HARLES II. of England was one of the most worthless rascals that ever sat upon a throne. To the insincerity of his father he added open debauchery, and became a pensioner of France. Yet for twenty-five years this insolent huckster retained the crown, and died in peaceful possession of it. During this disgraceful reign Parliament was most subservient to the king, but its power was not suspended. Important modifications of the government took place, which, having proved beneficial to the people, have been retained as part of the British Constitution.

Charles II. was born May 29, 1630. Though the second son of Charles I., he was Prince of Wales from his birth, the eldest son having lived but a day or two. When but twelve years old, Prince Charles was appointed by his father commander of a troop of horse which he had raised as a bodyguard at York. In 1645 he was made general and sent to serve with the royal troops in the West. After the battle of Naseby the Prince retired to Jersey, and in September, 1646, he joined his mother in Paris. He was residing at the Hague when he received the news of the execution of his father. He immediately assumed the title of king, and was proclaimed at Edinburgh by the Scotch government. Charles had tried to avoid committing himself to the Presbyterians, but yielded to their demands. He landed in Scotland in June, 1650, and was crowned king at Scone on January 1, 1651. He signed

the Solemn League and Covenant, and secretly tried also to raise a force among the Highlanders. When Leslie was defeated at Dunbar, Charles marched into England, hoping to rouse the loyalty of the people. The royalist forces were routed by Cromwell at Worcester in September, but the fugitive Charles escaped through the fidelity of a few friends. Embarking at Shoreham, he crossed the channel, and went to Paris. Here he remained until the peace of 1655 compelled him to leave France. Receiving a pension from Louis XIV., he removed to Bruges, where he held a little court, chiefly composed of gay young libertines and disreputable women.

But while this graceless king was wasting his time in folly, events in England were working to his advantage. Oliver Cromwell died in September, 1658, and his son Richard proved incapable of retaining the power which had devolved on him. General George Monk marched from Scotland, resolved to restore the careless king. No resistance was offered to the general, who entered London amid popular rejoicing. Instead of a Parliament, Monk summoned a Convention of leading men. By its order a squadron of gailydecked vessels was sent across the German Ocean to bring back the exiled Stuart. A conciliatory declaration published by Charles at Breda heightened the satisfaction of the English people. The king's progress from the coast to the capital was a triumph attended with every demonstration of joy. Such was the rapture of loyalty that Charles, whose wit was keen, observed to one of his company, that for the life of him he could not see why he had stayed away so long, when everybody was so charmed that he was come back. Charles entered London amid loud acclamations and universal festivity on his thirtieth birthday, May 29, 1660.

The new king's character was little known to his subjects. He had profited nothing by the adversities of his youth. But his good nature and love of pleasure, his lively ways and witty remarks, his pleasant face and the charm of his manners, soon made him very popular. The merry monarch surrounded himself with a gay, reckless, merry-making court. The severe Puritans retired from public office. The dignified statesmen who had attended on Charles I., and lost their fortunes in his

cause, found themselves ill at ease amid the dissipations of the new regime. The reaction from Puritanism appeared not only in the revival of the theatre and the introduction of licentious plays, but in the bitter persecution of those who adhered to the Puritan faith. The Convention was continued as a Parliament, and it gratified the king by punishing those who had been concerned in the condemnation of his father. Though his own royal word had been given for the amnesty of past offences, thirteen regicides were hanged, drawn and quartered, and the rest, except a few who escaped, were imprisoned for life. An act of indemnity was passed, granting pardon to all who had fought against the king's troops in the Civil War, except Sir Harry Vane and General Lambert. The same Parliament granted to the king a yearly revenue of £1,200,000; but this splendid sum was to take the place of the old military tenures, feudal dues and purveyances, which had been used as instruments of oppression in foreign reigns. The army by which the Restoration had been effected was disbanded; but Charles, not feeling secure, kept a body of 5,000 horse and foot soldiers. This was the nucleus of the standing army.

Charles had solemnly promised that all religious sects should be allowed to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. But Edward Hyde, who had been made Earl of Clarendon and Prime Minister, had an excessive zeal for Episcopacy, in which the Convention Parliament shared. The Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, permitted no clergyman to hold a living unless he were ordained by a bishop and used a prayer-book. By this act two thousand Presbyterian ministers were ejected. Again, under the Conventicle Act of 1664, none were allowed to worship in assemblies, even in private houses. Under the Five Mile Act of 1665 Dissenting ministers were forbidden to teach in schools or to approach within five miles of a town. The saintly moderate, Richard Baxter, who had trusted in the friendliness of the king, was driven from his home, and the pious John Bunyan was sent to Bedford jail to dream the Pilgrim's Progress.

On May 20, 1662, Charles was married to Catharine of

Braganza, daughter of John IV. of Portugal. She brought a dowry of £500,000, Bombay in India, and Tangiers in Africa. The English people felt their first shock of reaction at the king's marriage to a Roman Catholic, even though she was a virtuous and amiable princess. The selfish, pleasure-loving king soon outraged her feelings by presenting to her his avowed mistress. The poor queen fainted and blood gushed from her nose. The fawning Clarendon persuaded the royal victim to submit to the insult, but her spirit was henceforth utterly broken. The unblushing licentiousness of the court was a scandal to the world. Its excessive extravagance went far beyond the liberal allowance of the Parliament. But it was soon known that the king was in the pay of France. The city of Dunkirk, which the English had come to regard as compensation for the loss of Calais, was sold to Louis XIV. for £200,000. So loud and violent was the talk in the London coffee-houses about the king's shameful conduct, that some of these new resorts were ordered to be closed. Severe laws continued to be passed against both the Puritans and the Catholics. It was at this time that those Protestants who did not conform to that church began to be called Dissenters. The king, while willing that Dissenters should be persecuted, showed strong leaning toward the Roman Catholics. Yet he never went in direct opposition to Parliament, as his father had done. He yielded when the Commons stood firm, got as much money from them as he could, and spent it on his ignoble pleasures.

In 1664 Charles made war upon the Dutch, but the result was disastrous and disgraceful to England. The Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway, and burned the English war-ships moored at Chatham. This roused popular indignation against the king. A Parliamentary investigation showed that money granted for the navy had been squandered on the court. Parliament therefore put some restrictions on the grant of supplies. During the Dutch war two terrible calamities visited London. The first was the Plague of 1665, which lasted for six months and destroyed 100,000 lives. Hardly had it ceased its awful ravages when the Great Fire broke out in the centre of the city. It consumed two-thirds of the

city, from the Tower to the Strand, destroying St. Paul's church, the Royal Exchange, other stately buildings, and hundreds of dwellings. It burned furiously for three days and nights, but lingered for weeks. It swept over the filthy districts in which the plague had been bred and nourished. After the fire the streets were laid out anew, and overcrowding of houses prevented. In the acrimonious disputes about religion the fire was attributed to the Catholics, and the Monument erected to commemorate the calamity long bore an inscription stating this as a fact. The inscription was removed in 1850. As London had shown a spirit of independence, its charter was revoked on a pretext, but was eventually restored in 1690.

The Dutch war was concluded by the treaty of Breda, July 31, 1667. It was followed by the dismissal of Clarendon, through the intrigues of the king's mistress, which made the people hold him responsible for the disgrace of the war. He was impeached, but fled to France and died in exile. The next seven years form the period of the Cabal ministry, so called from the initials of its members-Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, Lauderdale. To this band of political schemers is traced the origin of the present cabinet, as part of the British political system. In 1672 Parliament passed the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all laws against Catholics and Dissenters, but the measure was considered too sweeping, and in 1673 the Test and Corporation Acts took its place. By these laws no one could hold an office in a city or town, or in the civil service, army or navy, or be a professor or student in a university without taking the sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the forms of the Church of England. Its first effect was to break up the Cabal ministry. The Earl of Danby, who was popular with the Commons, succeeded as prime minister.

His

All the important events of the reign of Charles II. were affected by religious dissensions. So far as the king had any religion, he was a Catholic, but he concealed his belief. brother James, Duke of York, was the next heir to the throne, as Charles had no legitimate children. Both Churchmen and Dissenters sought to have James excluded from the succes