Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration

by Antonia Fraser

  Of those actively participating, Monmouth assuredly fared the best. The King himself took the line that Monmouth’s involvement was, like his personality, showy without being deep. In July a Grand Jury found against Monmouth and a reward was offered for his capture. However, nothing too energetic was done to secure this. Monmouth was allowed to skulk in hiding at the home of his mistress Henrietta Wentworth (she to whom he considered himself married in the eyes of God), while the other conspirators were subjected to trial. At the instigation of Halifax, the King was soon prepared to stretch out his arms to his errant son once more. Monmouth’s wife, Duchess Anne, also wrote piteously in his favour: ‘So I hope your Majesty will not refuse to accept any of that entire submission and great penitence from him, which your goodness would not perhaps deny to another man.’27 In view of Monmouth’s behaviour as a husband, it was indeed gracious behaviour on her part.

  At first the King received Monmouth with displeasure: but to observers it was ‘the displeasure of a parent who seeks the reformation of his child’. The trouble was that Monmouth did not give much genuine proof of this reformation. Although he wrote two penitent letters (probably drawn up by Halifax), he jibbed at any further confession concerning his associates.28 Monmouth was also determined that his recantation should not be made public. The King however was disgusted that his generosity should be met by quibbling. Monmouth was not allowed to get away with his partial submission. Eventually he flounced off to the Continent, where William of Orange took the opportunity to stir the pot – and stir up family trouble – by entertaining him.

  This new toughness towards Monmouth has been ascribed to the Duke of York.29 Yet as indulged children learn to their cost, even the mildest parent may reach a turning-point. In his heart of hearts the King probably loved his spoiled son as much as ever. In 1682 a play by Nathaniel Lee, The Duke of Guise, had been banned because it was rated an attack on Monmouth: it was remarked at the time that ‘though his Majesty’s pleasure is to be dissatisfied and angry with the Duke of Monmouth yet he is not willing that others should abuse him out of natural affection for him’. Nevertheless, the King had been cut to the quick by Monmouth’s defiant action in going bail for his avowed enemy Shaftesbury. Immediately afterwards, at the launching of a ship at Deptford, he was seen to be ‘very serious and more concerned than the greatest business did usually make him’.30

  By 1683 Charles II, sadly profiting by experience, had decided that there was no peace while Monmouth was around. That progress the previous year would have been interpreted as a rebellion in a jumpier age; the Tudors, for example, would have made short work of a claimant to the throne who gallivanted around the country accompanied by an armed retinue, showing himself gorgeously to the people. Money, the parent’s panacea, was not withheld for ever. The next year Monmouth was granted an annuity of £6,000 a year. But a lawful return from the Continent was denied to him.

  The truth was that both Monmouth’s personality and his position were against him. One of James’ biographers has suggested that he might have quoted to his brother about this time the words of Prince Hal to Henry IV:31

  My due from thee is this imperial crown,

  Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,

  Derives itself to me…

  Had James done so, Charles II would have respected the sentiment. So long as Monmouth was allowed to parade or intrigue in England, he ever served as a magnet to draw towards him the forces of dissent; and he lacked within himself the strength to resist such temptations.

  As it was, Monmouth left behind him an uncle triumphant in the shape of the Duke of York. For James himself was now popularly felt to be a wronged man: he stood for the old values of monarchy and strength. When some Scholars of St Paul’s School (headed by Lord Dartmouth’s son) thanked the Duke of York for getting them a ‘Play Day’ (by Colet’s statutes only to be granted by the sovereign or an ecclesiastic), James genially told their ‘very Master to be careful to teach them their duty to the Church and Crown’. The very existence of the Rye House conspirators proved these bulwarks were under attack.

  The glory of the British line

  Old Jimmy’s come again!

  So ran a song of the time. Burnet commented angrily on the ‘indecent courting and magnifying’ of the Duke of York which took place.32 Demonstrations of joy began to greet his appearances, similar to those which greeted Monmouth, but in direct opposition to them.

  The King seized the hour: ‘It is plain that an Handle was taken from that Discovery – i.e., of the Plot, to let in the Duke of York,’ wrote a contemporary.33 A declaration of 28 July 1683 gave the King’s official view of the recent plot and his escape: ‘Divine Providence which hath preserved us through the whole course of our life, hath at this time, in an extraordinary manner, showed itself in the wonderful and gracious deliverance of us, and our dearest brother, and all our loyal subjects, from this horrid and damnable conspiracy.’ On 9 September a public Thanksgiving Day was held for the King’s lucky escape. But Divine Providence had done even better than the King admitted. Once the uncovering of plots had cast the English nation into a state of neurotic panic on the subject of Popery. Now, as the State Papers plenteously reveal, plots were used to justify measures of repression. Monmouth may have been treated with mercy: Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney were not.

  It is doubtful whether these conspirators had actually done much more than talk among themselves – albeit treasonable talk. Both Russell and Sidney admitted that they had declared it was lawful to resist the King on occasion, while denying they had converted words into deeds. But in their different ways they represented the elements most resented by the King in the Whig faction.

  Russell’s trial in July, presided over by Pemberton, did at least conform to the rules of justice at the time: Roger North in his autobiography cited it as an example of the fairness then to be found in English courts. Russell was executed, despite the intercession of his family and Louise Duchess of Portsmouth (who was paid to do so); pleas were even addressed to Louis XIV, via Barrillon, to save him – but in vain. When George Legge gave a list of reasons for leniency, the King replied tersely: ‘All that is true, but it is as true that if I do not take his life he will soon have mine.’ The King was also said to have cast ‘a sarcastical eye’ towards the trial of Lord Stafford when Russell was condemned to a simple beheading; far more barbarous penalties had been demanded for Stafford and only commuted on the King’s edict. Charles listened to Bishop Burnet’s account of Russell’s death in silence.34

  The same fairness was not exhibited towards Sidney in November. In the interval between the two trials Saunders had been replaced by Jeffreys as Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, as part of the reorganization of the judiciary. (Jeffreys had merely prosecuted Russell, not presided.) Jeffreys interrupted Sidney in a shocking manner; while his loaded summing-up brought no credit either to him or the royal system which had introduced him to the office. Sidney died on 7 December; according to the Duke of York, he met his end ‘very stoutly and like a true republican’ – the ungrudging admiration of one iron man for another.35 Sidney protested the illegality of his trial, but declared that all the same he was prepared to die for the ‘old cause’ – the Commonwealth –fighting for which he had spent his youth.

  The situation in Europe did not remain as stable as the English, otherwise engaged, might have hoped. Charles II had more than ever a strong motive for desiring European peace. The aggressive martial policies of Louis XIV continued to threaten the United Provinces – that he could bear; but the potential threat to his own French set-up was another matter. If Louis showed himself all-invading, there would be demands for military action on the part of England which Charles might find it very difficult to refuse. At the same time such military action (which no French subsidy could cover) would necessitate the recall of Parliament.

  That was not a consummation to be wished by Charles II, nor for that matter by Louis XIV. But at least the French King’s kno
wn distaste for an English Parliament and English military action offered the English King a possible way out of his predicament. Charles II could hold Louis XIV’s advances in check by the threat of calling a Parliament. The English King was back in the world of the diplomatic see-saw on which he had balanced so successfully in the 1670s; in both cases the existence of a secret French subsidy added to the complexity of the situation.

  The blockade of Luxembourg by Louis XIV in late 1681 provided an instance of Charles II’s poise. Charles spoke firmly to Barrillon. He would be most reluctant to call a Parliament – ‘they are devils who want my ruin’ – but might yet be obliged to do so, ‘if an expedient is not found over the Luxembourg affair’. ‘Please tell the king my brother,’ he begged Barrillon, ‘to relieve me of my embarrassment.’36

  It is doubtful whether Charles would in fact have called a Parliament. Too many things militated against it. Yet by the spring of 1682 Louis XIV had lifted the blockade of Luxembourg and was requesting Charles II to arbitrate between the various warring nations. It is true that Spain (England’s ally, according to the most recent treaty negotiated by Sunderland) refused to accept Charles’ arbitration. He was obliged to draw back. Still, Charles had not lost his balance on the European see-saw. Neither one King – Louis XIV – nor five hundred – the English Parliament – had managed to upset it.

  What would now be termed the life-style of King Louis XIV continued to impress Charles II, as it impressed all Europe. We have seen how Charles’ royal guards were an imitation of his cousin’s. The King had laid out his parks and gardens in the grand French manner displayed by Le Nôtre. Now, on 23 March 1683, the foundation stone for a new royal palace was laid in England.

  Nothing on a similar scale had been planned for years: the work at Greenwich begun at the start of the reign had never been completed and life at Newmarket had been conducted on altogether a more modest scale. The palace at Winchester owed its origin directly to Charles II’s admiration for splendiferous Versailles and in design it resembled the work of Le Vaux there.37 Its geographical site in southern England also fitted in with the concept ‘of another way of ruling’.

  The love affair with Newmarket, begun in the halcyon sixties, had faded. The trouble was that Newmarket lay in an area already dotted with the great palaces of the Whig lords. There was no way that the King could cut a more imposing figure than his own nobility, since all the available land had already been commandeered. The fire in his Newmarket lodgings which had enabled him to elude the Rye House assassination gave him an excuse to look elsewhere; the connection of this conspiracy and the Newmarket route was in any case an uncomfortable one. The King’s eye fell on Winchester, which lay in the balmy south in Hampshire: an area where – on the whole – men and magnates were Royalists. More romantically, Winchester was on the way to that coast and those coastal towns, including Portsmouth, which nursed the Navy. Like many an enthusiast since, the King could go yachting off the Isle of Wight. The King expected to be able to see the fleet at Spithead from his projected palace; what fairer prospect?

  The dwelling, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was to be surrounded by a park and connected to the town’s historic cathedral by a ‘stately street’. It would lie east and west. There were to be 160 rooms, surmounted by a lofty cupola which would be visible from the sea. The grand staircase was to be ornamented with marble columns, a gift to the King from the Duke of Tuscany. Then there were to be a central portico and two wings, as well as a raised terrace all the way round, such as dignified Windsor Castle. As for the park, here a thirty-foot cascade was proposed; the King hoped to repeat his success with ornamental water in St James’s Park. A river through the park was intended to be navigable by small vessels. The park itself, an eight-mile circuit, would open into the forest, suitable for stag-hunting. Back at the palace, stables, kennels and mews would house the equipment of the chase.38

  In September 1682 Evelyn described the King as ‘mightily pleased’ by his plans; building began the following May. He intended Winchester, wrote Evelyn, to be the seat of ‘autumnal field diversions’ (as Newmarket had once been).39 Long before the structure became habitable, the Court flocked down to the grave and charming cathedral town. They devoured it for lodgings, as once they had raided Oxford, producing an atmosphere of revelry reminiscent of Comus’ rout. The houses of the Cathedral clergy were not immune. During the King’s early visits he lodged with the Bishop of the town, to the extent that a polite enquiry was made whether he intended to make the Bishop’s house his inn.

  A King was one thing but a mistress was another. When a new Bishop was needed for Winchester, it was made clear to the incoming incumbent that his duties included lodging his sovereign. But Thomas Ken was furious at the sacrilege of being asked to house Nell Gwynn. He considered it sacrilege on the not unreasonable grounds that ‘a woman of ill-repute ought not to be endured in the house of a clergyman,’ adding, ‘least of all that of the King’s chaplain’. Ken’s fervour did him no harm. Later, when the bishopric of Bath and Wells fell empty, Charles recalled the incident – ‘God’s fish! the little black fellow who would not give poor Nelly a night’s lodging’ – and laughingly approved Ken’s appointment. As for Nell Gwynn, she found a niche at the deanery, overruling further protests.40

  In the last year of the King’s life virtually the whole of September was spent at Winchester. Considerable expenses were also run up for furniture for the future for both King and Queen; for example, green damask chairs and stools embroidered in gold and white silk were ordered for Catharine, green remaining a favourite colour. The main expense was of course the structure itself. Only a shell had been completed when the King died – outside walls and a roof – but various payments had been authorized, although, in the general fashion of the time, not necessarily paid. The £90,000 found in the King’s strong-box after his death was probably intended for this purpose. It was indeed expense rather than distaste for the new palace which caused James to halt building immediately on his brother’s death. He probably intended to return to it at a leisure moment in his reign: but such a moment never arrived.

  So Winchester Palace lingered on, the subject of vague royal plans from time to time. Queen Anne contemplated it as a residence for her consort Prince George of Denmark; in the end the financial demands of her foreign wars took precedence. French prisoners-of-war were incarcerated there in the middle of the eighteenth century, and in the Napoleonic wars the quondam palace was used as a barracks. At the end of the nineteenth century it finally burnt down. It was a melancholy end for a project which had once been intended to rival Versailles; at least the Versailles imitation of Ludwig of Bavaria, Herrenchiemsee, survives on its island, more substantial if equally melancholy.

  The true memorial to Winchester Palace lies in the eager conversation of Charles II with Lord Bruce on one of the last evenings of his life. The King spoke with enthusiasm of the ‘favourite castle’ he was building, and how he would arrange for Bruce to be in waiting there. ‘I shall be so happy this week as to have my house covered with lead,’ he exclaimed.41 As the King’s body was wrapped in its lead coffin within the week, it was a prophecy – of the ambiguous sort beloved of the Greek oracle – that came grimly true.

  In the last years of Charles II, his restless mind did not cease to turn over new schemes, explore new horizons. Less power-obsessed, more fruitful than Winchester Palace was another foundation – that of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, in 1682.42 This home for veteran soldiers, or for those incapacitated by wounds, was created directly on the model of the Kilmainham Hospital, Dublin, recommended by Sir Stephen Fox to the King. The site of Chelsea College, which had been founded by James I for controversialists against Catholicism and had then been granted to the Royal Society, was purchased for £1,300. Fox put up the money. Yet even here the influence of Louis XIV was felt: Monmouth, describing to his father the Hôtel des Invalides, a similar form of hostel built in 1670 in Paris, had also ignited his imagination.43 In-Pensione
rs, as the residents were termed, were to be organized on military lines, and occupy a single quadrangle known as Figure Court. (The Royal Hospital today is considerably expanded, although Figure Court still exists.)

  The Royal Hospital was not opened until 1692, by which date Charles II had been seven years in his house of lead. It fell into the kind of financial difficulties which might be expected and the money granted in maintenance proved hard to come by. Nevertheless, Founder’s Day was regularly celebrated on 29 May – Oak Apple Day and the King’s Birthday – in honourable acknowledgement of his part in it all.fn1

  Not only the welfare of his Army and the well-being of his fleet were dear to the King’s heart. He had other far-flung interests. In general, the reign of Charles II saw a remarkable accession of distant lands to the English flag. The great Hudson’s Bay Company was founded in 1670. Not only in North America, but in the West Indies and West Africa, this was an age of territorial expansion and, above all, commercial energy. Along with his concern for soldiers and sailors, this nascent feeling for ‘empire’ was something which Charles II had in common with his great predecessor Cromwell. So unalike in so many ways, the two men shared a vague missionary feeling for the benefits of British rule extended, which was in its own fashion a kind of patriotism. In the case of Charles II, his curiosity drove him on, even if he did not understand the economic implications of colonial aggrandizement.

  In India, for example, it was the great trading companies which were the sovereigns, not Charles II. The latter was quite content to hand over Queen Catharine’s dowry of Bombay, which it had taken several years to possess owing to local opposition, to the East India Company. In April 1681 Charles II granted a vast tract of land, now Pennsylvania, to William Penn the Quaker – no doubt a far more congenial activity than his disbanding of the Oxford Parliament, which took place about the same time, particularly as it was in discharge of a Crown debt. He liked to hear details of life in the Carolinas, where busy colonists were enjoying a more fruitful kind of exile than he had known. Life in Tangier, because of its military importance, was something he could probably understand more readily; he took the eventual evacuation of the fortress hard.