Charles II of England leaving from Scheveningen
The Restoration was a major event in British history which occurred in 1660 when King Charles II of England returned to rule over England, Scotland, and Ireland at the invitation of Parliament. While King Charles was restored within a year of Parliament's vote, the Restoration era is considered to last until 1714, when the rise of the House of Hanover ushered in the Georgian era, which lasted until 1837.
Background[]
Following the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 and the military coup against his son Richard Cromwell in 1659, the Rump Parliament was dissolved and replaced by the Long Parliament, and George Monck crushed forces loyal to the Cromwellian Rump Parliament before dissolving the Long Parliament and appointing a "Convention Parliament" to vote on the restoration of the Stuart monarchy. On 4 April 1660, the exiled Charles II issued the Declaration of Breda, promising a general pardon for the English Civil War combatants, the retention of property by its current owners, religious toleration, and payment for the army, which would be recommissioned into royal service. On 8 May 1660, Parliament declared that Charles II had been the legal monarch since Charles I of England's execution on 30 January 1649, effectively undoing the reign of the English Commonwealth and The Protectorate. Charles entered London on 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, and he was crowned on 23 April. On 8 May 1661, an overwhelmingly Royalist Parliament was elected, and Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was the leading political figure of Charles' early reign. Many other Royalist exiles such as Prince Rupert of the Rhine, George Goring, Marmaduke Langdale, and William Cavendish returned to England and were rewarded for their loyalty to the crown.
History[]
The Restoration era saw the restoration of the Church of England as the established church, and the Book of Common Prayer was reimposed in 1662 and nonconformists were banned form religious meetings outside the established church in 1664, leading to the depositions or arrests of thousands of clergymen such as John Bunyan. In 1673, the Test Act required all holders of civil and military offices to take the sacrament in an Anglican church and to deny belief in transubstantiation. Protestant dissenters and Roman Catholics were largely excluded from public life, and Catholics were widely regarded as traitors and wrongly thought to have set the Great Fire of London in 1666. Charles II also slyly tried to consolidate royal power in spite of his promise of governing through Parliament, defeating the Parliament's anti-Catholic Exclusion Bill by dissolving Parliament in 1678. The crisis divided the country between the royalist Tory Party and the parliamentarian Whigs, and both parties shared their opposition to Charles' successor James II of England, who inherited the throne in 1685. James claimed the right to make his own laws, suspended the Test Act, and began to fill the army and government with fellow Catholics.
Glorious Revolution[]
When James' son was born in 1688, Protestants feared that a new Catholic dynasty would take root, so they launched secret negotiations to place Prince William of Orange on the throne. William, the husband of James' Protestant daughter Mary, landed in South West England with a small army, and he marched on London as the King's allies melted away. James fled to France, but some loyal Jacobites (especially in Scotland) launched several pro-Stuart rebellions until 1745. The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 ended the Restoration era and ushered in an era of stability and unity. A 1689 Bill of Rights limited the Crown's powers, reaffirmed the supremacy of Parliament, and guaranteed some individual rights, and the 1689 Toleration Act granted a limited freedom of worship to dissenters if they swore allegiance to the Crown. In 1701, the descendants of the electress of Hanover were put in line for the throne, as Electress Sophia of Hanover was the granddaughter of James I of England and was the closest Protestant relative of the childless Queen Anne. The War of the Spanish Succession from 1702 to 1713 presented new challenges for England and its allies, but the weakening of England's commercial rivals allowed for the Whigs lords and London merchants to profiteer from the war. In 1707, the Acts of Union united England, Scotland, and Wales under one crown, the Kingdom of Great Britain.
End of the Restoration era[]
The British general John Churchill dominated the fickle Queen Anne until 1710, but the Whigs and Churchill pushed their luck too hard, as they attempted to remove the Test Act to reward Dissenters for their loyalty. This led to Anne dismissing her Whig ministers and calling in Robert Harley and Henry St. John to form a Tory ministry. They negotiated the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, but Harley and St. John came to be rivals, resulting in St. John ousting Harley before Queen Anne's death in 1714 reversed his fortunes. The Whigs returned to power, and Sophia's son George became King of Great Britain. Harley was imprisoned in the Tower of London until 1717, while St. John was charged with being a Jacobite traitor and fled to France. The Whigs remained in power until 1780, and the stable Georgian era came to define the 18th century after the extinction of the Protestant Stuart line in 1714.