[Sidenote: Opposition to Puritanism]
The religious situation was especially favorable for Charles II. The outrages committed by Cromwell's soldiery had caused the Independents to be looked upon as terrible fanatics, Even the Presbyterians were willing to yield some points to the king, if only Independency could be overthrown; and many who had been inclined to Puritanism were now unwavering in loyalty to the Anglican Church. Orthodox Anglicanism, from its origin, had been bound up with the monarchy, and it now consistently expected a double triumph of the "divine-right" of kings and of bishops. Most bitter of all against the Cromwellian régime were the Roman Catholics in Ireland. Though Cromwell as Lord Protector had favored toleration for Protestants, it would be long before Catholics could forget the Irish priests whom Cromwell's soldiery had brutally knocked on the head, or the thousands of Catholic girls and boys whom Cromwell's agents had sold into horrible slavery in the West Indies.
[Sidenote: Royalist Reaction]
This strong royalist undercurrent, flowing from religious and social conditions, makes more comprehensible the ease with which England drifted back into the Stuart monarchy. The younger generation, with no memory of Stuart despotism, and with a keen dislike for the confusion in which no constitutional form was proof against military tyranny, gave ready credence to Prince Charles's promises of constitutional government. There seemed to be little probability that the young monarch would attempt that arbitrary rule which had brought his father's head to the block.
[Sidenote: Charles II, 1660-1685]
The experiment in Puritan republicanism had resulted only in convincing the majority of the people that "the government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons." The people merely asked for some assurances against despotism,—and when a throne was thus to be purchased with promises, Charles II was a ready buyer. He swore to observe Magna Carta and the "Petition of Right," to respect Parliament, not to interfere with its religious policy, nor to levy illegal taxes. Bound by these promises, he was welcomed back to England in 1660 and crowned the following year. The reinstatement of the king was accompanied by a general resumption by bishops and royalist nobles of their offices and lands: things seemed to slip back into the old grooves. Charles II dated his reign not from his actual accession but from his father's death, and his first Parliament declared invalid all those acts and ordinances passed since 1642 which it did not specifically confirm.
The history of constitutional government under the restored Stuarts is a history of renewed financial and religious disputes. Charles II and his younger brother and heir, Prince James, duke of York, alike adhered to the political faith of their Stuart father and grandfather. Cousins on their mother's side of Louis XIV of France, in whose court they had been reared, they were more used to the practices of French absolutism than to the peculiar customs of parliamentary government in England. Unlike their father, who had been most upright in private life and most loyal to the Anglican Church, both Charles and James had acquired from their foreign environment at once a taste for vicious living and a strong attachment to the Roman Catholic Church. In these two Stuarts Catholicism was combined with absolutism; and the Englishmen represented in Parliament were therefore brought face to face not only with a revival of the earlier Stuart theory of divine-right monarchy but with a new and far more hateful possibility of the royal establishment of Roman Catholicism in England. Charles II did not publicly confess his conversion to Catholicism until his deathbed, but James became a zealous convert in 1672.
That Charles II was able to round out a reign of twenty-five years and die a natural death as king of England was due not so much to his virtues as to his faults. He was so hypocritical that his real aims were usually successfully concealed. He was so indolent that with some show of right he could blame his ministers and advisers for his own mistakes and misdeeds. He was so selfish that he would make concessions here and there rather than "embark again upon his travels." In fact, pure selfishness was the basis of his policy in domestic and foreign affairs, but it was always a selfishness veiled in wit, good humor, and captivating affability.
[Sidenote: Renewal of Financial Disputes between King and Parliament]
At the beginning of the reign of Charles II, the country gentlemen were astute enough to secure the abolition of the surviving feudal rights by which the king might demand certain specified services from them and certain sums of money when an heiress married or a minor inherited an estate. This action, seemingly insignificant, was in reality of the greatest importance, for it indicated the abandonment in England of the feudal theory that land is held by nobles in return for military service, and at the same time it consecrated the newer principle that the land should be owned freely and personally—a principle which has since been fully recognized in the United States and other modern countries as well as in England. The extinction of feudal prerogatives in the early days of the Stuart Restoration benefited the landlords primarily, but the annual lump sum of £100,000 which Charles II was given in return, was voted by Parliament and was paid by all classes in the form of excise taxes on alcoholic drinks. Customs duties of £4 10_s_. on every tun of wine and 5 per cent ad valorem on other imports, hearth-money (a tax on houses), and profits on the post office contributed to make up the royal revenue of somewhat less than £1,200,000. This was intended to defray the ordinary expenses of court and government but seemed insufficient to Charles, who was not only extravagantly luxurious, but desirous of increasing his power by bribing members of Parliament and by maintaining a standing army. The country squires who had sold their plate for the royalist cause back in the 'forties and were now suffering from hard times, thought the court was too extravagant; to this feeling was added fear that Charles might hire foreign soldiers to oppress Englishmen. Consequently Parliament grew more parsimonious, and in 1665-1667 claimed a new and important privilege—that of devoting its grants to specific objects and demanding an account of expenditures.