privileges in Brazil and the East Indies religious and commercial freedom in Portugal and two million Portuguese crowns about 300 000 while Portugal obtained military and naval support against Spain and liberty of worship for Catherine 44 Catherine journeyed from Portugal to Portsmouth on 13 14 May 1662 44 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 a public Anglican service 44 The same year in an unpopular move Charles sold Dunkirk to his first cousin King Louis XIV of France for about 375 000 45 The channel port although a valuable strategic outpost was a drain on Charles s limited finances e Charles II in profile on a medal struck in 1667 by John Roettier to commemorate the Second Dutch War Before Charles s restoration the Navigation Acts of 1650 had hurt Dutch trade by giving English vessels a monopoly and had started 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 47 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 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 f The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of 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 48 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 Clifford Arlington Buckingham Ashley afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury and Lauderdale In fact 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 49 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 the Netherlands In 1670 Charles seeking to solve his financial troubles agreed to the Treaty of Dover under which Louis XIV 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 50 Louis was to provide him with 6 000 troops to suppress those who opposed the conversion Charles endeavoured to ensure that the Treaty especially the conversion clause remained secret 51 It remains unclear if Charles ever seriously intended to convert 52 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 the Indies 53 Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands of Bombay to the company for a nominal sum of 10 paid in gold 54 The Portuguese territories that Catherine brought with her as a dowry proved too expensive to maintain Tangier was abandoned in 1684 55 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 the Rhine the company s first governor 56 Conflict with Parliament EditAlthough 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 the Third Anglo Dutch War 57 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 58 but also later forced them to denounce transubstantiation and the Catholic Mass as superstitious and idolatrous 59 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 as did opposition towards him and the court Politicians and peers believed that Charles II favoured a pro French foreign policy that desired to emulate the absolutist and Catholic sovereignty of Louis XIV In numerous pamphlets and parliamentary speeches between 1675 and 1678 popery and arbitrary government were decried for fear of the loss of English liberties and freedoms 60 Charles was presented with the first pineapple grown in England in 1675 Painting by Hendrick Danckerts Charles s wife Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir her four pregnancies had ended in miscarriages and stillbirths in 1662 February 1666 May 1668 and June 1669 2 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 61 In 1678 Titus Oates who had been alternately an Anglican and Jesuit priest falsely warned of 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 62 The people were seized with an anti Catholic hysteria 63 judges and juries across the land condemned the supposed conspirators numerous innocent individuals were executed 64 Later in 1678 Danby 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 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 65 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 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 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 66 Science EditThis section has an unclear citation style The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation and footnoting July 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Portrait by John Riley c 1683 1684 In Charles s early childhood William Cavendish Earl of Newcastle was governor of the royal household and Brian Duppa the Dean of Christ Church Oxford was his tutor 67 Neither man thought that the study of science subjects was appropriate for a future king 68 and Newcastle even advised against studying any subject too seriously 69 However as Charles grew older the renowned surgeon William Harvey was appointed his tutor 67 70 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 the king s chief physician Harvey accompanied Charles I to the Battle of Edgehill and although some details are uncertain 71 72 he had charge of Prince Charles and the Duke of York in the morning 73 but the two boys were back with the king for the start of battle 74 79 75 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 74 130 During his exile in France Charles continued his education including physics chemistry and mathematics 76 His tutors included 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 77 In France Charles assisted his childhood friend the Earl of Buckingham with his experiments in chemistry and alchemy 78 79 27 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 the time 80 on his return to England he was already knowledgeable in the mathematics of navigation and was a competent chemist 81 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 82 The new concepts and discoveries being found at this time fascinated Charles 83 not only in science and medicine but in topics such as botany and gardening 70 18 84 A French traveller Sorbier while visiting the English court was astonished by the extent of the king s knowledge 85 As king Charles now 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 86 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 87 The king would invite his friends and acquaintances to view 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 88 Charles also had a laboratory installed in Whitehall with easy access to his bedroom 89 87 90 There he carried out experiments of his own 91 149 or observed those carried out by his staff 92 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 the king 93 Robert Morison as his chief botanist Charles had his own botanical garden 84 Edmund Dickinson a chemist and alchemist who was tasked with carrying out experiments in the king s laboratory 94 Sir Thomas Williams who was skillful in compounding and inventing medicines some of which were prepared in the royal presence 95 and Nicasius le Febure or Nicolas LeFevre who was invited to England as royal professor of chemistry and apothecary to the king s household 96 Evelyn records visiting his laboratory with the king 97 In addition to his many other interests the king was fascinated by clock mechanisms 70 20 and had clocks distributed all around Whitehall including seven of them in his bedroom 98 Robert Bruce later to become the Earl of Ailesbury a Gentleman of the Bedchamber complained that the continual noise of the clocks chiming disturbed his sleep whenever it was necessary for him to stay close by to the king 99 Also Charles had a sundial installed in the Privy Garden 100 by which he could set his personal pocket watch 101 For a while the king personally recorded the performance of the latest spring balance watch presented to him by Robert Hooke 102 In 1662 Charles was pleased to grant a royal charter to a group of scientists and others who had established a formal society in 1660 to give a more academic and learned approach to science and to conduct experiments in physics and mathematics 90 103 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 104 and his standing with the king was so high that he was given access to the royal laboratory to perform his own experiments there 105 Charles never attended a Society meeting 106 but he remained aware of the activities there from his discussions with Society members especially Morey 100 In addition Robert Boyle gave him a private viewing of the Boyle Hooke air pump 107 108 which was used at many of the Wednesday meetings However Charles preferred experiments which had an immediate practical outcome 101 and he laughed at the efforts of the Society members to weigh air 109 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 107 and the barometer 110 and the importance of air for the support of life 108 Although Charles lost interest in the activities of the society he continued to support scientific and commercial endeavours He founded 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 111 He maintained an interest in chemistry and regularly visited his private laboratory 87 90 There dissections were occasionally carried out and observed by the king 98 Pepys noted in his diary that on the morning of Friday 15 January 1669 while he 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 112 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 113 114 sometimes helped by Moray 115 Charles 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 116 117 Later years EditCharles faced a political storm over his brother James a Catholic being next in line to the throne The prospect of a Catholic monarch was vehemently opposed by the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury previously Baron Ashley and a 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 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 118 Absolute monarch Edit Fearing that 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 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 119 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 120 Charles s opposition to 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 121 Protestant politicians such as 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 the king s Catholic brother James acquired greater influence at court 122 Titus Oates was convicted and imprisoned for defamation 123 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 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 124 Death Edit Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of 2 February 1685 and died aged 54 at 11 45 am four days later at the Palace of Whitehall 125 The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many including one of the royal doctors however 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 126 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 the case for this being a cause of his death is unproven 127 In the days between his collapse and his death Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments including bloodletting purging and cupping in hopes of effecting a recovery 128 which may have exacerbated his uraemia through dehydration instead of helping alleviate it 129 On his deathbed Charles asked his brother James to look after his mistresses be well to Portsmouth and let not poor Nelly starve 130 He told his courtiers I am sorry gentlemen for being such a time a dying 131 and expressed regret at his treatment of his wife On the last evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church in the presence of Father John Huddleston though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed and with whom the idea originated is unclear 132 He was buried in Westminster Abbey without any manner of pomp 131 on 14 February 133 Charles was succeeded by his brother James II and VII Legacy Edit Statue of Charles II as a Roman Caesar erected 1685 Parliament Square Edinburgh The escapades of Charles after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester remained important to him throughout his life He delighted and bored listeners with tales of his escape for many years Numerous accounts of his adventures were published particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Restoration Though not averse to his escape being ascribed to divine providence Charles himself seems to have delighted most in his ability to sustain his disguise as a man of ordinary origins and to move unrecognised through his realm Ironic and cynical Charles took pleasure in retailing stories which demonstrated the undetectable nature of any inherent majesty he possessed 134 Charles had no legitimate children but acknowledged a dozen by seven mistresses 135 including five by Barbara Villiers Lady Castlemaine for whom the Dukedom of Cleveland was created His other mistresses included Moll Davis Nell Gwyn Elizabeth Killigrew Catherine Pegge Lucy Walter and Louise de Kerouaille Duchess of Portsmouth As a result in his lifetime he was often nicknamed Old Rowley the name of his favourite racehorse notable as a stallion 136 His subjects resented paying taxes that were spent on his mistresses and their children 137 many of whom received dukedoms or earldoms The present Dukes of Buccleuch Richmond Grafton and St Albans descend from Charles in unbroken male line 138 Diana Princess of Wales was descended from two of Charles s illegitimate sons the Dukes of Grafton and Richmond Diana s son William Prince of Wales heir to the British throne is likely to be the first British monarch descended from Charles II Charles s eldest son the Duke of Monmouth led a rebellion against James II but was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685 captured and executed James was eventually dethroned in 1688 in the course of the Glorious Revolution Statue of Charles II c 1682 in ancient Roman dress by Grinling Gibbons at the Royal Hospital Chelsea In the words of his contemporary John Evelyn a prince of many virtues and many great imperfections debonair easy of access not bloody or cruel 139 John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester wrote more lewdly of Charles Restless he rolls from whore to whore A merry monarch scandalous and poor 140 Looking back on Charles s reign Tories tended to view it as a time of benevolent monarchy whereas Whigs perceived it as a terrible despotism Professor Ronald Hutton summarises a polarised historiography For the past hundred years books on Charles II have been sharply divided into two categories Academic historians have concentrated mainly on his activities as a statesman and emphasised his duplicity self indulgence poor judgement and lack of an aptitude for business or for stable and trustworthy government Non academic authors have concentrated mainly on his social and cultural world emphasising his charm affability worldliness tolerance turning him into one of the most popular of all English monarchs in novels plays and films 141 Hutton says Charles was a popular king in his own day and a legendary figure in British history Other kings had inspired more respect but perhaps only Henry VIII had endeared himself to the popular imagination as much as this one He was the playboy monarch naughty but nice the hero of all who prized urbanity tolerance good humour and the pursuit of pleasure above the more earnest sober or material virtues 142 The anniversary of the Restoration which was also Charles s birthday 29 May was recognised in England until the mid nineteenth century as Oak Apple Day after the Royal Oak in which Charles hid during his escape from the forces of Oliver Cromwell Traditional celebrations involved the wearing of oak leaves but these have now died out 143 Charles II is depicted extensively in art literature and media Charleston South Carolina and South Kingstown Rhode Island are named after him Titles styles honours and arms EditTitles and styles Edit The official style of Charles II was Charles the Second by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith etc 144 The claim to France was only nominal and had been asserted by every English monarch since Edward III regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled Honours Edit KG Knight of the Garter 21 May 1638 2 Arms Edit Charles s coat of arms as Prince of Wales was the royal arms which he later inherited differenced by a label of three points Argent 145 His arms as monarch were Quarterly I and IV Grandquarterly Azure three fleurs de lis Or for France and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or for England II Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory counter flory Gules for Scotland III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent for Ireland Coat of arms as Prince of Wales Coat of arms of Charles II as king outside Scotland Coat of arms of Charles II used as king in ScotlandIssue EditBy Lucy Walter c 1630 1658 James Crofts later Scott 1649 1685 created Duke of Monmouth 1663 in England and Duke of Buccleuch 1663 in Scotland Monmouth was born nine months after Walter and Charles II first met and was acknowledged as his son by Charles II but James II suggested that he was the son of another of her lovers Colonel Robert Sidney rather than Charles Lucy Walter had a daughter Mary Crofts born after James in 1651 but Charles II was not the father since he and Walter parted in September 1649 2 By Elizabeth Killigrew 1622 1680 daughter of Sir Robert Killigrew married Francis Boyle 1st Viscount Shannon in 1660 Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria FitzRoy 1650 1684 married firstly James Howard and secondly William Paston 2nd Earl of YarmouthBy Catherine Pegge Charles FitzCharles 1657 1680 known as Don Carlo created Earl of Plymouth 1675 Catherine FitzCharles born 1658 she either died young or became a nun at Dunkirk 146 By Barbara Villiers 1641 1709 wife of Roger Palmer 1st Earl of Castlemaine and created Duchess of Cleveland in her own right Lady Anne Palmer Fitzroy 1661 1722 married Thomas Lennard 1st Earl of Sussex She may have been the daughter of Roger Palmer but Charles accepted her 147 Charles Fitzroy 1662 1730 created Duke of Southampton 1675 became 2nd Duke of Cleveland 1709 Henry Fitzroy 1663 1690 created Earl of Euston 1672 Duke of Grafton 1675 Charlotte Fitzroy 1664 1717 married Edward Lee 1st Earl of Lichfield George Fitzroy 1665 1716 created Earl of Northumberland 1674 Duke of Northumberland 1678 Barbara Benedicta Fitzroy 1672 1737 She was probably the child of John Churchill later Duke of Marlborough who was another of Cleveland s many lovers 148 and was never acknowledged by Charles as his own daughter 149 By Nell Gwyn 1650 1687 Charles Beauclerk 1670 1726 created Duke of St Albans 1684 James Lord Beauclerk 1671 1680 By Louise Renee de Penancoet de Kerouaille 1649 1734 created Duchess of Portsmouth in her own right 1673 Charles Lennox 1672 1723 created Duke of Richmond 1675 in England and Duke of Lennox 1675 in Scotland By Mary Moll Davis courtesan and actress of repute 150 Lady Mary Tudor 1673 1726 married Edward Radclyffe 2nd Earl of Derwentwater after Edward s death she married Henry Graham of Levens and upon his death she married James Rooke Other probable mistresses include Christabella Wyndham 151 Hortense Mancini Duchess of Mazarin 152 Winifred Wells one of Queen Catherine s Maids of Honour 153 Jane Roberts the daughter of a clergyman 153 Mrs Knight a famous singer 154 Elizabeth Berkeley nee Bagot Dowager Countess of Falmouth the widow of Charles Berkeley 1st Earl of Falmouth 153 155 Elizabeth Fitzgerald Countess of Kildare 153 Letters claiming that Marguerite or Margaret de Carteret bore Charles a son named James de la Cloche in 1646 are dismissed by historians as forgeries 156 Genealogical table EditThe House of Stuart and their relations 157 James I of England1566 1625Anne of Denmark1574 1619Henry IV of France1553 1610Marie de Medici1575 1642Elizabeth1596 1662Charles I of England1600 1649Henrietta Maria of France1609 1669Louis XIII of France1601 1643Rupert of the Rhine1619 1682Sophia of Hanover1630 1714Charles II of England1630 1685Mary1631 1660William II of Orange1626 1650Anne Hyde1637 1671James II of England1633 1701Mary of Modena1658 1718Henrietta1644 1670Philip I of Orleans1640 1701Louis XIV of France1638 1715George I of Great Britain1660 1727William III of England1650 1702Mary II of England1662 1694Anne of Great Britain1665 1714James Francis Edward1688 1766Marie Louise of Orleans1662 1689Anne Marie of Orleans1669 1728Notes Edit The traditional date of the Restoration marking the first assembly of King and Parliament together since the abolition of the English monarchy in 1649 The English Parliament recognised Charles as king by unanimous vote on 2 May 1660 and he was proclaimed king in London on 8 May although royalists had recognised him as such since the execution of his father on 30 January 1649 During Charles s reign all legal documents stating a regnal year did so as if his reign began at his father s death From the death of his father to his defeat at the Battle of Worcester All dates in this article unless otherwise noted are given in the Julian calendar with the start of year adjusted to 1 January see Old Style and New Style dates One thousand pounds was a vast sum at the time greater than an average workman s lifetime earnings 14 It cost the Treasury 321 000 per year 46 The ship s transom is on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam References Edit Ogg 1955 p 139 a b c d e f Weir 1996 pp 255 257 Fraser 1979 p 13 Hutton 1989 pp 1 4 Fraser 1979 p 32 Hutton 1989 pp 6 7 Fraser 1979 pp 38 45 Miller 1991 p 6 Fraser 1979 pp 55 56 Fraser 1979 pp 57 60 Fraser 1979 pp 65 66 155 Hutton 1989 p 26 Miller 1991 p 5 RPS 1649 1 71 Fraser 1979 p 97 Hutton 1989 p 53 David Stevenson Minute Book of the Board of Green Cloth Miscellany of the Scottish History Society XV Edinburgh 2013 pp 55 132 Fraser 1979 pp 96 97 Hutton 1989 pp 56 57 Fraser 1979 pp 98 128 Hutton 1989 pp 53 69 Fraser 1979 p 117 Falkus 1972 p 54 Charles II of England Excerpted from Encyclopedia Britannica 11th Ed Vol XV Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1910 142 Hutton 1989 pp 74 112 Fraser 1979 pp 156 157 Childs John Army of Charles II Routledge 2013 p 2 Tucker S Battles That Changed History An Encyclopedia of World Conflict p212 Fraser 1979 pp 160 165 Diary of Samuel Pepys 16 March 1660 a b Miller 1991 pp 24 25 Haley 1985 p 5 Hutton 1989 p 131 a b Seaward 2004 Fraser 1979 p 190 The Royal Household 2009 Fraser 1979 p 185 a b Falkus 1972 p 94 Fraser 1979 pp 210 202 Hutton 1989 pp 155 156 Miller 1991 pp 43 44 Diary of Samuel Pepys 23 April 1661 Archived 29 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine Hutton 1989 p 169 Hutton 1989 p 229 Hutton 1989 p 185 Papers of Thomas Hearne 17 November 1706 quoted in Doble 1885 p 308 Hume 1778 p 212 Fraser 1979 p 238 Miller 1991 p 120 Falkus 1972 p 105 Porter 2007 Fraser 1979 pp 243 247 Miller 1991 pp 121 122 Clyde L Gros The Anglo Portuguese Marriage of 1662 Hispanic American Historical Review 10 3 1930 pp 313 352 online a b c Wynne 2004 Miller 1991 pp 93 99 Hutton 1989 p 184 Israel 1998 pp 749 750 Hutton 1989 pp 250 251 Hutton 1989 p 254 Miller 1991 pp 175 176 Fraser 1979 p 275 Fraser 1979 pp 275 276 Miller 1991 p 180 For doubts over his intention to convert before 1685 see for example Seaward 2004 for doubts over his intention to convert on his deathbed see for example Hutton 1989 pp 443 456 Chisholm 1911 p 835 British Library Learning Hutton 1989 p 426 Hudson s Bay Company 2017 Fraser 1979 pp 305 308 Hutton 1989 pp 284 285 Raithby 1819 pp 782 785 Raithby 1819a pp 894 896 Mansfield Andrew 3 September 2021 The First Earl of Shaftesbury s Resolute Conscience and Aristocratic Constitutionalism The Historical Journal 65 4 969 991 doi 10 1017 s0018246x21000662 ISSN 0018 246X Fraser 1979 pp 347 348 Hutton 1989 pp 345 346 Hutton 1989 pp 359 362 Fraser 1979 p 360 Fraser 1979 p 375 Miller 1991 pp 278 301 304 Hutton 1989 pp 367 374 Miller 1991 pp 306 309 a b Airy 1904 p 7 Uglow 2009 p 220 Fraser 1979 p 23 Falkus 1972 p 17 Airy 1904 p 9 a b c Carvalho Cristina 2014 Charles II A Man Caught Between Tradition and Science Via Panoramica 5 24 hdl 10400 26 7191 Airy 1904 p 15 Stewart D October 1946 Harvey and the Battle of Edgehill Canadian Medical Association Journal 55 4 405 PMC 1583020 PMID 20323936 Young P Edgehill 1642 Windrush Press Gloucester 1995 p 144 Fraser 1979 p 36 a b Scott C L Turton A von Arni E G Edgehill The Battle Reinterpreted Pen amp Sword Books 2004 Stewart D 25 May 1946 Harvey and the Battle of Edgehill British Medical Journal 1 4455 808 doi 10 1136 bmj 1 4455 808 JSTOR 20366436 PMC 2058941 Uglow 2009 p 220 Thomas Hobbes 1588 1697 BBC 2014 Hanrahan 2006 p 25 Burnet 1847 p 182 Burghclere W 1903 George Villiers Second Duke of Buckingham London John Murray Falkus 1972 p 30 Uglow 2009 p 220 Burnet 1847 p 167 Burnet 1847 p 167 Airy 1904 p 198 Hanrahan 2006 p 25 a b Falkus 1972 p 82 Falkus 1972 p 209 Jardine L 2002 On a Grander Scale London Harper Collins p 166 Hartlib S Letter Hartlib to John Worthington search for 15 October 1660 a b c Wright David August 2000 The astronomy in Pepys Diary Astronomy amp Geophysics 41 4 4 23 4 27 doi 10 1046 j 1468 4004 2000 00423 x S2CID 122377967 Evelyn 1952 p 357 Pepys V2 1906 p 611 a b c Ashley M 1958 England in the Seventeenth Century London Penguin pp 153 154 Spratt T The History of the Royal Society of London pub Royal Society London 1667 Bruce 1890 p 96 Pepys V1 1906 p 365 Pepys V1 1906 p 365 Harrison R Dictionary of National Biography 1885 1900 Dickinson Edmund vol 15 Blomberg W N 1739 An Account of the Life and Writings of Edmund Dickinson London Montagu p 89 Bruce 1890 p 96 LeFevre N Evelyn 1952 p 376 a b Uglow 2009 p 221 Bruce 1890 p 87 a b Uglow 2009 p 228 a b Fraser 1979 p 250 Jardine 2004 p 202 Purver M 1967 The Royal Society Concept and Creation London Routledge and Kegan Paul pp 21 85 189 Fraser 1979 p 251 Burnet 1847 p 167 Airy 1904 p 198 Uglow 2009 p 228 Jardine 2004 p 106 a b West John B January 2005 Robert Boyle s landmark book of 1660 with the first experiments on rarified air Journal of Applied Physiology 98 1 31 39 doi 10 1152 japplphysiol 00759 2004 PMID 15591301 S2CID 5837786 a b Nichols R 1999 Robert Hooke and the Royal Society Sussex England Book Guild p 43 Pepys V1 1906 p 451 West John B March 2013 Torricelli and the Ocean of Air The First Measurement of Barometric Pressure Physiology 28 2 66 73 doi 10 1152 physiol 00053 2012 PMC 3768090 PMID 23455767 Uglow 2009 pp 241 242 Pepys Samuel Friday 15 January 1668 69 The Diary of Samuel Pepys Wheatley H B 1907 1880 Samuel Pepys and the World he Lived In 1st ed London Swan Sonnenschein amp Co p 167 Fraser 1979 p 586 Airy 1904 p 198 Fraser 1979 pp 567 596 Homes F The Sickly Stewarts Sutton Publishing 2003 pp 104 108 Hutton 1989 pp 373 377 391 Miller 1991 pp 310 320 Hutton 1989 pp 376 401 Miller 1991 pp 314 345 Hutton 1989 pp 430 441 Fraser 1979 p 426 Hutton 1989 pp 420 423 Miller 1991 pp 366 368 Fraser 1979 p 437 Marshall J 2013 Whig Thought and the Revolution of 1688 91 In Harris T amp Taylor S Eds 2015 The final crisis of the Stuart monarchy the revolutions of 1688 91 in their British Atlantic and European contexts Vol 16 Chapter 3 Boydell amp Brewer Fraser 1979 p 450 Hutton 1989 p 443 BMJ 1938 Fraser 1979 pp 586 587 Roberts 2015 Aronson J K Heneghan C 17 October 2018 The death of King Charles II Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine CEBM retrieved 4 May 2021 Fraser 1979 p 456 a b Bryant 2001 p 73 Hutton 1989 pp 443 456 Fraser 1979 p 459 Weber 1988 pp 492 493 505 506 Fraser 1979 p 411 Pearson 1960 p 147 Hutton 1989 p 338 Fraser 1979 p 413 Miller 1991 pp 382 383 Miller 1991 p 95 Hutton Ronald December 2009 A Gambling Man Charles II and the Restoration History Today 59 12 55 Hutton 1989 p 446 Fraser 1979 p 118 Guinness Book of Answers 1991 p 708 Ashmole 1715 p 534 Hutton 1989 p 125 Cokayne 1926 pp 706 708 Miller 1991 pp 97 123 Fraser 1979 pp 65 286 Fraser 1979 p 287 Fraser 1979 p 37 Miller 1991 p 5 Fraser 1979 pp 341 342 Hutton 1989 p 336 Miller 1991 p 228 a b c d Fraser 1979 p 285 Hutton 1989 p 262 BBC staff 2003 Melville 2005 p 91 Fraser 1979 pp 43 44 Hutton 1989 p 25 Fraser 1979 p 5 Bibliography EditAiry Osmund 1904 Charles II London Longmans Green amp Co hdl 2027 uc1 b674296 Ashmole Elias 1715 The History of the Most Noble Order of the Garter London Bell Taylor Baker and Collins BBC staff October 2003 Charles II and the women who bore his children PDF BBC Archived PDF from the original on 14 April 2004 Bombay History of a City The British Library Board Retrieved 19 April 2010 Nova et Vetera British Medical Journal 2 4064 1089 1938 doi 10 1136 bmj 2 4064 1089 PMC 2210948 PMID 20781915 Brown K M et al eds 2007 2017 Proclamation of King Charles II 5 January 1649 NAS PA2 24 f 97r 97v The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 University of St Andrews Retrieved 5 August 2016 Bruce Thomas 1890 Memoirs of Thomas Earl of Ailesbury Vol 1 Westminster Roburghe Club Nichols amp Sons Burnet Gilbert 1847 History of My Own Time part1 Oxford Clarendon Press Bryant Mark 2001 Private Lives London Cassell ISBN 0 304 35758 8 Chisholm Hugh ed 1911 East India Company Encyclopaedia Britannica vol 8 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 834 835 Cokayne George E 1926 Appendix F Bastards of Charles II The Complete Peerage Vol VI Revised and enlarged by Gibbs Vicary Edited by Doubleday H A Warrand D and de Walden Lord Howard London St Catherine Press Doble C E ed 1885 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne Vol 1 Oxford Clarendon Press for the Oxford Historical Society Evelyn John 1952 Diary of John Evelyn Vol 1 London Dent amp Sons Falkus Christopher 1972 The Life and Times of Charles II London Weidenfeld and Nicolson ISBN 0 297 99427 1 Fraser Antonia 1979 King Charles II London Weidenfeld and Nicolson ISBN 0 297 77571 5 Haley K H D 1985 Politics in the Reign of Charles II Oxford Basil Blackwell ISBN 0 631 13928 1 Hanrahan David 2006 Charles II and the Duke of Buckingham UK Sutton Publishing The Royal Charter of the Hudson s Bay Company Hudson s Bay Company Hume David 1778 The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 Vol VIII London printed for T Cadell p 212 Hutton Ronald 1989 Charles II King of England Scotland and Ireland Oxford Clarendon Press ISBN 0 19 822911 9 Israel Jonathan Irvine 1998 The Dutch Republic Its Rise Greatness and Fall 1477 1806 Oxford Jardine Lisa 2004 The Curious Life of Robert Hooke The Man Who Measured London London Harper Perennial ISBN 0 00 715175 6 Melville Lewis 2005 1928 The Windsor Beauties Ladies of the Court of Charles II Loving Healing Press p 91 ISBN 1 932690 13 1 Miller John 1991 Charles II London Weidenfeld and Nicolson ISBN 0 297 81214 9 Ogg David 1955 England in the Reigns of James II and William III Oxford University Press Pearson Hesketh 1960 Charles II His Life and Likeness London Heinemann Pepys V1 Samuel 1906 1669 Diary of Samuel Pepys Vol 1 London Dent amp Sons Pepys V2 Samuel 1906 1669 Diary of Samuel Pepys Vol 2 London Dent amp Sons Porter Stephen January 2007 The great fire of London Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 95647 Subscription or UK public library membership required Raithby John ed 1819 Charles II 1672 An Act for preventing Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants Statutes of the Realm volume 5 1628 80 Retrieved 19 April 2010 Raithby John ed 1819a Charles II 1678 Stat 2 An Act for the more effectuall preserving the Kings Person and Government by disableing Papists from sitting in either House of Parlyament Statutes of the Realm volume 5 1628 80 Retrieved 19 April 2010 Roberts Jacob Fall 2015 Tryals and tribulations Distillations Magazine Vol 1 pp 14 15 Retrieved 22 March 2018 Seaward Paul 2004 Charles II 1630 1685 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 5144 The Royal Household 2009 Charles II r 1660 1685 Official website of the British Monarchy Retrieved 19 April 2010 Uglow Jenny 2009 A Gambling Man Charles II s Restoration Game Faber amp Faber ISBN 978 0 571 21733 5 Weber Harold 1988 Representations of the King Charles II and His Escape from Worcester Studies in Philology Vol 85 University of North Carolina Press pp 489 509 Weir Alison 1996 Britain s Royal Families The Complete Genealogy Revised ed Random House ISBN 0 7126 7448 9 Wynne S M 2004 Catherine 1638 1705 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 4894 Subscription or UK public library membership required Further reading EditEdie Carolyn 1965 Succession and Monarchy The Controversy of 1679 1681 American Historical Review 70 2 350 370 doi 10 2307 1845634 JSTOR 1845634 Hanrahan David C 2006 Charles II and the Duke of Buckingham The Merry Monarch and the Aristocratic Rogue Stroud Sutton ISBN 0 7509 3916 8 Harris Tim 2005 Restoration Charles II and His Kingdoms 1660 1685 London Allen Lane ISBN 0 7139 9191 7 Keay Anna 2008 The Magnificent Monarch Charles II and the Ceremonies of Power London Hambledon Continuum ISBN 978 1 84725 225 8 Kenyon J P 1957 Review Article The Reign of Charles II Cambridge Historical Journal XIII 82 86 doi 10 1017 S1474691300000068 Miller John 1985 Restoration England The Reign of Charles II London Longman ISBN 0 582 35396 3 Ogg David 1934 England in the Reign of Charles II Oxford University Press Ollard Richard 1966 The Escape of Charles II After the Battle of Worcester London Hodder amp Stoughton Ollard Richard 1979 The Image of the King Charles I and Charles II London Hodder amp Stoughton Pepys Samuel 1956 King Charles Preserved An Account of his Escape after the Battle of Worcester dictated by the King Himself to Samuel Pepys Emmaus Pennsylvania The Rodale Press Dictated in 1680 Wilson Derek 2003 All The King s Women Love Sex and Politics in the Life of Charles II London Hutchinson ISBN 0 09 179379 3 Yorke Philip Chesney 1911 Charles II In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 5 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 912 916 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles II of England Quotations related to Charles II of England at Wikiquote Works by or about Charles II of England at WikisourceCharles II of EnglandHouse of StuartBorn 29 May 1630 Died 6 February 1685Regnal titlesPreceded byCharles I King of Scotland1649 1651 VacantMilitary governmentVacantEnglish InterregnumTitle last held byCharles I King of England and Ireland1660 1685 Succeeded byJames II amp VIIVacantMilitary government King of Scotland1660 1685British royaltyVacantTitle last held byCharles Duke of CornwallDuke of Rothesay1630 1649 VacantTitle next held byJames Francis EdwardPrince of Wales1638 1649 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Charles II of England amp oldid 1140223866, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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