Great Plague and Fire
In 1665, Charles II was faced with a great health crisis: an outbreak of Bubonic Plague in London commonly referred to as the Great Plague. Believed to have been introduced by Dutch shipping vessels carrying cotton from Amsterdam, the plague was carried by rats and fleas and the death toll at one point reached up to seven thousand per week. Charles, his family, and his court fled London in July 1665 to Oxford. Various attempts at containing the disease by London public health officials were all in vain and the disease continued to spread rapidly.
On September 2, 1666, adding to London's woes, was what later became famously known as the Great Fire of London. Although effectively ending the spreading of the Great Plague due to the burning of all plague-carrying rats and fleas, the fire consumed about 13,200 houses and 87 churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral. Charles II is famously remembered for joining the fire-fighters in combating the fire.
At the time, a comet was visible in the night sky. The supposition of the day claimed it was God's message, and that the above crises were as a result of God's anger. Blame was placed upon Charles and his Court, but later the people shifted their blame to the hatedRoman Catholics. The situation was not helped by Charles's brother, James II's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1667.
Conflict with Parliament
Half-Crown of Charles II, 1683. The inscription reads CAROLUS II DEI GRATIA (Charles II by the Grace of God).
Although previously favorable to the Crown, the Cavalier Parliament was alienated by the king's wars and religious policies during the 1670s. In 1672 Charles issued the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, in which he purported to suspend all laws punishing Roman Catholics and other religious dissenters. In the same year, he openly supported Catholic France and started the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
The Cavalier Parliament opposed the Declaration of Indulgence on constitutional grounds, claiming that the king had no right to arbitrarily suspend laws, rather than on political ones. Charles II withdrew the Declaration, and also agreed to the Test Act, which not only required public officials to receive the sacrament under the forms prescribed by the Church of England, but also forced them to denounce certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church as "superstitious and idolatrous." The Cavalier Parliament also refused to further fund the Anglo-Dutch War, which England was losing, forcing Charles to make peace in 1674.
Charles's wife Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir, her pregnancies instead ending in miscarriages and stillbirths. Charles's heir-presumptive was therefore his unpopular Roman Catholic brother, James, Duke of York. In 1678 Titus Oates, a former Anglican cleric, falsely warned of a "Popish Plot" to assassinate the king and replace him with the Duke of York. Charles did not believe the allegations, but ordered his chief minister Thomas Osborne, 1st Earl of Danby to investigate. Danby was highly skeptical about Oates's revelations, but reported the matter to Parliament. The people were seized with an anti-Catholic hysteria; judges and juries across the land condemned the supposed conspirators; numerous innocent individuals were executed.
Later in 1678 Lord Danby was impeached by the House of Commons on the charge of high treason. Although much of the nation had sought war with Catholic France, Charles II had secretly negotiated with Louis XIV, trying to reach an agreement under which England would remain neutral in return for money. Lord Danby was hostile to France, but reservedly agreed to abide by Charles's wishes. Unfortunately for him, the House of Commons failed to view him as a reluctant participant in the scandal, instead believing that he was the author of the policy. To save Lord Danby from the impeachment trial in the House of Lords, Charles dissolved the Cavalier Parliament in January 1679.
A new Parliament, which met in March of the same year, was quite hostile to the king. Lord Danby was forced to resign the post of Lord High Treasurer, but received a pardon from the king. In defiance of the royal will, Parliament declared that dissolution did not interrupt impeachment proceedings. When the House of Lords seemed ready to impose the punishment of exile—which the House of Commons thought too mild—the impeachment was abandoned, and a bill of attainder introduced. As he had had to do so many times during his reign, Charles II bowed to the wishes of his opponents, committing Lord Danby to the Tower of London. Lord Danby would be held without bail for another five years.
Later Years
Another political storm that faced Charles was that of succession to the Throne. The Parliament of 1679 was vehemently opposed to the prospect of a Catholic monarch. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (previously Baron Ashley and a member of the Cabal, which had fallen apart in 1672) introduced the Exclusion Bill, which sought to exclude the Duke of York from the line of succession. Some even sought to confer the Crown to the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles's illegitimate children. The "Abhorrers"—those who opposed the Exclusion Bill—would develop into the Tory Party, while the "Petitioners"—those who supported the Exclusion Bill—became the Whig Party.
Fearing that the Exclusion Bill would be passed, Charles dissolved Parliament in December 1679. Two further Parliaments were called in Charles's reign (one in 1680, the other in 1681), but both were dissolved because they sought to pass the Exclusion Bill. During the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill began to dissolve, and Charles experienced a nationwide surge of loyalty, for many of his subjects felt that Parliament had been too assertive. For the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled as an absolute monarch.
Charles's opposition to the Exclusion Bill angered some Protestants. Protestant conspirators formulated the Rye House Plot, a plan to murder the King and the Duke of York as they returned to London after horse races in Newmarket. A great fire, however, destroyed much of Newmarket and caused the cancellation of the races; thus, the planned attack could not take place. Before news of the plot leaked, the chief conspirators fled. Protestant politicians such as Algernon Sydney and the Lord William Russell were implicated in the plot and executed for high treason, albeit on very flimsy evidence.
Charles suffered an apopleptic fit and died suddenly on Wednesday, February 6, 1685 (at the age of 54) at 11:45am at Whitehall Palace of uremia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction). He is purported to have said to his brother, the Duke of York, on his deathbed: “Let not poor Nelly starve.” and to his courtiers: “I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying.”[2] He was buried in Westminster Abbey “without any manner of pomp” and was succeeded by his brother who became James II of England and Ireland, and James VII of Scotland.[3]
Posterity and Legacy
Charles II left no legitimate issue. He did, however, have several children by a number of mistresses (many of whom were wives of noblemen). Many of his mistresses and illegitimate children received dukedoms or earldoms. He publicly acknowledged 14 children by seven mistresses; six of those children were borne by a single woman, the notorious Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, for whom the Dukedom of Cleveland was created. His other favorite mistresses were Nell Gwynne and Louise Renée de Penancoët de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles also acknowledged children by Lucy Walter, Elizabeth Killigrew, Viscountess Shannon, and Catherine Pegge, Lady Greene. The present Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, Duke of Richmond and Gordon, Duke of Grafton, and Duke of St. Albans all descend from Charles in direct male line. Charles's relationships, as well as the politics of his time, are depicted in the historical drama Charles II: The Power and The Passion (produced in 2003 by the British Broadcasting Corporation).
Diana, Princess of Wales was descended from two of Charles's illegitimate sons, the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of Richmond (who is also a direct ancestor of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, second wife of Charles, Prince of Wales). Thus Diana's son Prince William of Wales, currently second in line to the British Throne, is likely to be the first monarch descended from Charles I since Queen Anne.
Charles II's eldest son, the Duke of Monmouth, led a rebellion against James II, but was defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor on July 6, 1685, captured, and executed. James II, however, was eventually dethroned in 1688 in the course of theGlorious Revolution. James was the last Catholic monarch to rule England.
Charles, a patron of the arts and sciences, helped found the Royal Society, a scientific group whose early members included Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Sir Isaac Newton. Charles was the personal patron of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who helped rebuild London after the Great Fire in 1666. Wren also constructed the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which Charles founded as a home for retired soldiers in 1681. Since 1692, a statue of Charles II in ancient Roman dress (created by Grinling Gibbons in 1676) has stood in the Figure Court of the Royal Hospital.
The anniversary of Charles's Restoration (which is also his birthday)—May 29—is recognized in the United Kingdom as "Oak Apple Day," after the Royal Oak in which Charles is said to have hidden to escape from the forces of Oliver Cromwell. Traditional celebrations involved the wearing of oak leaves, but these have now died out. The anniversary of the Restoration is also an official Collar Day.
Style and Arms
The official style of Charles II was "Charles the Second, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc." The claim to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English King since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled. His arms were: Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland).
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