GREAT SEAL OF CHARLES II.
CHAPTER VII.
CHARLES II.
Character of Charles II.—The King's First Privy Council—The Convention Parliament—Submission of the Presbyterian Leaders—The Plight of those who took Part in the late King's Trial—Complaisance of the Commoners—Charles's Income—The Bill of Sales—The Ministers Bill—Settlement of the Church—Trial of the Regicides—Their Execution—Marriage of the Duke of York—Mutilation of the Remains of Cromwell—The Presbyterians Duped—The Revenue—Fifth-Monarchy Riot—Settlements of Ireland and Scotland—Execution of Argyll—Re-establishment of Episcopacy—The new Parliament violently Royalist—The King's Marriage—His Brutal Behaviour to the Queen—State of the Court—Trial of Vane and Lambert—Execution of Vane—Assassination of Regicides—Sale of Dunkirk—The Uniformity Act—Religious Persecution—Strange Case of the Marquis of Bristol—Repeal of the Triennial Act—The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts—War with Holland—Appearance of the Plague—Gross Licentiousness of the Court—Demoralisation of the Navy—Monk's Fight with the Dutch—The Great Fire.
Charles II. did not want sense. He was naturally clever, witty, and capable of a shrewd insight into the natures and purposes of men. He gave proof of all these qualities in the observation which we have recorded, at the close of the day when he was restored to his paternal mansion, that everybody assured him that they had always ardently desired his return, and that if they were to be believed, there was nobody in fault for his not having come back sooner but himself. Yet, with many qualities, which, if united to a fine moral nature, would have made him a most popular monarch, he was utterly destitute of this fine moral nature. He had had much, long, and varied experience of mankind, and had alternately seen their base adulation of royalty in power, and their baser treatment of princes in misfortune. But Charles had not the nobility to benefit by this knowledge. He had familiarised himself with every species of vice and dissipation. He was become thoroughly heartless and degraded. His highest ambition was to live, not for the good and glory of his kingdom, but for mere sensual indulgence. He was habituated to a life of the lowest debauchery, and surrounded by those who were essentially of the same debased and worthless character. To such a man had the nation—after all its glorious struggles and triumphs for the reduction of the lawless pride of royalty, and after the decent and rigorous administration of the Commonwealth—again surrendered its fate and fortunes, and surrendered them without almost any guarantee. The declaration of Breda was the only security which it had, and that was rendered perfectly nugatory by the reservation of all decisions on those questions to a Parliament which the Court could control and corrupt.
Monk presented to the king a paper containing a list of names of such persons as he professed to consider to be the most eligible for the royal service either in the Council or the Ministry. But Clarendon, who was the king's great adviser, having adhered to him and his interests ever since his escape to the Continent, perused the catalogue with no little surprise. It consisted, he tells us, "of the principal persons of the Presbyterian party, to which Monk was thought to be most inclined, at least to satisfy the foolish and unruly inclinations of his wife. There were likewise the names of some who were most notorious in all the factions; and of some who, in respect of their mean qualities and meaner qualifications, nobody could imagine how they came to be named." They were, in fact, such as had been thrust on Monk by the Parliamentary leaders, who were all striving to secure their own interests; not even the Presbyterians foreseeing how severely they were punishing themselves by the restoration of the monarchy. Monk, on the Chancellor's remonstrance as to many of these names—amongst which only those of the Marquis of Hertford and the Earl of Southampton belonged to men who had at all adhered to the Royal cause—soon let him into the secret, that they were such as had importuned him to do them good offices with the king, and that he never intended to do more than forward the paper, and leave the king to do as he pleased. Clarendon soon, therefore, made out a very different list of names for the Privy Council, though he found it politic to insert almost as many names of Presbyterians as of Royalists, but with the purpose of gradually changing them.
The first Privy Council of Charles, therefore, consisted of the king's brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, the Marquis of Ormond, the Earls of Lindsay, Southampton, Manchester, St. Albans, Berkshire, Norwich, Leicester, and Northumberland, the Marquises of Hertford and Dorchester, Lords Saye and Sele, Seymour, Colepepper, Wentworth, Roberts, and Berkeley, Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Sir George Carteret, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Sir Edward Nicholas, General Monk, and Morrice, his creature, who had assisted in the negotiations with the king, Colonel Charles Howard, Arthur Annesley, Denzil Holles, and Montague, general, or rather admiral, for as yet no distinctly naval officer was known—military commanders fought both on sea and land.