A fugitive king hides in an oak tree at Boscobel House after defeat at Worcester (1651)
The escape of 1651, remembered on 29 May as Royal Oak Day and on countless pub signs
Monarchs · Stuart
Charles II
1630–1685
House of Stuart — the Restoration
In office: 1660–1685
Restored in 1660 after nine years of exile, Charles II presided over a reign of plague, fire, Dutch wars, scientific brilliance and spectacular court scandal. Politically supple where his father had been rigid, he took secret subsidies from Louis XIV, rode out repeated attempts to exclude his Catholic brother from the succession, and died leaving no legitimate child but a dozen acknowledged bastards.
How to spot them
- ▸The Merry Monarch; the Restoration; the royal oak at Boscobel
- ▸Nell Gwyn, Barbara Villiers and Louise de Kérouaille; no legitimate heir
- ▸Charters for the Royal Society, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and the Royal Hospital Chelsea
- ▸Received into the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed in February 1685
In the reign
A declaration issued from a Dutch town promising a general pardon and liberty to tender consciences (1660)
The Declaration of Breda, which cleared the way for the Restoration
A royal charter for a new society for improving natural knowledge, its motto Nullius in verba (1662)
The Royal Society of London
Bills of mortality record some 70,000 deaths in the capital in a single year (1665)
The Great Plague of London
A fire beginning in a baker's house in Pudding Lane burns for four days (1666)
The Great Fire of London, which destroyed old St Paul's and about 13,200 houses
A Dutch fleet sails up the Medway and tows away the English flagship (1667)
The Raid on the Medway; the Royal Charles was taken to the Netherlands, where her stern carving hangs in the Rijksmuseum
A secret treaty in which an English king takes a French subsidy and promises to declare himself a Catholic (1670)
The Secret Treaty of Dover, negotiated partly through his sister Henrietta Anne
A wholly fabricated conspiracy, sworn to by Titus Oates, sets off a wave of Catholic executions (1678)
The Popish Plot
Quick-fire facts
- •Crowned King of Scots at Scone on 1 January 1651; his effective English reign began with the Restoration in 1660
- •He entered London on 29 May 1660, his thirtieth birthday, and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661
- •Married Catherine of Braganza in 1662; her dowry included Bombay and Tangier. They had no surviving children
- •He acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children, among them James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, by Lucy Walter
- •The Clarendon Code and then the Cabal ministry — Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale — shaped his government
- •The Exclusion Crisis of 1679–81, over barring his Catholic brother James from the throne, produced the party names Whig and Tory
- •He founded the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1675 and the Royal Hospital Chelsea in 1682
- •The Rye House Plot of 1683 aimed to assassinate both him and his brother
- •Dying on 6 February 1685, he apologised for being 'an unconscionable time a-dying' and asked that Nell Gwyn not be left to starve
- •He was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed by Father John Huddleston, who had helped him escape in 1651
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- The Royal Household — Charles II (r. 1660-1685)
- Antonia Fraser — Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration