After dismissing parliament of Oxford in 1681, Charles pursued alliance with the Tories and emasculation of the Whigs and Dissenters at all political levels. He pursued a strategy with determination and consistency he had rarely shown at any other point.

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Transcript

Richard Rumbold had never forgotten how close England had come to liberty. In 1641,  At the age of just 19, he’d run away and joined up to fight for the Good Old Cause, and over the next 30 years had given his life to it. He’d given his eye too – lost in a battle, which earned him the nickname of Hannibal. He joined the New Model, and worshipped with the other Radical Baptists he found in their ranks. He’d had the honour to be chosen to stand in the guard around the scaffold of the Traitor and Tyrant Charles I in the ‘First year of our Liberty 1649’, as MP Henry Martyn had put it on the coins. He’d worked with John Wildman, the most radical political activist, and with the other Levellers to promote the cause of the ordinary people, and fought for the protectorate, rising to become a Captain in the Lord Protector’s personal guard. Through the long years of the Restoration he’d put his disappointment to the back of his mind, and got on with life. He settled down, built a good business with his wife as a Maltster, and set themselves up at a nice place called Rye House in Hertfordshire, where he was known by the locals as an honest, bluff military type. But in his heart he’d never forgotten the glory days, still carried a candle for the Good Old Cause, and kept in touch with his old friends.

Recently, John Wildman had got in touch. And brought him into contact into a group of other Radicals – the Earls of Shaftesbury and Essex, Algernon Sidney, William Russell, John Hampden son of the Great Patriot who had shed his blood and died on Chalgrove Field in 1644 – and, it was rumoured, even royalty – the Duke of Monmouth. Which was why he was, at this moment in 1683, preparing once more for the killing of a king. It was time for the old tyrant’s son to die too.

 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of England episode ***

Well, there’s a thing! Plotting assassination and rebellion. We’ll come back to the plotters at

Rye house a little later, but first – how had we come to this? We heard last time that Charles had brusquely closed the Oxford Parliament in March 1681. Because the King had decided enough was enough, and it was time to change course. After the three exclusion parliaments, the link between Dissenters and sedition seemed to him utterly clear – and Jack Presbyter must be hounded out of political and social influence. He would use the tools of state – to do that – the justice system, direct rule.  And would avoid parliament as far as he was humanly possible. He also resolved to turn the tools of his enemies back on them – and court public opinion, lure away the moderate whigs from their radical exclusionist and republican colleagues, and appeal to the galleries of public opinion to ride a wave of Tory loyalism.

Before we talk about Charles’ campaign after Oxford, it might be a good idea to just look north for a moment, and talk about James and Scotland, because events there will have an impact in England, and also on the future of James Duke of York.

James had been rather a success in Scotland. He was welcomed with some enthusiasm by the people and dignitaries of Edinburgh, and he consciously set aside the system of people through whom Lauderdale had exercised his power. James wowed the Scottish parliament who then got right behind him – he was celebrated as the ‘Darling of the Age’. The Scottish parliament duly passed two very significant acts, one of which was a new Test Act – which meant that to hold public office everyone had to

Affirm and swear that the king’s majesty is the only supreme governor of this realme in all causes as well ecclesiastical and civil

That was something no good Covenanter or radical Presbyterian could do, since they recognised no governor of religion other than Christ. As a result, a considerable number of Presbyterian nobility left politics, and the supremacy of the ecclesiastical wing of the Scottish Kirk was confirmed. The suppression and persecution of radical protestant, the Killing Time as they called it, continued. One of those lords was Archibald Campbell, Marquis of Argyll. His father had been the architect of the revolution against Charles I, and he was a suspected potential rebel. After a bit of trying to reach an accommodation, he fled to the Netherlands…and there would indeed plot rebellion, we’’ll see him again.

Well that gave James a problem. Ever since the fall of the MacDonalds in the 15^th century, the Campbells had been the enforcer of the Scottish Government in the western Highlands, and an increasingly fractious relationship it had been. Lowland Scotland in general took a very dim view of the Highland clans; they considered their way of life alien, didn’t understand their language, and thought them dangerously lawless and potentially rebellious. The work of recent historians has shown that much of that the things that lowland Scots feared – the tradition of raiding and justice delivered by Highland lords, and clan battles – were largely subsiding; Alan McInnes makes the point that the last clan battle will be in 1688. However, the general tenor of central Edinburgh government had been one of suspicion, and the harsh imposition of central justice; including techniques such using highland infighting and rivalries to recruit some clans to impose fines on their competitors, and questioning clans rights to land. The Campbells themselves had ruthlessly exploited debts and loans to appropriate and acquire land for themselves.

So it’s a difficult history; and left without the Campbells to act as enforcer, James took a different approach. He established a Commission for Securing the peace. This Commission offered the clan chiefs and highland lords a deal. Rather than attempting to impose centrally directed justice on a society that still believed in the local judicial power, they would offer a compromise in the form of a bond. The bond effectively co-opted the highland lords to keep the peace on behalf of the Edinburgh government – if they accepted the bond, they would be responsible for imposing order, and in return the state would recognise their legal right to land, which had previously been considered to belong to the whole clan. Most accepted this enthusiastically, thankful at last to being seen as part of the national systems and elite, rather than marginalised and treated with suspicion. They accepted it despite some quite draconian conditions; such as the pass required for Highlanders to carry weapons, and the imposition of a  central garrison at Inverlochy.

There are two long term impacts of deal this I’d like to note. One is a bit esoteric and long term; this is all part of a process that had been going on for 150 years now, since James IV and the Daunting of the Isles, of assuming Highland lords held title for their land just like a feudal lord; when older Gaellic based law assumed all land was held by the clan in common. This will store up trouble for the future, particularly when the Scottish landlords devise and carry out the Highland clearances. The other more immediate consequence is that James had a deep fund of loyalty in the Highland on which he could draw. In the unlikely event he ever needed it, nudge nudge and all that.

But there’s more. The Scottish parliament fell over themselves to demonstrate their loyalty and their belief in the supremacy of the monarchy in a way that would have struck an immediate chord with an English Tory, and of which this quote might give you a flavour

We esteem our lives and fortunes to be best employed in the maintaining of the just rights and prerogatives of your majestie’s crown and monarchy

Also they were quite specific that they disapproved of the behaviour going on down south, and that their parliament aimed

by their good example to mother the English to a better compliance with the counsel

One aspect of that example of proper behaviour was to diss all this exclusionist tripe against the most noble and ancient Scottish dynasty which had an unbroken line for 300 years. The Act anent the Succession stated that

The Estates of Parliament, considering that the kings of this realm… do derive their royal power from God Almighty alone, and do succeed lineally thereto, according to the known degrees of proximity in blood, which cannot be interrupted, suspended or diverted by any act or statute whatsoever…

So – nerks to your exclusion, nerks to your social contract stuff. If you try to deprive James of his proper right you’ll probably end of fighting us as well. It’s Charles II, the Engagement, 1651 all over again.

No then, Back in England in the disobedient south, Charles now embarked on a coherent and aggressive campaign to make his Tory supporters and their beloved Church of England everywhere supreme, and stand royal Stuart power and dynasty tall on their foundation. He would throw his unequivocal support behind the church, to lead his party of Tory loyalists. First- he must destroy Whig power utterly.

The first obvious strategy was decapitation; to publicly destroy the Whig leaders – and in the crosshairs was of course, Shaftesbury. He was already the object of Tory satire, such as “The Wine Cooper’s Delight”, a song that had him as a barrel of toxic drink. But On the 2^nd July 1681 he was arrested, thrown in the Tower and his papers seized. Monmouth immediately declared his hand, by going to visit him. So Charles denied Shaftesbury the right to any more visitors.

The charge brought against Shaftesbury was treason – that he had plotted to remove Charles by force. But it took until November to bring the case, and it was as weak and useless as a cup of tea made in a microwave. Plus – the Whigs owned London anyway, and so the jury was packed with Exclusionists. The Sheriffs were Whigs, they chose the jurymen, whigs to a man. The case was thrown out – with a verdict of ignoramus, eroughly translated as ‘don’t look at me guv’ I darn’t know nafink’.

As the news hit, across the country there were celebrations; in London bonfires were lit, crowds roaming the streets shouting ‘No Popish Successor, No York, A Monmouth’. ‘The king cannot hope to have justice in his own courts’ raged one Tory writer. The campaign had undeniably not got off to a flyer. Charles would soon be doing something about that.

So although Shaftesbury was free for the moment – he was not forgiven, not forgotten, and all those whig pamphleteers must be taught to learn the price of free expression – or the wrong kind of free expression anyway. The first to feel the weight of the King’s disapproval was Stephen College – he was accused and tried of plotting to seize the king. Now the evidence for this was thinner than your average waffer then after dinner mint. The real reason for the charge was that he was a flamboyant Whig poet and activist who’d dared to write stuff such as

The Long parliament stood up for the rights of the people…Alas poor nation, thou art undone by a bad father, and now a worse son!

Well we can’t have that sort of thing, can we? Stephen College was duly convicted. Charles would continue to use courts and judges designed to achieve such convictions; obviously a disgrace, but we might balance it by noting that the whigs were no better; through Oates’ lies and the fever to exploit the opportunity, 22 innocent Catholics had been sent to their death. I mean – two wrongs don’t make a right and all that but equally what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, an eye for an eye and all that. Ah, the wisdom of the ancients!

Anyway, enough cliches for a moment. L’Estrange followed this new royal policy with panache and enthusiasm, prosecuting printers with all his might, raiding the print shops who dared published whig books, seizing kit and closing businesses down. Elizabeth Calvert, who ran the Black Spread Eagle book and print shop, was relentlessly harassed. A  printer’s wife, Jane Cuirtis, was prosecuted for singing  a ballad, ‘Song on the Downfall of the Whigs’.

Charles knew that in order for this policy to succeed he must also control the institution which had protected Shaftesbury, the Whig infrastructure that also sheltered the writers and pampleteers, the town halls, local political leaders and officials. From as early as 1680, he began a purge of Justices of the Peace – every county was reviewed through a Commission, and 10% of JPs removed. But the Boroughs and the Town Corporations were the big threat to Charles – not least because the chaotic franchise system, which had been restored with the monarchy, meant that 4/5^ths of MPs came from towns, and they controlled who sat on juries – see the trial of Shaftesbury above.

At which we can remember the glory days of Edward I and his 13^th century campaign to seize rights for the crown away from the nobility – and the tool he had produced for that purpose, the writ of Quo Warranto, ‘by what right’, demanding corporations demonstrate through proper legal documents that they held the rights and liberties they claimed. And if a corporation did have a good document, there was always a King-friendly judge on hand to rule that actually no, no , no no no – it was definitely dodgy, can’t be right. The Judge was very often the ferocious George Jeffreys, who led an intrusion of royal power into the boroughs never seen before. Judge Jeffreys was duly rewarded, invited into Charles’ inner circle, the ‘cabinet Council’ he set up for his closest advisers for the rest of his reign.

New charters were then issued to the boroughs. Spookily, they were always friendly to church and Tory members. Rules on Dissenters in public office were now rigorously applied, and dissenters removed from corporations and town councils all over the country. So now, they could be relied on to pack juries in a different idiom, to influence parliamentary elections that could result in a different flavour of MP.

In vain did whig writers protest and vent their fury

We demand of thee, Charles Stewart, Quo Warranto are thou king of England?

Prosecuting dissenters more generally was now pursued with rigor, and even enthusiasm. There were two  good reasons in Charles’ mind to this of course. The link between religious dissent and Whigs was strong  – though it’s super important to remember that most whigs were not dissenters – if that had been true, they would have been a small party indeed. The majority of whigs were those that believed in a broad minded, more tolerant approach to protestant worship.

But to look at it the other way round – most Dissenters were whigs. So, prosecutions were stepped up – if conventicles were found to have more than 3 people worshipping at any one time, they were indicted for riot. Charles’ directive to officials was that to tolerate dissenters would lead to rebellion and a new civil war – and toleration must end. The persecution of Quakers was particularly severe. Quakers were forced to swear the oath of allegiance, and since Quakers never swore oaths, hundreds were imprisoned – and would die in prison. So – as in Scotland so in England – for dissenters these were the killing Times, and hundreds would die.

The prosecution of dissenters had another benefit. It reinforced the primacy of the Anglican church, and encouraged Tories, and their support for Charles. And it made the idea of moderation and toleration less and less acceptable. This change in the perception of what was and was not acceptable brought many moderate whigs back to the Tories. They were persuaded, that the political and religious messages of the likes of Shaftesbury whigs were extremist and divisive, and in the interests of peace, should be rejected.

All of this, and Charles’ combative Declaration after the Oxford parliament filled Tory sails with wind; L’Estrange’s paper, The Observator, pumped out sarcasm and invective, and whig street demonstrations faded in the face of increasingly enthusiastic loyalist demonstrations that now outnumbered them. Cries of

‘Remember the 41!’

Now raised everyone’s fear that the destruction of civil war would come again if the Whigs were allowed to continue, and cries of

No bill of Exclusion! No Whig

Were heard at mass celebrations with the ubiquitous bonfires, of course. It seemed increasingly clear that the Whig cause was finished.

But Shaftesbury was not yet ready to admit defeat. If they were losing the battle for public opinion to force Charles to call parliament, if the towns were turning Tory, if Dissenters were running for cover for fear of their life and liberty, then maybe the only way left – was direct action. Shaftesbury began to gather his coalition around him, William Russell, Algernon Sidney, the Earl of Essex and others; and the Duke of Monmouth. In a series of secret meetings at Shaftesbury’s London house, Thanet House, they planned to use Monmouth’s tour of Cheshire in September 1682 to gauge support. Well, the tour was a triumph, people loved him, now was the time to strike.

But Charles was having none of that. His wayward son must be brought to heel. Monmouth was arrested and Russell and the other conspirators got cold feet, so the planned co-ordinated series of risings was postponed.

Shaftesbury was in growing and immediate danger. On September 28^th 1682 his friendly Whig sheriffs in London were replaced, and Tories appointed – and he knew the crown would re-open the prosecution against him as soon as they could, and that this time, evidence or no evidence, they would have his guts. He went into hiding, moving from house to house of supporters and conspirators; one claimed he had 10,000 men ready to answer his call as soon as he gave it – but Russell and the others could not be persuaded that the time was right, and all the while Shaftesbury could feel the noose tightening around him.

So he fled, and by December 1682, the leading light of the whig cause was in Amsterdam. Where his dodgy health deteriorated still further, and by January 1683, Shaftesbury was dead.

Sop that brings us back to Rye House, where we started. The conspiracies and plans for rebellion didn’t die with Shaftesbury, but they changed. Instead the plan weas to be assassination. The conspirators knew that Charles planned to go to his beloved Newmarket races in March 1683. His route home was sure to come through the town of Hoddesden, where one of their number could wait with a troop of horse, seize the person of the king which would be the sign for risings around the country. Scots were involved as well; the Earl of Argyll who had fled James would return and raise a rebellion in the wide Campbell lands. After the deed was done and Charles was no more, they would instal a Protestant king – the Duke of Monmouth, as James II and VII.

The key to the assassination plan was Richard Rumbold, because his house, Rye House was just north east of Hoddesden, the perfect hideout for the assassins. Everything was ready, the scene was set, the time was here.

 

The plan had every chance of succeeding. But as the killers assembled, there came news – Charles had been seen! Charles had already been through Hoddesdon – they’d missed him – had they been betrayed, had the King been warned?

In fact, pure chance had saved Charles this time – there had been a fire at Newmarket races, everyone had left early, and passed through Hoddesdon before anyone was ready. But there would be no chance to try again – because in June 1683, they really were betrayed. The whole web of conspiracies and conspirators came out. Mass arrests followed – the ring leaders Earl of Essex, Sidney, Russell and John Hampden were all taken. Others fled – Richard Rumbold escaped and like many would up in the Dutch republic. He would return in 1685, but end his revolutionary career on gallows in Edinburgh, unrepentant

‘none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.”

Monmouth had been released, but now went again into hiding; Charles was gutted to hear of the treachery of his own son. It offended one of the his most deeply held principles, that had kept the Duke of York firmly by his side, whatever problems he created – the honour and protection a man owed his own family, that was a principle that truly drove Charles, that is where he did show a sense of obligation and commitment. Meanwhile, a reward was offered for Monmouth’s discovery.

Over the next few months, the main plotters all met their end; and Judge George Jeffrey had a lot to do with it. I have presented all this as having very likely happened and such is how modern Historians view it. But at the time, and to later whig historians, the evidence was very thin indeed, and many had a strong suspicion the whole thing was a put up job by the government. But very probably these men were indeed guilty of treason. But historians have pointed out that the government gained massive benefits from exposing this plot, and convictions must be achieved as a clear statement of the costs of conspiracy for all. In the light of that, when it was announced that one of the conspirators, the Earl of Essex, had cut his own throat in the tower –  some historians have been deeply sceptical and suggest this was assassination, to help convince juries to convict in trials of the other plotters.

At William Russell’s trial Jeffreys seems to have dropped his normal bullying style, but in  Algernon Sidney’s he excelled himself. There were not the required two witnesses; and so Jeffreys allowed Sidney’s writing to be counted as though it were a witness – scribere est agere’ he declared – to write is to act. The dodgy nature of the convictions led Sidney to remark sarcastically that

We live in an age that makes truth pass for treason’

Both were executed, and both died with their support for the Good Old cause on their lips. They would later be toasted as Whig martyrs, by the likes of Carles James Fox, as they drank to

 

‘The cause for which Hampden bled on the field and Sidney and Russell on the scaffold’

 

Monmouth was discovered, and secret meetings and hearts to hearts held between loving father and errant son; it’s said Monmouth agreed to confess to treason, but only secretly and privately. This was apparently enough for Charles, who pardoned him. But his confession was nonetheless made public. Monmouth was outraged, and felt his betrayal keenly. When he was called as a witness for John Hampden’s trial, he’d had enough. He fled to the Netherlands; and there gathered around him Whigs and conspirators to wait for an opportunity to raise rebellion and return.

John Locke, incidentally, also fled. He was almost certainly not a rebel; but he was too closely connected to the Whigs through Shaftesbury, and so took the cautious route. And anyway, Charles’ England was no longer the kind of place where you could publish the Two Treatises of Government safely, and that was what he now aimed to do. He worked on them though while in exile, and talked about them in the Netherlands; he referred to them as his secret project about De Gallo Morbo – the French disease. Not that French diswease, the political one – absolutism he meant.

Charles and the Tories made full use of this opportunity. Others were accused of sedition, which included Titus Oates, and he was prosecuted. They couldn’t prove anything that would lead to execution, but they did fine him for defamation – £100,000, utterly unpayable of course, and he’d be in prison until he paid the unpayable, so the net outcome was life imprisonment. The same happened to John Hampden; they only had one witness since Monmouth had legged it, and no convenient political tract to use so they were in a bit of a bind. So they followed the same route as Oates – they fined him so much, he’d be almost certain to spend his life in prison. This idea of absurdly excessive and disproportionate fines is a serious grievance, and it will be Gloriously brought up again in a few years’ time.

Another royal declaration was read from pulpits, pointing out that the fervour of the Whigs had lead to violence. It was followed by a mass of fervent loyal addresses to the King from around the country, 283 of them from all over England and Wales, pledging their loyalty to the Crown. At Coventry they made effigies of

The Damned Association, the Scotch Covenant, and Liberty of Conscience

They hung them on the gallows, and then burned them, singing God Save the King and the Duke of York. In Plymouth they made an effigy of Jack Presbyter and burned him at the market cross. Everyone loves a chance for a good bonfire. You’d have the ‘elf & safety on you now good and proper,  the police would be involved, insurance and all sorts.

The Rye House Plot finished the Whig cause, it confirmed the marginalisation of Dissenters, and Tories and their beloved Church of England were safe and supreme, with king and nation firmly behind them.

Now then we come to the last few years of Charles reign. There has been a full and frank exchange of views about who was at the helm of state during this period. Traditionally it’s been thought that Charles focussed on being the merrie monarch, while his brother James, back in Westminster full time now focussed on being the actual monarch. But others have fought back against that idea and it seems that the big decisions were Charles’; but that others were very influential. There are two main players to mention in that respect – James himself and Louise de Keroualle. One of our sources is a Scottish polymath called Gilbert Burnet – philosopher, historian, Bishop of Salisbury. He wrote of this time that

James directed all our counsels with so absolute an authority

He was indeed part of the privy council, and very much in Charle’s good books and confidence. He was effectively Lord Admiral once more, and led a commission on ecclesiastical affairs. Unsurprisingly, James encouraged Charles to start releasing and re-appointing Catholics, which he does – though not at the speed James would have liked. But, and this is interesting in the light of later history, he also disapproved of Charles’ over enthusiasm for persecution of Dissenters, and did what he could to mitigate it, particularly against Quakers.

Louise de Keroualle remained supreme in Charles’ affections, and everyone knew it; the Duke of Ormonde moaned that Charles mistresses, ex-mistresses and their children were all over the place and were all way ‘over dignified;’ as he put it, and he tried not to have to deal with them. But in the end even a man of his longevbity and auctoritas was forced to concede that Keroualle was unavoidable. From 1682 she functioned as an alternative Queen, and of course strongly supported Catholic James, and the French interests. Queen Catherine seems ot have been in an odd position. One the one had she complained bitterly to Charles that

‘the queen mother did a great deal more [than she], but that now the mistresses governe all’

On the other hand, Charles had resolutely refused to contemplate divorce, and their relationship seemed to have become warmer. When Charles fell ill, she would be besides herself, and be glued to his bedside.

Further down the pecking order, the Cornishman Sidney Godolphin became Charles secretary of state; despite the fact that he’d been an exclusionist. Charles though ignored Godolphin’s great talents of intellect – and focussed on his financial Skills. Godolphin will have his day, though, never you fear.

Godolphin and the Lord Treasurer, Laurence Hyde the earl of Rochester made the best of a good job in giving Charles the great gift of a healthy income. Income rose everywhere, until it hit £2m a year,[1] and the government was in surplus. Plus, of course, there was Louis’ nice little extra income. One of the things Charles did with both his money and his love of France, incidentally, was to copy the institution of Les Invalides set up by Louis XIV in France, and found the Chelsea Hospital for crippled soldiers – and there’s a grand old institution, which is still alive today, the Cheslea Pensioners.

So Charles had money. That gave him the greatest gift of all – freedom from parliament. So although under the requirements of the Triennial Act in 1684, he was of course bound to call parliament, Charles, of course did no such thing, pish and pshaw at the very thought – in the end like father like son. He was done with parliaments. He took the opportunity to free Danby from the Tower on bail, though he was not restored to power or influence with the King – Charles had moved on. Do not forget Danby though.

All of that freedom though, came on one great condition, and again the parallels with his Dad are all there – he could afford no wars. Charles did have a standing army as it happens despite the fear of a New Model Army re-run; he had never dissolved those regiments supposed raise for war against the Dutch or French depending on the time of day. He could amass a force of 9,000 in England, and 7,500 in Scotland, without recourse to parliament, which is substantial in a domestic context. But it would not be enough for a proper grown up full-fat foreign war. That kind of war cost rivers of cash, rivers of cash mean a parliament, and Charles was done with parliaments. In general, together with Louis’ little sweeteners and with the support of James and Keroualle, that meant fitting in with the pro French policy. It’s a little more complicated than that, Charles’ doesn’t got to sleep, he is never Louis’ puppet. But a king who must avoid foreign entanglements would inevitably have limited diplomatic influence and clout.

All of this didn’t go unnoticed. The French writer Jean Paul de Cerdan wrote a political tract with the subtitle ‘Europe a slave unless England breaks her chains’, and in it he wept

What can England say for herself a nation, formerly of all Europe most fierce and jealous of her liberty…France has found a way to lull asleep the English Sansom’

The biggest loser from this policy was William of Orange. On a personal level, Charles didn’t like William very much. He was dour, and direct, and demanding. William had lost much influence at this stage in the Dutch Sates General, and the alignment of the Three kingdoms with France did nothing to help with that. He therefore asked Charles if he could visit to try and get a boost. His request was turned down. He was Refused. Charles snarled at James that he didn’t want his nephew trying to push him around again. The result was that William gave Monmouth a great welcome in his exile, and made him his personal guest.

There was a significant marriage though, between James’ second daughter Anne, 21 years old now, who was married to the Prince of Denmark. Not that one, she was married to George Prince of Denmark, given that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were dead. Charles, famously was not a fan of the handsome prince George

I have tried him drunk and I have tried him sober and there is nothing in him’

But Anne saw something in him; she loved him. And George loved her right back. They would be a pair. And incidentally she was also a pair with her longstanding confidente and best mate, Sarah, who had already secretly married one John Churchill. Sarah Churchill therefore became a lady of Anne’s household, and part of her inner circle – the Cockpit Circle, as they became known. Definitely a relationship to watch for the future.

There is another very significant development we might note before Charles gets ill. In terms of colonial policy, Charles might also have a reputation for avoiding entanglements; for example, he very sensibly gives up Tangiers, and shows no interest in state involvement in India, which is all left to the East India Company. But that was not true of North America, where there might be some signs of a consistent policy to continue expanding settlement and royal control. And so with something of an irony, given his treatment of Quakers at home, in 1681 he granted a charter to William Penn, to settle Pennsylvania. In another irony, Penn of course promptly established liberty of conscience, freedom from arbitrary arrest, control of taxation by voters – a sort of Whig paradise.

So it seems a bit counter intuitive, and there’s no sign of some secret friendly relationship between Penn and Charles. But as far as the king was concerned, Penn had the wherewithal, and it would close a gap in the north American settlements; plus it allowed him to write off a debt of £16,000 he owed his father. Such are the casual ways of history.

 

 

 

Charles was a vigorous active man, and despite the odd bout of fever, enjoyed excellent health – he walked twice a day, hunted a lot, loved rough and violent storms at sea on his yacht. So the hideous seizure which struck him on 2^nd February 1685 was a bit of a shock; it’s never been fully diagnosed, but seems it might be a stoke followed by kidney failure.

Of course the Doctors went to work to make sure he didn’t die happily; bloodletting of course but also enemas, always a joy, and an interesting little treatment involving blistering and scarification of the skin to get rid of those evil humours. He must have been in agony, which he bore with all the courage which had been so much part of his character.

It’s a pretty deeply documented death, because of a super famous incident. At the last moment, at death’s door, Father John Hudleston was secretly admitted to the royal presence by the back stairs. James had gained Charles’ permission for this as he lay dying, and almost no one had been told. John Hudleston had met Charles before – at Moseley Old Hall as Charles fled from his defeat at Worcester. He did the necessary; accepting Charles into the Catholic Church and administering last rites, and then slipped away like a ghost, with almost no one else knowing he’d ever been.

Afterwards, of course a whole load of myth has grown up, helped by a substantial amount of post ipso facto fibbing by James about how devout Charles was. Almost no historian agrees with the embellishments, but of course it was in James’ and the Catholic church’s interest to big it all up. Charles had never shown any interest in theology, or any personal interest in religion really other than the conventional, and for its role in politics, obviously.

His last words, vey sadly, do not appear to have been ‘don’t let Nelly starve’…the  night before he’d rallied, and said he loved his wife and his brother, and told James to look after his two mistresses Louise and Nell. He asked to have the curtains drawn back – some said he prayed for his country and other swore he did nothing of the sort – I’m going for the nay sayers, though if they’d said he prayed for France I’d be more inclined to believe it… sorry, that was unworthy of me. He died on 6^th February 1685, and everyone rushed off to make James king.

Well, then, the end of a very significant rule and monarch, Charles II. We talked a while ago, you and I, about Charles reputation, and the extraordinary difference between popular memory and academic history. In retrospect, I do find the popular view extraordinary; Jonathan Healey sums it up to a degree in his book when he says

He is remembered for his parties rather than the Quakers who died in his prisons, or the Scots Presbyterians who were tortured by his soldiers, or the slaves who suffered at the hands of the Royal African Company.

The issue, I guess, is that if I or any of you had met him, it’s very likely we’d had really liked him and enjoyed his company. He was brave, energetic, a great raconteur and a bit of a wit. My most attractive image of him, oddly, remains his flight from England in his youth, when there he is, completely defeated, life in chaos, trapped on Jersey chased by soldiers – and yet he gets himself a yacht and takes off sailing round the island. He was extraordinarily resilient, staying cheerful even in times of enormous crisis.

But he was also brutal, selfish and self centred, quite able to desert his ministers and servants, awful to his wife, a sort of moral vacuum. The stuff with France I find quite remarkable – why is that not the one fact that everyone remembers about him?  I’ve tried not to make too much of it, pointing out that he remained his own man, but really. The stuff about religion is interesting; clearly not a man who believed with any passion about religious liberty, but one who equally saw no point in religious persecution – unless it served his political purpose. Which, on multiple occasions, it did. In a sort of feeble summary, I would say that when doing the research for these podcasts and coming fresh to an historical figure it’s curious to see how my opinion changes. Charles I stayed pretty much the same; Cromwell improved with interrogation; my opinion of Charles became way worse.

Whether he was a clever politician or not is an interesting debate. Yes, he was flexible, and that was a great skill and benefit. But he does not come across as a great or clear strategist, he is intensely tactical, he reacts to events does not lead until the very end after Oxford, usually he was pretty cautious. I suspect he gets such a good reputation because there was an inbuilt self correcting mechanism in the Three Kingdoms at this time in favour of stability; no one could contemplate the civil wars coming again. That alone doomed the Whigs. Charles was actually at his most politically impressive, strategic and focussed in his worst moments, his brutal but relentless drive to expunge the whigs.

That meant he bequeathed James with, on the face of it a very good hand indeed. Income exceeded expenditure, and handsomely. He had a standing army on hand for any local problems, there was apparent great stability and support for the monarchy – and royal power had been considerably extended into the boroughs. But look a little deeper, and the story is less good. During his reign, a deep fissure had re-opened in society and politics, had acquired a name and become normalised; Whig and Tory. Until that was resolved, none of the Three kingdoms could rest easy.

[1] Healey, J: ‘The Blazing World’, p396