Ch. 1.3. The Restoration (1660-88)

Charles II, 1660-85. The Stuart dynasty returned in 1660, when Richard Cromwell’s regime faltered and many former Parliamentary leaders invited Charles I’s son and heir Charles II to take the throne. One of the first acts passed by Parliament under Charles was the Tenures Abolition Act (1660), which by ending feudal tenure sought to curtail certain traditional but much-resented types of taxes incumbent on nobles, who now held their lands like any other kind of private property. Although Charles’ efforts to allow toleration for Catholics were blocked by Parliament, overall his joviality, hedonism (he was known as the ‘Merry Monarch’), and willingness to compromise aided in a return to normalcy after years of war and the rule of Puritans. In 1673, in return for a Parliamentary grant of financing, he agreed to the Test Act, which barred all Catholics and Protestant Dissenters (non-Anglicans) from holding higher offices.

The Exclusion Crisis, 1679-81. Tensions mounted again, however, when it became clear that Charles II and his wife would not produce any children, and that instead he would be succeeded by his younger brother James, Duke of York. Parliament feared this because during his exile in France James had secretly converted to Catholicism; his Catholicism had then been made public when he resigned his position as Admiral rather than take the anti-Catholic oath required of all government officials by the 1673 Test Act. Also in 1673, James, a widower, married as his second wife the Catholic Mary of Modena, Italy. In response to mounting fears of a ‘popish plot’ to take over England and make it Catholic, in 1679 Parliamentary leaders proposed the Exclusion Bill, which would have excluded James from the succession. To avoid its passage, Charles dissolved Parliament.

Whigs & Tories: The struggles occasioned by the Exclusion Crisis saw the emergence of Britain’s first two-party system: the ‘Whigs,’ who favored James’ exclusion and increased Parliamentary power, and the ‘Tories,’ who sided with James and had more royalist sympathies.

Habeas Corpus Act of 1679: Just before dissolving Parliament, Charles had assented to another bill that was aimed at restraining the arbitrary rule that many feared James might impose. This was the Habeas Corpus Act, which reiterated the traditional writ (or court order) of habeas corpus. This writ required that anyone, including royal officials, who detained a prisoner, had to show that this detention was legal. This writ itself originated in the 1300s as a way to enforce the Magna Carta’s guarantee that no free man could be imprisoned without due process of the law. The term itself translates as, “you shall have the body,” meaning that the imprisoned person should be presented in court. Parliament passed a similar law in 1640, and there were later amendments as well. The term and associated right appears in the U.S. Constitution (Art. 1, Section 9, clause 2 = C1.9.2).

James II, 1685-88. In the end Parliament acquiesced to James’ succession, partly because of fears of a Puritan return to power, and partly because the 52-year-old James’ only children so far were his two daughters Mary and Anne from his first marriage, who had both been raised as Protestants. His reign, however, saw increased conflict, because he insisted on his rights as a divinely appointed monarch and continued to push for toleration of Catholics. In 1687 he proclaimed, but without support from any act issuing from Parliament, the Declaration of Tolerance, which granted religious freedom to both Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants, and admitted them to office-holding, thus annulling the Test Act of 1673.