Charles II of England

Charles II (St. James Palace, London, May 29, 1630-Whitehall Palace, London, February 6, 1685) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 29 from May 1660 until his death in 1685.

His father, Charles I, was executed in 1649 after the English Civil War; the monarchy was then abolished and the country became a republic under the tyranny of Oliver Cromwell, the 'Lord Protector'. In 1660, two years after Cromwell's death, the monarchy was restored under Charles II.

Unlike his father, Carlos II was skilful in his relationship with Parliament. It was during his reign that the Whig (liberal) and Tory (conservative) parties developed. He became famous for his numerous illegitimate children, of whom he recognized fourteen. Known as "the Merry Monarch", Carlos II favored the arts and sciences and, anti-puritanical, was less restrictive than his predecessors when ordering the reopening of the theaters in 1660, closed since 1642. By embracing Catholicism on his deathbed, Charles II became the first Catholic to reign in England since the death of Mary I in 1558, and in Scotland since the deposition of his great-grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1567.

In his honor, astronomer Edmund Halley named the Greyhounds' alpha star Cor Caroli, heart of Charles.

Childhood and youth

Portrait of Charles II in his childhood, by Anthony van Dyck (1637).

Charles was born in St. James's Palace on May 29, 1630, the second son —but the eldest in fact, as the eldest son died at birth in 1629— of the nine children of Charles I of England and Enriqueta María de Francia. At birth he automatically became, given the status of his eldest son, Duke of Cornwall - as heir to the throne of England - and Duke of Rothesay - as heir to the throne of Scotland. Shortly afterwards he was made Prince of Wales. Due to the chaos brought about by the English Civil War, he was never solemnly invested with the so-called "Principality of Wales Honours"—diadem, ring, sword, cloak, etc.—.

During the 1640s, as a young Prince of Wales, Charles I fought Parliament and Puritan troops in the English Civil War. The prince accompanied his father during the Battle of Edgehill and, at just fifteen years old, participated in the battles of 1645. In 1646 his father, fearing for his safety, ordered him to go to France and join his mother, who was there. in exile. In 1648, during the Second English Civil War, he moved to The Hague with her sister Mary and her husband, the Prince of Orange, with the idea of supporting her father.

Charles II Prince of Wales by William Dobson, ca. 1642 or 1643.

Carlos I was captured by the rebels in 1647; he escaped, and was imprisoned again in 1648. Despite his son's efforts to save him, Charles I was executed in 1649, and England was proclaimed a republic. In time, however, much of Scotland remained loyal to the royalist cause. On February 5, 1649, Charles II was proclaimed King of Scots in Edinburgh, under the promise that he would validate the "Solemn League and Covenant". This was an agreement between England and Scotland that prevented the Church of Scotland from being remodeled in the image of the Anglican, having to remain in Presbyterianism —form of ecclesiastical government preferred by the majority of the Scots— unlike the Church of England that maintained its episcopal hierarchy.

Upon his arrival in Scotland on June 23, 1650, Charles formally signed the pact. His abandonment of Anglicanism, though it brought him support in Scotland, made him unpopular in England. He was crowned King of Scots at Scone (Perthshire) on January 1, 1651, after which he organized an offensive against England, then under the rule of the "Lord Protector", Oliver Cromwell. The invasion ended with defeat at the Battle of Worcester (1651), after which it is said that Charles hid in an oak belonging to a certain noble house —which went down in history as the Royal Oak—, later fleeing to France in disguise. Parliament offered a reward of £1,000 on the king's head and imposed the death penalty on anyone who helped him. After six weeks of hasty escapes, Carlos managed to leave England.

Impoverished, Charles was unable to muster enough support to pose a serious challenge to the Lord Protector. France and the United Provinces—now the Netherlands—allied with Cromwell's government, forcing Charles to turn to Spain for help.He attempted to raise an army, but failed due to financial hardship.

Restoration

Carlos II, portrait by Sir Peter Lely.

After Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658, Charles's chances of regaining the Crown seemed to dwindle. Cromwell was succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell, as Lord Protector, but he was a man with neither the gift of leadership nor the desire to exercise it, and he abdicated on 25 May 1659. The Protectorate of England was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established. England (English Commonwealth). During the period of civil and military unrest that followed, George Monck, Governor of Scotland, concerned about the lawlessness of the nation, determined to restore the monarchy. Monck and his army marched to the City of London where, with widespread popular support, they they forced the so-called Long Parliament to dissolve. For the first time in almost twenty years, members of Parliament had to face a general election.

A House of Commons was elected with a clear predominance of the royalist faction. Meeting on April 25, 1660, the new assembly, called the Convention Parliament, heard of the Declaration of Breda (April 4, 1660), in which Charles agreed, among other things, to pardon many of his father's enemies. As a consequence, on May 8, Parliament immediately decreed that Charles II had been the legitimate Sovereign since Charles I's execution in 1649.

Charles left for England, landing at Dover on May 23, 1660. He arrived in London on May 29, which is considered the official date of the Restoration, and which coincided with Charles's thirtieth birthday. Although he decreed an amnesty for Cromwell's followers in the Immunity and Oblivion Act , he did not pardon the crime of regicide to the judges and authorities involved in the trial and execution of his father. Some of the regicides were executed in 1660; others were sentenced to life imprisonment. The corpses of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were subjected to the indignity of posthumous execution.

The Gentleman Parliament

Charles II of England.

Charles II was restored as King of England in 1660.

The Parliament of the Convention was dissolved in December 1660. Shortly after Charles's coronation in Westminster Abbey, on April 23, 1661, the second legislature of the reign was constituted: the so-called Knight's Parliament or Arrogant. Since the Caballero Parliament was overwhelmingly royalist, Carlos saw no reason to dissolve it or call new general elections for seventeen years.

The Knight Parliament identified itself with the projects of Charles' chief adviser, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. Lord Clarendon intended to discourage "non-conformism" (from Catholic sectors and especially non-Anglican Protestants) towards the Church of England. At his request, the Arrogant Parliament passed various laws that became the so-called "Clarendon Code." The Conventicles Act (1664) prohibited religious assemblies of more than five people, except those held within the Church of England. The Five Mile Act prohibited clergy from coming within five miles of a parish from which they had been expelled. The Conventicles Act and the Five Miles Act remained in force for the remainder of Charles's reign. Other parts of the Clarendon Code included laws such as the Act of Corporation and the Act of Uniformity (1662).

Charles consented to abolish antiquated feudal duties that had been reinstated by his father; in return, Parliament granted him an annual income of £1,200,000. Still, this assignment proved of little use during most of his reign. Said sum was only indicative of the maximum that the king was authorized to withdraw each year from the Treasury. Most of the time, the amount available in public coffers was much less. In order to avoid new economic problems, Carlos appointed George Downing (the builder of Downing Street or Downing Street, where the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has his residence) to reform the management of the Treasury and tax collection.

Foreign Policy

He declared a truce with Spain in 1660, ending the Anglo-Spanish War. He signed the Madrid treaties of 1667 and 1670. In which the English possessions of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands were recognized by the Spanish.

On May 21, 1662, in the city of Portsmouth, Carlos married the Infanta Catalina of Portugal, who gave him the territories of Bombay and Tangier as a dowry.

During the same year, however, he sold Dunkirk and Mardyck, taken from the Spanish in 1658, to the French King Louis XIV for £40,000.

Grateful for their help in regaining the throne, Charles rewarded eight nobles (known as the Proprietary Lords) with North American territories in Carolina named after his father (1663).

The Navigation Acts (1650) harmed trade in the Netherlands and were the cause of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667). The conflict began with the capture in North America, by the English, of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York, in honor of Charles's brother, James, Duke of York, the future James II of England and VII of England). Scotland), but in 1667 the Dutch launched the Medway attack by surprise against the English on the upper part of the River Thames, where the best of the British Royal Navy was moored. The Dutch sank almost all the ships, except the Admiral Ship, which they took and took to the Netherlands as a trophy. The plaque with the ship's name can currently be seen at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda (1667).

As a consequence of the war, Charles fired his adviser, Lord Clarendon, whom he used as a scapegoat for the war. Clarendon fled to France when he was subjected to a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons for high treason, which carried the death penalty. Power passed into the hands of a group of five politicians known as "the Cabal" or clique, from the initials of the titles of its members: Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford; Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington; George Viliers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley (later known as Earl of Shaftesbury) and John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale.

In 1668, England allied with Sweden and its former enemy, the Netherlands, to oppose Louis XIV in the War of Devolution. Luis was forced to make peace with the Triple Alliance, but kept his war plans. In 1670 Charles, seeking to resolve his financial problems, agreed to the Treaty of Dover, by which Louis XIV agreed to pay him £200,000 per year. In exchange, Carlos agreed to provide Luis with troops and convert to Catholicism “as soon as the well-being of his domain permitted.” Luis was to supply him with 6,000 soldiers to suppress those who opposed his conversion. Charles strove to keep the treaty secret, especially the clause concerning his conversion. It is not yet clear whether or not Charles intended to honor that clause. All of this led to a new struggle with France against the United Provinces, Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674), conflict forming part of the Franco-Dutch War. In this conflict, the English fleet was defeated in four strategic battles by the Dutch navy led by Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, the king being pressured by Parliament to sign peace, which was reflected in the Treaty of Westminster (1674).

Meanwhile, by means of a series of five laws (1670), Charles granted the “British East India Company” the right to acquire self-governing territories, to mint money, command military posts and troops, to make alliances, declare war and make peace, and to exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction in the territories acquired in India. Previously, in 1668, he had leased the islands of Bombay for the derisory amount of ten pounds sterling payable in gold. In 1670, Charles granted control of Hudson's Bay to the HBC by royal decree, naming the territory Rupert's Land and after his cousin Rupert of the Rhine, the company's first governor.

Conflict with Parliament

Profile of Carlos II, 1683. Registration says CAROLUS II DEI FREE ("Carlos II for the Grace of God").

Although it had previously been favorable to the Crown, during the 1670s the Knight Parliament distanced itself from it because of the wars waged by the king and because of its religious policies. In 1672 Carlos signed the Declaration of Indulgence , in which he stated his intention to suspend all laws that penalized Catholics and other religious dissidents. The same year, Charles openly supported Catholic France and started the Third Anglo-Dutch War.

The Caballero Parliament —although opposed to granting religious tolerance to Catholics— opposed the Declaration of Indulgence based on constitutional principles —holding the real incompetence to arbitrarily suspend laws— rather than political ones. Charles II withdrew the Declaration and agreed with the 'Act of Examination', which not only required civil servants to receive the Eucharist in the manner prescribed by the Church of England, but forced them to denounce certain teachings of the Catholic Church as superstitious and idolatrous. The Knight Parliament also refused to finance the Anglo-Dutch War, forcing Charles to sign peace in 1674.

The king's wife, Queen Catherine, had been unable to produce an heir for Charles; all four of her pregnancies had been either miscarriages or stillborn children.The heir presumptive was therefore her brother, the Catholic James, Duke of York. In 1678 Titus Oates, a former Anglican clergyman, falsely denounced a "popish conspiracy" to assassinate the king and replace him with the Duke of York. Charles did not attest to his allegations, but ordered his prime minister, Thomas Osborne, 1st Earl of Danby, to investigate. Lord Danby, however, was anti-Catholic and encouraged Oates to go public with his accusation. Anti-Catholic hysteria spread through the population: judges and juries from all over the country convicted alleged conspirators, and scores of innocent people were executed.

Later, also in 1678, Lord Danby was subjected to a motion of censure by the House of Commons on charges of high treason. Although many countries had sought to make war on Catholic France, Charles II had secretly negotiated with Louis XIV, trying to reach an agreement whereby England would remain neutral in exchange for money. Lord Danby was hostile to France, but had privately agreed to abide by Charles's wishes. Unfortunately for him, the House of Commons refused to consider him implicated against his will in the scandal, believing instead that he had been the author of that policy. In order to save Lord Danby from Parliamentary trial in the House of Lords, Charles decided to dissolve Parliament in January 1679.

The new Parliament, constituted in March of the same year, turned out to be frankly hostile to the king. Lord Danby was forced to resign from his position as Lord Treasurer, but received a royal pardon. Defying the king's will, Parliament decreed that the dissolution of the assembly did not interrupt a vote of no confidence. When the House of Lords seemed ready to impose the sentence of exile - which the House of Commons considered too lenient - the process was abandoned and a Guilt Bill was proposed instead, involving parliamentary criminal conviction without the benefit of the ordinary judicial process. As he had done so many times during his reign, Charles II bowed to the wishes of his adversaries, sending Lord Danby to the Tower of London, where he remained for five years.

Last years

Statue of Carlos II that stands at the Central Patio of the Royal Hospital of Chelsea.

Another political storm that Charles had to face was the succession to the throne. The parliament of 1679 had been elected at a time when anti-Catholic sentiments were prevalent throughout the Kingdom, and from the outset it 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 dissolved in 1672) proposed an Exclusion Act, which was intended to remove the duke from of York of the line of succession. Some even wanted to offer the crown to the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, one of Charles's illegitimate sons. The "haters" — the section of those who opposed the Exclusion Bill — became the Tory (Conservative) Party, while the "petitors" —who supported the law—became the Whig (liberal) Party.

Fearing that the Exclusion Law would be passed, Charles dissolved Parliament in December 1679. Two new Parliaments would still be constituted during Charles' reign: one in 1680 and the other in 1681, but both were dissolved because they intended to approve the Law. During the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Law began to wane, and Charles saw a wave of loyalty to him across the country, as many of his subjects began to think that the parliament had been too stubborn and offensive. For the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled as an absolute monarch, without parliament.

Charles's opposition to the Exclusion Bill angered some Protestants, who organized the so-called "Rye House Plot" to assassinate the King and the Duke of York upon their return to London from the horse races in Newmarket. A large fire, however, destroyed much of Newmarket and caused the races to be cancelled, so the bombing could not take place. The ringleaders fled before news of the conspiracy leaked out. Protestant politicians such as Algernon Sydney and Lord William Russell were implicated in the plot and executed for high treason, flimsy as the evidence was.

Charles II suffered a sudden stroke on the morning of February 2, 1685, and died four days later at Whitehall Palace, aged 54. The suddenness of the event made his contemporaries believe that he had been poisoned, although a later assessment of his symptoms indicates that the monarch's death could be due to uremia, that is, renal failure, whose symptoms (nausea and vomiting, headache, asthenia, visual disturbances, convulsions and coma) are similar to those suffered by Carlos II, and which may be caused by the gout that he already suffered. Until his death, the king was subjected to the medical practices of the time, including bleeding, purges, and cupping. In particular, the use of cantharids on the first night of the illness could put an end to the poor kidney function that the patient might have.

When he learned he was dying, a priest, Father John Huddleston, was discreetly sent to his rooms. Carlos was admitted to the Catholic Church and received extreme unction. He died on Wednesday, February 6, 1685, at Whitehall Palace, aged 54, being buried on February 14 in Westminster Abbey. He was succeeded by his Catholic brother, the Duke of York, who became be James II of England and Ireland and VII of Scotland.

Marriage, relationships and children

Charles II married Catherine of Braganza, a Catholic, by proxy in 1662, which is why she could not be officially crowned queen. After his arrival in Portsmouth on May 14, 1662, the couple were married in two ceremonies—a Catholic one performed in secret, followed by an Anglican public service—on May 21, 1662, in the city of Portsmouth. Catherine was never able to give him a living heir, because although she had 3 pregnancies —the last of which was in 1669— they all ended in abortions. Despite the reputation that Carlos had as a womanizer, which he increased as he had more bastard children with his lovers, of which the name of fourteen is known; he insisted that the queen should be treated with respect, and refused to divorce her. After Charles' death in 1685, Catherine remained in England during the reign of her brother-in-law James II and VII, and returned to Portugal in March 1692, after the Glorious Revolution that enthroned William III and Mary II as kings. With whom she initially had good relations, but later her Catholic religion caused her problems in the new court.

Charles II did not leave any question of legitimacy at his death, since the kingdom passed to his brother James II and VII; however, he had several children with his mistresses, many of them wives of noblemen. Some of his mistresses and his natural and bastard children received dukedoms and counties. He publicly acknowledged fourteen of these illegitimate children:

Charles II in 1680, by Thomas Hawker.

With Margaret of Carteret (ca. 1626-ca. 1658):

• Jacobo de la Cloche (1646-1667), called "Jacobo de Carteret" or "Jacobo Estuardo". He was ordained a Jesuit priest.

With Lucía Walter (1630-1658):

• Jacobo Crofts (1649-decapitated at the Tower of London in 1685), took the name Scott after his wedding (1663), named Duke of Buccleuch and Monmouth; married to Ana Scott, Countess of Buccleuh.

• Mary Crofts (ca. 1651-1693), not recognized by the king for doubts about his fatherhood (possibly his true father was Henry Bennet, 1♪ Arlington Count); married first to Guillermo Sarsfield and then to Guillermo Fanshaw.

With Isabel Killigrew, Viscountess Shannon (1622-1680):

• Carlota Jemima Enriqueta María Boyle (1650-1684), takes the name "Fitzcharles" after being recognized as the king's daughter; married first to Jacobo Howard, Count of Suffolk, and then to Guillermo Paston, Count of Yarmouth.

With Catherine Pegge, Lady Green (1635-1678):

• Carlos Fitzcharles (1657-dead in combat, Tangier, 1680), known as "Don Carlos", was appointed Count of Plymouth in 1675; married to Lady Bridget Osborne.

• Catherine Fitzcharles (1658-1759), nun with the name of Sister Cecilia in Dunquerque.

With Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (1640-1709):

• Ana Palmer (London, 1661-London, 1722), took the surname "Fitzroy" by being recognized by the king (although some assume that she was actually a daughter of the Earl of Chesterfield, her mother's husband); married to Tomás Lennard, Count of Sussex.

• Carlos Palmer (London, 1662-London, 1730), took the surname "Fitzroy" by being recognized by the king and was appointed Duke of Southampton (1675) and then succeeded his mother as Duke of Cleveland (1709); first married to Maria Wood and then with Ana Pulteney.

• Enrique FitzRoy (London, 1663-dead in battle, Cork, 1690), named Count of Euston, Baron Sudbury and Viscount Ipswich for his wedding (1672), and then appointed Duke of Grafton (1675); married to Isabel Bennet, Countess of Arlington.

• Carlota Fitzroy (London, 1664-London, 1718), married to Eduardo Enrique Lee, Count of Lichfield.

• Jorge FitzRoy (Merton College, Oxford, 1665-Epsom 1716), named Count of Northumberland, Baron of Pontefract, Viscount Falmouth (1674), and Duke of Northumberland (1683); first married to Catherine Wheatley and then Maria Dutton.

• Barbara FitzRoy (London, 1672-convention of St. Nicholas, 1737), recognized as the king's daughter, but in reality she would be the daughter of the Duke of Marlborough; she had an illegitimate son with James Douglas-Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton, and later entered a convent in France as a nun under the name of Sister Bernadette; she finally became a prior to the convent of St.

With Eleanor «Nell» Gwynne' (1650-1687):

• Carlos Beauclerk (London, 1670-Bath, 1726), appointed count of Burford and Baron Hedington at seven months old (1670) and then Duke of St. Albans (1683); married to Diana de Vere, daughter and heir to the last count of Oxford.

• Jaime Beauclerk (London, 1671-France, 1680).

With Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649-1734), he created her Duchess of Portsmouth in her own right (1673):

• Carlos Lennox, Duke of Richmond (London, 1672-Goodwood, 1723), appointed Duke of Richmond, Count of March and Baron of Settrington in England (August 1675) and the following month, appointed Duke of Lennox, Count of Darnley and Lord Torbolton in Scotland; married to Ana Brudenell.

With Maria «Moll» Davis, famous actress and singer:

• María Tudor (London, 1673-Paris, 1726); married successively with Eduardo Radclyffe, II count of Derwentwater, with Enrique Graham, and with Jacobo Rooke.

Currently

Today the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of St. Albans are all descended from Charles II in the direct male line.

Diana Princess of Wales was descended from two of Charles II's natural children: the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of Richmond (who is also a direct ancestor of Queen Camilla), thus her son, Prince William of Wales, currently first in line to the British throne, will most likely be the first British monarch to descend from Charles II and the first to descend from Charles I since the death of Queen Anne of Great Britain in 1714.

Charles II was a patron of the arts and sciences. He helped found the Royal Society or Royal Society, a scientific group whose early members included Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton.

During her reign, women were able to act for the first time in the English theater because, until then, female roles were played by adolescent male actors dressed as women.

Charles was also the personal patron of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who helped rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666. Sir Wren also built the Royal Hospital of Chelsea, which Charles founded as a home for retired soldiers in 1681, and in which a large statue of Carlos II dressed in the manner of classical Rome has been found since 1692.

Noted British sailor and meteorologist Robert FitzRoy was his descendant and great-great-grandson.

The anniversary of Charles's Restoration, 19 May, has traditionally been celebrated in the UK as 'Oak Apple Day', in memory of the Royal Oak in which he is said to have hidden himself Carlos to escape Oliver Cromwell's troops. The celebrants used to adorn themselves with oak leaves.

Ancestors

Titles

The official titles of Charles II were: "Carlos Segundo, 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 made by every English king since Edward III, regardless of how much French territory they controlled de facto.)