© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

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several acts which became part of the "Clarendon Code". The Conventicle Act 1664 prohibited religious assemblies of more than five people, except under the auspices of the Church of England. The Five Mile Act 1665 prohibited clergymen from coming within five miles of a parish from which they had been banished. The Convecticle and Five Mile Acts remained in effect for the remainder of Charles' reign. Other parts of the Clarendon Code included the Corporation Act 1661 and the Act of Uniformity 1662. Charles agreed to give up antiquated feudal dues which had been revived by his father; in return, he was granted an annual income of £1,200,000 by Parliament. The grant, however, proved to be of little use for most of Charles' reign. The aforesaid sum was only an indication of the maximum the King was allowed to withdraw from the Treasury each year; for the most part, the amount actually in the coffers was much lower. To avoid further financial problems, Charles appointed George Downing (the builder of Downing Street) to reform the management of the Treasury and the collection of taxes.

Foreign policy

In 1662 Charles married a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, who brought him the territories of Bombay and Tangier as dowry. During the same year, however, he sold Dunkirk—a much more valuable strategic outpost—to his cousin King Louis XIV of France for £40,000. Appreciative of the assistance given to him in gaining the throne, Charles awarded North American lands then known as Carolina—named for his father—to eight nobles (known as Lords Proprietors) in 1663.

The Navigation Acts (1650) which hurt Dutch trade and started the First Dutch War (1652-1654), were also responsible for starting the Second Dutch War (1665-1667). This conflict began well for the English, with the capture of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York in honour of Charles' brother James, Duke of York, the future James II of England/James VII of Scotland) in North America, but in 1667 the Dutch launched a surprise attack upon the English (the Raid on the Medway) when they sailed up the River Thames to where the better part of the English Fleet was docked. Almost all of the ships were sunk except for the flagship, the Royal Charles, which was taken back to the Netherlands as a trophy. (The ship's nameplate remains on display, now at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.) The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda in 1667. As a result of the Second Dutch War, Charles dismissed his advisor Lord Clarendon , whom he utilised as a scapegoat for the war. Clarendon fled to France when impeached by the House of Commons for high treason (which carried the penalty of death). Power passed to a group of five politicians known as the Cabal—Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford, Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) and John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale.

In 1668, England allied itself with Sweden, and with its former enemy the Netherlands, in order to oppose Louis XIV in the War of Devolution. Louis was forced to make peace with the Triple Alliance, but he continued to maintain his aggressive intentions. In 1670, Charles, seeking to solve his financial troubles, agreed to the Treaty of Dover, under which Louis XIV would pay him £200,000 each year. In exchange, Charles agreed to supply Louis with troops and to convert himself to Roman Catholicism "as soon as the welfare of his realm will permit." Louis was to provide him with 6,000 troops to suppress those who opposed the conversion. Charles endeavoured to ensure that the Treaty—especially the conversion clause—remained secret. It remains unclear if Charles ever seriously intended to follow through on the conversion clause. Meanwhile, by a series of five acts around 1670, Charles granted the British East India Company the rights to autonomous territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command fortresses and troops, to form alliances, to make war and peace, and to exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas in India. Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands of Bombay for a paltry sum of ten pounds sterling paid in gold. 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 7000 per week. Charles, his family and court were forced to flee London in July 1665 to Oxford. Various attempts at containing the disease by London public health officials all fell 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.

Conflict with Parliament

Although previously favourable to the Crown, the Cavalier Parliament was alienated by the king's wars and religious policies during the 1670s. In 1672, Charles issued the 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—although opposed to granting religious tolerance to Catholics—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' wife Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir, her pregnancies instead ending in miscarriages and stillbirths. Charles' 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. Lord Danby, however, was an anti-Catholic, and encouraged Oates to make his accusations public. 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, however, 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' 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 a 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 done 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.

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