29
May 1630 A.D. King
Charles II of England born. Convert to Vaticano-Romanism
on deathbed in a quid pro quo with
the great persectuor of France, King Louis XIV, the great revoker in 1685 of
the Edict of Nantes of 1598. The Jesuits
and Romanists were on a roll.
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Charles II
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Reign
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23 April 1661 (as King of England and
Ireland)
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Predecessor
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Charles I (deposed and executed 1649)
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Successor
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Reign
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30 January 1649 – 3 September 1651[b]
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Coronation
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1 January 1651
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Predecessor
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Spouse
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Issue
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Illegitimate:
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Cleveland Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond |
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Father
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Mother
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Born
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Died
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Burial
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Westminster Abbey, London
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Signature
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Religion
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Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685)[c] was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed
at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War.
Although the Parliament
of Scotland proclaimed Charles II King of Great Britain and Ireland
in Edinburgh on 6 February 1649, the English Parliament instead passed a statute that made any such
proclamation unlawful. 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, and Charles spent the next
nine years in exile in France,
the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands.
A political crisis that followed the
death of Cromwell 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 were dated 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. He 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 secret
treaty of Dover, an alliance with his first cousin
King Louis XIV of France. Louis agreed to aid Charles in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay Charles 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 revelations of a
supposed "Popish Plot"
sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles's brother and heir (James, Duke of York) was a Catholic. The crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory
parties. Charles sided with the Tories, and, following the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles
and James in 1683, some Whig leaders were killed or forced into exile. Charles
dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and ruled alone until his death on 6
February 1685. He was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed.
Charles II was popularly known as the Merry
Monarch, in reference to both the liveliness and hedonism of his court and the
general relief at the return to normality after over a decade of rule by Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans. Charles's wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by
various mistresses. As his illegitimate children were excluded from the
succession, he was succeeded by his brother James.
Contents
- 1 Early life, civil war and exile
- 2 Restoration
- 3 Foreign and colonial policy
- 4 Conflict with Parliament
- 5 Later years
- 6 Posterity and legacy
- 7 Titles, styles, honours and arms
- 8 Issue
- 9 Ancestry
- 10 Notes
- 11 References
- 12 Further reading
- 13 External links
Early life, civil war and exile
Charles was born in St. James's Palace on 29 May 1630. His parents were Charles I, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Henrietta
Maria, the sister of the French king Louis XIII. Charles was their second son and child. Their first son, who was born
about a year before Charles, had died aged less than a day.[1] England, Scotland
and Ireland were respectively predominantly Anglican, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic. Charles was
baptised in the Chapel Royal
on 27 June by the Anglican Bishop of London William Laud and brought up in
the care of the Protestant Countess
of Dorset, though his godparents included his maternal uncle and
grandmother, Marie de' Medici, both of whom were Catholics.[2] 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 with the Honours
of the Principality of Wales.[1]
During the 1640s, when Charles was
still young, his father fought Parliamentary and Puritan forces in the English Civil War.
Charles accompanied his father during the Battle of Edgehill and, at the age of fourteen, participated in the campaigns of 1645, when
he was made titular commander of the English forces in the West Country.[3] By Spring 1646,
his father was losing the war, and Charles left England due to fears for his
safety, setting off from Falmouth after staying at Pendennis Castle,
going first to the Isles of Scilly,
then to Jersey, and finally to France,
where his mother was already living in exile and his first cousin,
eight-year-old Louis XIV, was king.[4]
In 1648, during the Second
English Civil War, 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 the Queen's
French relations.[5] However, the
royalist fleet that came under Charles's control was not used to any advantage,
and did not reach Scotland in time to join up with the royalist Engagers army of the Duke
of Hamilton, before it was defeated at the Battle
of Preston by the Parliamentarians.[6]
At The Hague, Charles had a brief
affair with Lucy Walter,
who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married.[7] Her son, James
Crofts (afterwards Duke of Monmouth
and Duke of Buccleuch), was one of Charles's many acknowledged illegitimate children who became
prominent in British political life and society.
Charles I surrendered in 1646. He
escaped and was recaptured in 1648. Despite his son's diplomatic efforts to
save him, Charles I was beheaded in 1649, and England became a republic. On 6
February, the Covenanter Parliament
of Scotland proclaimed Charles II as King of Great Britain in
succession to his father, but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he
accepted Presbyterianism
throughout Britain and Ireland.
When negotiations stalled, Charles
authorised General
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, Charles 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.[8]
On 3 September 1650, the Covenanters
were defeated at the Battle
of Dunbar by a much smaller force led by Oliver Cromwell. The Scots forces
were divided into royalist Engagers and Presbyterian Covenanters, who even
fought each other. Disillusioned by the Covenanters, in October Charles
attempted to escape from them and rode north to join with an Engager force, an
event which became known as "the Start", but within two days the
Presbyterians had caught up with and recovered him.[9] Nevertheless, the
Scots remained Charles's best hope of restoration, and he was crowned King of
Scotland at Scone on 1 January 1651. With Cromwell's forces threatening Charles's position
in Scotland, it was decided to mount an attack on England. With many of the
Scots (including Lord Argyll and other leading
Covenanters) refusing to participate, and with few English royalists joining
the force as it moved south into England, the invasion ended in defeat at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, after which Charles eluded capture by hiding in the Royal Oak at Boscobel House. Through six weeks
of narrow escapes Charles managed to flee
England in disguise, landing 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 was unusually tall at over 6 feet (185 cm)
high.[10][d]
Cromwell was appointed Lord Protector
of England, Scotland and Ireland, effectively placing the British Isles under
military rule. Impoverished, Charles could not obtain sufficient 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 turn for aid to Spain,
which at that time ruled the Southern Netherlands.[12] 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.[13]
Restoration 1660
After the death of Cromwell in 1658,
Charles's chances of regaining the Crown at first seemed slim as Cromwell was
succeeded as Lord Protector by his son, Richard. However, the new Lord
Protector, with no power base in either Parliament or the New Model Army, was forced to
abdicate in 1659 and the Protectorate was abolished. During the civil and
military unrest which followed, George Monck,
the Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into
anarchy.[14] Monck and his army
marched into the City of London
and forced the Rump Parliament
to re-admit members of the Long Parliament excluded in
December 1648 during Pride's Purge. The Long
Parliament dissolved itself and for the first time in almost 20 years, there
was a general election.[15] The outgoing
Parliament designed the electoral qualifications so as to ensure, as they
thought, the return of a Presbyterian majority.[16]
The restrictions against royalist
candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in a House of Commons which was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and
Parliamentarians and on religious grounds between Anglicans and Presbyterians.[16] The new so-called Convention
Parliament assembled on 25 April 1660, and soon
afterwards received news of the Declaration of Breda, in which Charles agreed, amongst other things, to pardon many of his
father's enemies. The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and
invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at Breda on 8 May 1660.[17] In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year, and on 14 May it declared for Charles
as King.[18]
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 Cromwell's supporters
in the Act of
Indemnity and Oblivion, 50 people were
specifically excluded.[19] In the end nine of
the regicides were executed:[20] they were hanged,
drawn and quartered; 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.[21]
Charles agreed to the abolition
of feudal dues; in return, the English Parliament
granted him an annual income to run the government of £1.2 million, generated
largely from customs and excise duties. The grant, however, proved to be insufficient for most of
Charles's reign. The sum was only an indication of the maximum the King was
allowed to withdraw from the Treasury each year; for the most part, the actual
revenue was much lower, which led to mounting debts, and further attempts to
raise money through poll taxes, land taxes and hearth taxes.
In the later 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.[22]
Charles was crowned at Westminster Abbey
on 23 April 1661. He was the last sovereign to make the traditional procession
from the Tower of London
to Westminster Abbey the day before the coronation.[23] He had already
been crowned King of Scots in 1651, the last coronation in Scotland to date.
Clarendon Code
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;[24] 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 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.[25]
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 licenses granted by Charles
were the first in England to permit women to play female roles on stage (they
were previously played by boys),[26] and Restoration
literature celebrated or reacted to the restored court, which
included libertines
like John
Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. Of Charles II, Wilmot
supposedly said:
We have a pretty witty
king,
And whose word no man
relies on,
He never said a foolish
thing,
And never did a wise
one"[27]
to which Charles supposedly said
"that's true, for my words are my own, but my actions are those of my
ministers".
Great Plague and Great Fire
In 1665, Charles was faced with a
great health crisis: the Great
Plague of London. The death toll reached a peak of
7,000 in the week of 17 September.[28] Charles, with his
family and court, fled London in July to Salisbury; Parliament met in Oxford.[29] All attempts by
London public health officials to contain the disease failed, and the plague
spread rapidly.[30]
Adding to London's woes, but marking
the end of the plague, was what later became known as the Great Fire of London, which started on 2 September 1666. The fire consumed about 13,200 houses
and 87 churches, including St. Paul's
Cathedral.[31] Charles and his
brother James joined and directed the fire-fighting effort. The public blamed
Catholic conspirators for the fire,[32] although it had
actually started in a bakehouse in Pudding Lane.[31]
Foreign and colonial policy
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. On 23 June
1661, a marriage treaty was signed, Catherine's dowry securing to England 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.[33] Catherine
journeyed from Portugal to Portsmouth on 13–14 May 1662,[33] 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.[33]
In an unpopular move, also in 1662,
Charles sold Dunkirk
to his first cousin King Louis XIV of France for about £375,000.[34] The channel port,
although a valuable strategic outpost, was a drain on Charles's limited
finances.[e]
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.[36] 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 the English (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, the Royal
Charles, which was taken back to the Netherlands as a trophy.[f] The Second Dutch
War ended with the signing of the Treaty
of Breda (1667).
As a result of the Second Dutch War,
Charles dismissed Lord
Clarendon, whom he used as a scapegoat for the war.[37] 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.[38]
In 1668, England allied itself with
Sweden, and with its former enemy the Netherlands, in order 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".[39] 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.[40] It remains unclear
if Charles ever seriously intended to convert.[41]
Meanwhile, by a series of five
charters, Charles granted the British
East India Company the rights to autonomous
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 the acquired areas in India.[42] Earlier in 1668 he
leased the islands of Bombay
for a nominal sum of £10 paid in gold.[43] The Portuguese
territories that Catherine brought with her as dowry had proved too expensive
to maintain; Tangier was abandoned.[44]
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.[45]
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.[46]
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,[47] but also later
forced them to denounce certain teachings of the Catholic Church as "superstitious and idolatrous".[48] Clifford, who had
converted to Catholicism, resigned rather than take the oath, and died shortly
after. 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.
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.[1] Charles's heir presumptive
was therefore his unpopular Catholic brother, James, Duke of York. Partly in
order 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.[49] 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 Lord Danby seems to have been rightly sceptical about Oates's
claims, the Cavalier Parliament took them seriously.[50] The people were
seized with an anti-Catholic hysteria;[51] judges and juries
across the land condemned the supposed conspirators; numerous innocent
individuals were executed.[52]
Later in 1678, Lord 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. Lord 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
Lord Danby from the impeachment trial, Charles dissolved the Cavalier
Parliament in January 1679.[53]
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,
Lord 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 Lord Danby to the Tower of London. Lord Danby would
be held there for another five years.[54]
Later years
Charles faced a political storm over
the succession to the Throne. The prospect of a Catholic monarch was vehemently
opposed by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (previously Baron Ashley and a member of the Cabal, which had fallen apart
in 1673). 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
to 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).[55]
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 the summer of 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.[56] During the 1680s,
however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill ebbed, and Charles experienced
a nationwide surge of loyalty. Lord Shaftesbury was charged with treason and
fled to Holland, where he died. For the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled
without Parliament.[57]
Charles's opposition to the Exclusion
Bill angered some Protestants. Protestant conspirators formulated the Rye House Plot, a plan to murder
the King 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.[58] Protestant
politicians such as Arthur
Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, Algernon Sydney, Lord
William Russell and the Duke of Monmouth were
implicated in the plot. Lord 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.[59] Titus Oates was
convicted and imprisoned for defamation.[60]
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 Whitehall Palace.[61] The suddenness of
his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many,
including one of the royal doctors; however, 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).[62] On his deathbed
Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: "be well
to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve",[63] and told his
courtiers: "I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying".[64] On the last
evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church, though the extent
to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea
originated, is unclear.[65] He was buried in Westminster Abbey
"without any manner of pomp"[64] on 14 February.[66]
Charles was succeeded by his brother,
who became James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland.
Posterity and legacy
Charles had no legitimate children,
but acknowledged a dozen by seven mistresses,[67] including five by
the notorious 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 one of his horses which was notable at the time as a
stallion.[68]
His subjects resented paying taxes
that were spent on his mistresses and their children,[69] many of whom
received dukedoms or earldoms. The present Dukes of Buccleuch, Richmond, Grafton and St Albans descend from Charles in
unbroken male line.[70] Diana,
Princess of Wales, was descended from two of Charles's
illegitimate sons: the Dukes
of Grafton and Richmond. Diana's son, Prince
William, Duke of Cambridge, second in line 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. He was the last Catholic monarch to rule Britain.
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. Today it is possible to
assess Charles without the taint of partisanship, and he is seen as more of a lovable rogue—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".[71] John
Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, wrote more lewdly of
Charles:
Restless he rolls from whore to whore
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.[72]
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.[72]
Charles, a patron of the arts and
sciences, founded the Royal
Observatory and supported the Royal Society, a scientific
group whose early members included Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton. Charles was the
personal patron of Sir Christopher Wren,
the architect who helped rebuild London after the Great Fire and who constructed the Royal
Hospital Chelsea, which Charles founded as a home for
retired soldiers in 1682.
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.[73] Charles II is
commemorated by statues in London's Soho Square,[74] in Edinburgh's
Parliament Square, in Three Cocks Lane in Gloucester,[75] and near the south
portal of Lichfield Cathedral, and is depicted extensively in literature and other media. Charleston,
South Carolina, is named after him.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles[edit]
- 29 May 1630 – May 1638: The Duke of Cornwall
- May 1638 – 30 January 1649: The Prince of Wales
- 30 January 1649 – 6 February 1685: His Majesty The King
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."[76] The claim
to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English
King since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled.
Honours
- KG: Knight of the Garter, 21 May 1638[1]
Issue
Main article: Descendants of Charles II of England
By Marguerite or Margaret de
Carteret
1.
Letters claiming that she
bore Charles a son named James de la Cloche in 1646 are dismissed by historians as forgeries.[78]
1.
James
Crofts, later Scott (1649–1685), created Duke of Monmouth
(1663) in England and Duke of Buccleuch
(1663) in Scotland. Ancestor of Sarah,
Duchess of York. 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.[1]
By Elizabeth Killigrew
(1622–1680), daughter of Sir Robert Killigrew,
married Francis
Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon, in 1660
1.
Charlotte
Jemima Henrietta Maria FitzRoy (1650–1684),
married firstly James Howard and secondly William
Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth
By Barbara née Villiers
(1641–1709), wife of Roger
Palmer, 1st Earl of Castlemaine; created Duchess of Cleveland
in her own right
1.
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.[80] Sarah,
Duchess of York, descends from Anne by both parents.
2.
Charles
Fitzroy (1662–1730), created Duke of
Southampton (1675), became 2nd Duke of Cleveland
(1709)
3.
Henry
Fitzroy (1663–1690), created Earl of Euston
(1672), Duke of Grafton
(1675), also 7-greats-grandfather of Diana,
Princess of Wales
6.
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,[81] and was never
acknowledged by Charles as his own daughter.[82]
2.
James, Lord Beauclerk
(1671–1680)
By Louise Renée de Penancoet de Kérouaille (1649–1734), created Duchess of Portsmouth in her own right (1673)
1.
Charles
Lennox (1672–1723), created Duke of Richmond
(1675) in England and Duke of Lennox (1675) in
Scotland. Ancestor of Diana,
Princess of Wales; Camilla,
Duchess of Cornwall; and Sarah,
Duchess of York.
1.
Lady Mary Tudor (1673–1726),
married Edward Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater; after Edward's death, she married Henry Graham, and upon his death she
married James Rooke.
Other probable mistresses:
5.
Elizabeth
Berkeley, née Bagot, Dowager Countess of Falmouth –
the widow of Charles
Berkeley, 1st Earl of Falmouth[86][87]
Ancestry
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Notes
1.
Jump up ^ 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 of England
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 were dated as if
his reign began at his father's death.
3.
Jump up ^ 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.
Jump up ^ One thousand pounds was a vast sum at the time, greater
than an average workman's lifetime earnings.[11]
References
41. Jump up ^ 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.
45. Jump up ^ The Royal Charter of the Hudson's Bay Company, Hudson's Bay Company, retrieved 14 December 2010
- Ashmole, Elias (1715), The History of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, London: Bell, Taylor, Baker, and Collins
- Bombay: History of a City, The British Library Board, retrieved 19 April 2010
- Bryant, Mark (2001), Private Lives, London: Cassell, ISBN 0-304-35758-8
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "East India Company", Encyclopædia Britannica 8 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press,
pp. 834–835- Cokayne, George E.; Revised and enlarged by Gibbs, Vicary; Edited by Doubleday, H. A., Warrand, D., and de Walden, Lord Howard (1926), "Appendix F. Bastards of Charles II", The Complete Peerage VI, London: St. Catherine Press
- Defoe, Daniel (1894), History of the Plague in England, New York: American Book Company
- Doble, C. E., ed. (1885), Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press for the Oxford Historical Society
- Fraser, Antonia (1979), King Charles II, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-77571-5
- Gloucester City Council (3 May 2012), List of Monuments in Gloucester, retrieved December 2012
- Hutton, Ronald (1989), Charles II: King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-19-822911-9
- Israel, J.I. (1998), The Dutch Republic; Its rise, greatness, and fall 1477–1806, Oxford
- Keay, A. (2002), The Crown Jewels, Historic Royal Palaces, ISBN 1-873993-20-X
- Louda, Jiří; Maclagan, Michael (1999) [1981], Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe (2nd ed.), London: Little, Brown, ISBN 978-0-316-84820-6
- 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
- Pearson, Hesketh (1960), Charles II: His Life and Likeness, London: Heinemann
- 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
- Seaward, Paul (2004), "Charles II (1630–1685)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5144 (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Sheppard, F. H. W., ed. (1966), "Soho Square Area: Portland Estate: Soho Square Garden", Survey of London: volumes 33 and 34: St Anne Soho, retrieved 19 April 2010
- The Royal Household (2009), Charles II (r. 1660–1685), Official website of the British Monarchy, retrieved 19 April 2010
- 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
- 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
- Miller, John (1985), Restoration England: the reign of Charles II, London: Longman, ISBN 0-582-35396-3
External links
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Quotations related to Charles II of England at Wikiquote
Media related to Charles II of England at Wikimedia Commons- Archival material relating to Charles II of England listed at the UK National Archives
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Charles
II of England
Born: 29
May 1630 Died: 6 February 1685
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Regnal
titles
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Preceded by
Charles I |
King of Scotland
1649–1651 |
Vacant
Military
government
led by George Monck |
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Vacant
Succession
interrupted
by the English Interregnum
Title
last held by
|
Succeeded by
James VII & II |
|
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Vacant
Military
government
led by George Monck |
King of Scotland
1660–1685 |
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Vacant
Title
last held by
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Vacant
Title
next held by
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|
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Prince of Wales
1638–1649 |
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Political
offices
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Lord High Admiral
1673 |
Succeeded by
Prince Rupert of the Rhine |
|
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Lord High Admiral
1684–1685 |
Succeeded by
King James II |
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