May 29, 1630 & 1660: Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland

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Breda, Charles II of England, Declaration of Breda. Charles I of England, Henri IV of France and Navarre, King of England, King of Scotland and King of Ireland, Restoration, The Convention Parliament

May 29, 1630 & 1660. On this date in 1630 the future Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland is born. On this date in 1660 Charles II enters London on the Restoration of the British monarchy.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, the daughter of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and Marie de Medici.

Charles II had set out for England from Scheveningen, arrived in Dover on 25 May 1660 and reached London on 29 May, his 30th birthday and he was received in London to public acclaim.

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. In the end nine of the regicides were executed: 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.

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. For the most part, the actual revenue was much lower, which led to attempts to economise at court by reducing the size and expenses of the royal household and raise money through unpopular innovations such as the hearth tax.

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.

An interesting side note is when to date the start of the reign of Charles II?

Generally the start of his reign is considered when he entered London on May 29, 1660, his 30th birthday.

However, after 1660, all legal documents stating a regnal year did so as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. Most monarchists do believe that Charles inherited the title of King upon the death of his father in 1649. However, contemporary historians regard the starting of his reign somewhere in 1660.

Another possible starting date for his reign was when the English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at Breda on May 8, 1660.

In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year, and had already declared for Charles. On May 14, he was proclaimed king in Dublin.

The Parliament of Scotland had already proclaimed Charles II king back on February 5, 1649.

May 29, 1630: Birth of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland.

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Catherine de Braganza, Charles I of England, Charles II of England and Scotland, English Civil War, Kingdom of Portugal, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Restoration

Charles II (May 29, 1630 – February 6, 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of Scotland, England and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria de Bourbon France, daughter of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and Marie de Medici.

After Charles I’s execution at Whitehall on January 30, 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on February 5, 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 September 3, 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 May 29, 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.

Marriage

Catherine of Braganza (1638 – 1705) was was born at the Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa, as the second surviving daughter of João, 8th Duke of Braganza and his wife, Luisa de Guzmán. Following the Portuguese Restoration War, her father was acclaimed King João IV of Portugal, on 1 December 1640.

King João IV of Portugal, became the first king from the House of Braganza in 1640 after overthrowing the 60-year rule of the Spanish Habsburgs over Portugal and restoring the Portuguese throne which had first been created in 1143.

With her father’s new position as one of Europe’s most important monarchs, Portugal then possessing a widespread colonial empire, Catherine became a prime choice for a wife for European royalty, and she was proposed as a bride for Johann of Austria, François de Vendôme, duc de Beaufort, Louis XIV and Charles II.

The consideration for the final choice was due to her being seen as a useful conduit for contracting an alliance between Portugal and England, after the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 in which Portugal was arguably abandoned by France.

Negotiations for the marriage began during the reign of King Charles I, were renewed immediately after the Restoration, and on June 23, 1661, in spite of Spanish opposition, the marriage contract was signed.

Catherine arrived at Portsmouth on the evening of May 13–14, 1662, but was not visited there by Charles until May 20. The following day the couple were married at Portsmouth in two ceremonies – a Catholic one conducted in secret, followed by a public Anglican service.

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 revelations of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles’s brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, was 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. He was allegedly received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed.

Traditionally considered one of the most popular English kings, 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.

Was St. Edward’s Crown really destroyed by Oliver Cromwell?

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Alfred the Great, Charles II of England and Scotland, Edward the Confessor, English Civil War, Kingdom of England, Oliver Cromwell, Restoration, St. Edward's Crown

Edward the Confessor wore his crown at Easter, Whitsun, and Christmas. In 1161, he was made a saint, and objects connected with his reign became holy relics. The monks at his burial place of Westminster Abbey claimed that Edward had asked them to look after his regalia in perpetuity for the coronations of all future English kings.

Although the claim is likely to have been an exercise in self-promotion on the abbey’s part, and some of the regalia probably had been taken from Edward’s grave when he was reinterred there, it became accepted as fact, thereby establishing the first known set of hereditary coronation regalia in Europe. A crown referred to as St Edward’s Crown is first recorded as having been used for the coronation of Henry III in 1220, and it appears to be the same crown worn by Edward.

An early description of the crown is “King Alfred’s Crown of gold wire-work set with slight stones and two little bells”, weighing 79.5 ounces (2.25 kg) and valued at £248 in total. It was sometimes called King Alfred’s Crown because of an inscription on the lid of its box, which, translated from Latin, read: “This is the chief crown of the two, with which were crowned Kings Alfred, Edward and others”. However, there is no evidence to support the belief that it dated from Alfred’s time, and in the coronation order it always has been referred to as St Edward’s Crown.

St Edward’s Crown rarely left Westminster Abbey, but when Richard II was forced to abdicate in 1399, he had the crown brought to the Tower of London, where he symbolically handed it to Henry IV, saying “I present and give to you this crown with which I was crowned king of England and all the rights dependent on it”.

The monarchy was restored in 1660 after the English Civil War (1642-1649) and in preparation for the coronation of Charles II, who had been living in exile abroad, a new St Edward’s Crown was supplied by the Royal Goldsmith, Sir Robert Vyner. It was fashioned to closely resemble the medieval crown, with a heavy gold base and clusters of semi-precious stones, but the arches are decidedly Baroque.

In the late 20th century, it was assumed to incorporate gold from the original St Edward’s Crown, as they are almost identical in weight, and no invoice was produced for the materials in 1661. A crown was also displayed at the lying in state of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England from 1653 until 1658. However, it is believed the crown at Cromwell’s lying in state was probably made of gilded base metal such as tin or copper, as was usual in 17th-century England; for example, a crown displayed at the funeral of James VI-I had cost only £5 and was decorated with fake jewels.

On the weight of this evidence, writer and historian Martin Holmes, in a 1959 paper for Archaeologia, concluded that in the time of the Interregnum St Edward’s Crown was saved from the melting pot and that its gold was used to make a new crown at the Restoration.

His theory became accepted wisdom, and many books, including official guidebooks for the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London, repeated his claim as fact. In 2008, new research found that a coronation crown and sceptre were made in 1660 in anticipation of an early coronation, which had to be delayed several times.

Last evening I watched a documentary on YouTube called, The History of the British Monarchy Crown Jewels. In the documentary it is said that it is possible that the bottom half of St. Edward’s Crown is the original crown. Evidently there is only a record of a bill for the arches, the monde and the cross and this was due to the fact that the bottom half of the crown already existed and was in fact the original St. Edward’s Crown that had been saved from Cromwell’s destruction.

May 29, 1630: Birth and Restoration of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland.

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Catherine of Braganza, Charles I of England, Exclusion Bill, John IV of Portugal, King Charles II of England, Oliver Cromwell, Parliament, Restoration, Roman Catholic Church

Charles II (May 29, 1630 – February 6, 1685) was king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, and king of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta-Maria de Bourbon of France, daughter of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and his second wife, Marie de Medici. After Charles I’s execution at Whitehall on January 30, 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king of Scotland on February 5, 1649.

However, 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 September 3, 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. 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 May 29,: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 II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

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.

Marriage

Infanta Catherine of Braganza (November 25, 1638 – December 31, 1705) was the second surviving daughter of João, 8th Duke of Braganza and his wife, Luisa de Guzmán. Following the Portuguese Restoration War, which overthrew 60 years of Habsburg rule, her father was acclaimed King João IV of Portugal, on December 1, 1640. With her father’s new position as one of Europe’s most important monarchs, Portugal then possessing a widespread colonial empire, Catherine became a prime choice for a wife for European royalty, and she was proposed as a bride for Johann of Austria, François de Vendôme, duc de Beaufort, Louis XIV and Charles II.

Catherine de Braganza, Infanta of Portugal

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 June 23, 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.

Under the terms of the treaty Portugal obtained military and naval support against Spain and liberty of worship for Catherine. Catherine journeyed from Portugal to Portsmouth on May 13–14 1662, but was not visited by Charles there until 20 May 20. The next day the couple were married at Portsmouth in two ceremonies—a Catholic one conducted in secret, followed by a public Anglican service.

In 1670, he entered into the Treaty of Dover, an alliance with his cousin King Louis XIV of France and Navarre. 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.

Charles II near the end of his reign.

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 presumptive, James, Duke of York, was a Catholic. The crisis saw the birth of the Party Politics in England with the birth of pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties.

Fearing that the Exclusion Bill, which would exclude James, Duke of York from the throne due to his Catholicism, 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 II’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.

During the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill ebbed, and as Charles ruled as a virtual absolute monarch, he experienced a nationwide surge of loyalty. Lord Shaftesbury was prosecuted (albeit unsuccessfully) for treason in 1681 and later fled to Holland, where he died.

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.

During the exclusion crisis 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 executed or forced into exile. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and for the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled without Parliament.

Charles was always favorable toward the Catholic faith, his mother, Marie-Henrietta was a devout Catholic, and Charles II was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed.

King Charles II was one of the most popular and beloved kings of England, 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 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. He was succeeded by his brother James who became James II-VII, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

May 25, 1660: King Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament of England.

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Charles II, Commonwealth, Declaration of Breda, Dover, King Charles I of England, King Charles II of England, King Henri IV of France and Navarre, King of Ireland, King of Scots, Lord Protector, Restoration, Richard Cromwell

May 25, 1660 – King Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament (England), which marks the end of the Cromwell-proclaimed Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and begins the Restoration (1660) of the British monarchy.

Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685)[c] was king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, and king of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta-Maria de Bourbon of France, the youngest daughter of HenrI IV of France and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici.

After Charles I’s execution at Whitehall on January 30, 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on February 5, 1649. However, 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 September 3, 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland.

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.

On May 25, 1659, after the Rump Parliament agreed to pay his debts and provide a pension, Richard Cromwell delivered a formal letter resigning the position of Lord Protector. “Richard was never formally deposed or arrested, but allowed to fade away. The Protectorate was treated as having been from the first a mere usurpation.”

During the civil and military unrest that followed Cromwell’s resignation George Monck, the Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy. Monck and his army marched into the City of London, and forced the Rump Parliament to re-admit members of the Long Parliament, who had been sympathetic to the Crown, and who had been excluded in December 1648 during Pride’s Purge.

The Long Parliament dissolved itself and there was a general election for the first time in almost 20 years. The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority.

The restrictions against royalist candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in a House of Commons that was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and Parliamentarians and on religious grounds between Anglicans and Presbyterians.

The new so-called Convention Parliament assembled on April 25, 1660, and soon afterwards welcomed the Declaration of Breda, in which Charles II promised lenience and tolerance. There would be liberty of conscience and Anglican church policy would not be harsh.

He would not exile past enemies nor confiscate their wealth. There would be pardons for nearly all his opponents except the regicides. Above all, Charles promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament. The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at Breda on May 8, 1660. In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year, and had already declared for Charles. On May 14, he was proclaimed King of Ireland in Dublin.

Charles II set out for England from Scheveningen, arrived in Dover on May 25, 1660 and reached London on May 29, 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.

In the end nine of the regicides were executed: 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.

March 19, 1649: Abolition of the House of Lords

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Abolition of the House of Lords, Charles I of England, Charles II of England and Scotland, Deceleration of Breda, English Civil War, English Parliament, House of Commons, House of Lords, Oliver Cromwell, Restoration

On March 19, 1649 the House of Commons abolished the House of Lords. This revolutionary action did not obtain the consent of either Lords or the King and so it was not recognised as a valid law after the restoration of the King.

The first part of the abolishing Act was as follows.

The Commons of England assembled in Parliament, finding by too long experience that the House of Lords is useless and dangerous to the people of England to be continued, have thought fit to ordain and enact, and be it ordained and enacted by this present Parliament, and by the authority of the same, that from henceforth the House of Lords in Parliament shall be and is hereby wholly abolished and taken away; and that the Lords shall not from henceforth meet or sit in the said House called the Lords’ House, or in any other house or place whatsoever …

The Convention Parliament (April 25, 1660 – December 29, 1660) followed the Long Parliament that had finally voted for its own dissolution on March 16, that year. Elected as a “free parliament”, i.e. with no oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth or to the monarchy, it was predominantly Royalist in its membership. It assembled for the first time on April 25, 1660.

After the Declaration of Breda had been received, the Convention Parliament proclaimed on May 8, 1660 that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the death of Charles I in January 1649. The Convention Parliament then proceeded to conduct the necessary preparation for the Restoration Settlement.

Re-establishment of the House of Lords, 1660

The Lords Temporal resumed meeting as the House of Lords, in the Convention Parliament after that body restored the monarchy.

This date in history: December 24, 1660. Death of Mary, Princess Royal, Princess of Orange.

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Charles I of England, Charles II of England, Elector of Brandenburg, Elector of Hanover, Frederick William I of Brandenburg, George I of Great Britain, Henry IV of France, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Mary of England, Prince of Orange, Princess Royal, Republic of the Netherlands, Restoration, Stadthouder of the Netherlands, William II of Orange

Mary, Princess Royal (Mary Henrietta; November 4, 1631 – December 24, 1660) was Countess of Nassau by marriage to Prince Willem II of Orange and co-regent for her son during his minority as Sovereign Prince of Orange from 1651 to 1660.

Mary Henrietta was born at St. James’s Palace, London to Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, the eldest daughter of the youngest daughter of King Henri IV of France (Henri III of Navarre) and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici.

Mary, Princess Royal

Princess Mary was named after her mother. Her father, King Charles I, liked to call his wife Henrietta Maria simply “Maria”, with the English people calling her “Queen Mary.”

Charles I designated Mary Princess Royal in 1642, thus establishing the tradition that the eldest daughter of the British sovereign might bear this title. The title came into being when Queen Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Henri IV of France to imitate the way the eldest daughter of the French king was styled (Madame Royale). Until that time, the eldest daughters of English and Scottish kings were variously titled lady or princess (The younger daughters of British sovereigns were not consistently titled Princess of England/Scotland or Great Britain with the style Royal Highness until the accession of George I in 1714). George I of Great Britain codified styles and titles using the German system and this code is still in effect today.

Betrothal portrait of Princess Mary and Prince Willem of Orange

Her father, Charles I, wished that Mary should marry her first cousin Balthasar Carlos, Prince of Asturias, the son of Felipe IV of Spain. The Prince of the Asturias died on October 9, 1646 (aged 16) before succeeding to the throne. Mary’s first cousin, Charles I Ludwig, Elector Palatine, was also a suitor for her hand. Both proposals fell through and she was betrothed to Willem of Orange, the son and heir of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of the United Provinces, and of Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. The marriage took place on May 2, 1641 at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall Palace, London.

The Prince and Princess of Orange

The marriage was reputedly not consummated for several years because the bride was nine years old. In 1642, Mary moved to the Dutch Republic with her mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, and in 1644, as the daughter-in-law of the stadtholder, Frederik Hendrik she became more engaged in courtly and public events.

In March 1647, Mary’s husband, Willem II, succeeded his father as stadholder. However, in November 1650, just after his attempt to capture Amsterdam from his political opponents, he died of smallpox.

Co-regency

The couple’s only child, Willem III Prince of Orange and Stadthouder of the Netherlands (later William III of England, Scotland and Ireland), was born two weeks after his father’s death. Mary, now a Dowager, was obliged to share the guardianship of her infant son with her mother-in-law, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, and brother-in-law, Friedrich Wilhelm I, Elector of Brandenburg. They had more power over the young Prince’s affairs than she, as evidenced by his being christened Willem, and not Charles as she had desired.

Prince Willem II of Orange, Stadthouder of the Netherlands

She was unpopular with the Dutch because of her sympathies with her own family, the Stuarts. She lived in the palace of the Stadthouder at the Binnenhof in the Hague, the building complex that now houses the Senate of the Netherlands. Her boudoir is still intact. At length, public opinion having been further angered by the hospitality that she showed to her brothers, the exiled Charles II and the Duke of York (later James II-VII) she was forbidden to receive her relatives.

Her moral reputation was damaged by rumours that she was having an affair with (or had been secretly married to) Henry Jermyn, a member of her brother James’ household. The rumours were probably untrue, but Charles II took them seriously, and tried to prevent any further contact between Jermyn and Mary. From 1654 to 1657, Mary was usually not in Holland. In 1657, she became regent on behalf of her son for the principality of Orange, but the difficulties of her position led her to implore the assistance of her first cousin Louis XIV of France and Navarre.

Death

The restoration of Mary’s brother, Charles II in England and Scotland greatly enhanced the position of the Princess of Orange and her son in Holland. In September 1660, she returned to England. She died of smallpox on December 24, 1660, at Whitehall Palace, London and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
I

The Declaration of Breda.

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Breda, Charles II of England and Scotland, English Civil War, General Monck, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Restoration, The Declaration of Breda, the Netherlands

On this date in History: April 4, 1660. Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland issues The Declaration of Breda.

The Declaration of Breda (dated April 4, 1660) was a proclamation by Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland in which he promised a general pardon for crimes committed during the English Civil War and the Interregnum for all those who recognised Charles as the lawful king; the retention by the current owners of property purchased during the same period; religious toleration; and the payment of pay arrears to members of the army, and that the army would be recommissioned into service under the crown. The first three pledges were all subject to amendment by acts of parliament.

The declaration was named after the city of Breda in the Netherlands. It was actually written in the Spanish Netherlands, where Charles had been residing since March 1656; however, at the time of writing, England had been at war with Spain since 1655. To overcome the difficulties, both practical and in terms of public relations, of a prospective King of England addressing his subjects from enemy territory, Monck advised Charles to relocate himself to the United Netherlands, and to date his letters as if they were posted from Breda. Charles left Brussels, his last residence in the Spanish Netherlands, and passing through Antwerp arrived in Breda on April 4, and resided there until May.

Backgrounds

The declaration was written in response to a secret message sent by General George Monck, who was then in effective control of England. Monk believed, as the country was beginning to succumb to anarchy, that the king could be the only person to restore stability to the realm. On May 1, 1660, the contents of the declaration and accompanying letters were made public. The next day Parliament passed a resolution that “government ought to be by King, Lords and Commons” and Charles was invited to England to receive his crown. On May 8, Charles was proclaimed King. On the advice of Monck, the commons rejected a resolution put forward by jurist Matthew Hale (a member for Gloucestershire) for a committee to be formed to look into the concessions offered by Charles and to negotiate conditions with the King such as those put forward to his father in the treaty of Newport.

Contents

The declaration was drawn up by Charles and his three chief advisors, Edward Hyde, the James Butler, Marquis of Ormond, and Sir Edward Nicholas, in order to state the terms by which Charles hoped to take up “the possession of that right which God and Nature hath made our due”.

The declaration promised a “free and general pardon” to any old enemies of Charles and of his father who recognised Charles II as their lawful monarch, “excepting only such persons as shall hereafter be excepted by parliament”. However it had always been Charles’s expectation, or at least that of his chancellor, Edward Hyde (later Earl of Clarendon), that all who had been immediately concerned in his father’s death should be punished, and even while at a disadvantage, while professing pardon and favour to many, he had constantly excepted the regicides.

Once Charles was restored to the throne, on his behalf Hyde steered the Indemnity and Oblivion Act through parliament. The act pardoned most who had sided with Parliament during the Civil War, but excepted the regicides, two prominent unrepentant republicans, John Lambert and Henry Vane the Younger, and around another twenty were forbidden to take any public office or sit in Parliament.

In the declaration Charles promised religious toleration in areas where it did not disturb the peace of the kingdom, and an act of parliament for the “granting of that indulgence”. However parliament chose to interpret the threat of peace to the kingdom to include the holding of public office by non-Anglicans. Between 1660 and 1665 the Cavalier Parliament passed four statutes that became known as the Clarendon Code. These severely limited the rights of Roman Catholics and nonconformists, such as the Puritans who had reached the zenith of their influence under the Commonwealth, effectively excluding them from national and local politics.

The declaration undertook to settle the back-pay of General Monck’s soldiers. The landed classes were reassured that establishing the justice of contested grants and purchases of estates that had been made “in the continued distractions of so many years and so many and great revolutions” was to be determined in Parliament. Charles II appeared to have “offered something to everyone in his terms for resuming government”.

Copies of the Declaration were delivered to both houses of the Convention Parliament by Sir John Grenville. Other copies with separate covering letters were delivered to Lord General George Monck to be communicated to the Lord President of the Council of State and to the Officers of the Army under his command, and to the Generals of the “Navy at Sea” and to the Lord Mayor of London.