WARS

Commercial rivalry with the Dutch led to hostilities in 1664 and formal war in 1665. On June 3rd, 1665, the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, and the Earl of Sandwich defeated the Dutch fleet off Solebay. In 1666 the French joined the Dutch, and we were defeated, June 1st to 4th, 1666, in the Downs. Prince Rupert and Monk (Duke of Albemarle) defeated the Dutch on July 25th, off the North Foreland. June 11th to 29th, 1667, the equipment of the English fleet being neglected, the Dutch attacked Sheerness, Chatham, and other places in the mouth of the Thames, doing much damage. Peace was concluded the same year. In 1672 Charles joined France in an attack on Holland. An indecisive naval action was fought on May 28th, 1672, between the Duke of York and the Dutch in Southwold Bay, the Earl of Sandwich being killed. In 1673 partial actions with various success were fought off the Dutch coast Peace was made in 1674.

In 1679 the troubles with the Covenanters in Scotland assumed the form of civil war, after the murder of Archbishop Sharpe. A skirmish at London Hill, June 3rd, resulted in the defeat of a squadron of the royal cavalry, but the insurgents were defeated in a pitched battle at Bothwell Brig, near Glasgow, on June 22nd, by the Duke of Monmouth.

OFFICIALS AND MINISTERS

The Restoration had been a restoration not only of the King, but of the Parliament and laws, the relative positions of King and Parliament being substantially those which had been reached in the summer of 1641, before the outbreak of civil war, with the exception that Parliament had no longer the power of self-dissolution. The King, however, had to govern with regard to the wishes of Parliament, and his ministers from this time onward became more and more dependent upon Parliamentary support
In 1661, when the elections to the new Parliament had returned a decided majority of High Churchmen and Cavaliers, the following may be considered as the administration, enjoying the confidence of the two Houses.

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor, 1660 -1667. On the disgrace of Clarendon Sir Orlando Bridgemnan was Lord Keeper, 1667 - 1672. George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, sworn a Privy Councillor May 26th, 1660, was Captain General of the King's forces by land and sea, 1660 - 1670; First Lord of the Treasury 1669 - 1672. James Duke of York was Lord High Admiral 1660 - 1673. Prince Rupert was sworn a Privy Councillor April 28th, 1662, was Admiral of the Fleet on the resignation of the Duke of York 1673, and First Lord of the Admiralty 1673 - 1679. In 1679 he was sworn a member of the New Privy Council of 30. The Earl of Southampton was Lord High Treasurer 1660 - 1667 Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, was Chancellor of the Exchequer 1661 - 1667, a Commissioner of the Treasury 1667 - 1672. Sir Edward Nicholas was Secretary of State 1660 - 1662; Sir William Morrice 1660 - 1668; Sir John Trevor 1668 - 1672.
By 1670, after the fall of Clarendon in 1667, the ministry had been gradually reconstructed on an anti-high church basis.
The Earl of Shaftesbury, a Commissioner of the Treasury 1667 - 1672, was Lord Chancellor 1672 - 1673. Lord Clifford, a Commissioner of the Treasury and Comptroller of the Household 1667 - 1672, was Lord High Treasurer 1672 - 1673. Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, was Secretary of State 1662 - 74.George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, had been re-sworn a member of the Privy Council 1667. He had been already sworn in 1662, and had been struck out in 1666.John Maitland, Earl (afterwards Duke) of Lauderdale, was a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State for Scotland 1660, President of the Secret Council of Scotland for life 1671.

The above five formed the Cabal ministry. Their common interest was opposition to the Church. Clifford was an ardent Romanist Arlington a Romanist of less zeal, Buckinghmu, a man of no principles, posed as a favourer of the Sects, Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury) was a freethinker, Lauderdale a moderate Presbyterian by birth and antecedents, though he of course favoured the moderate Episcopacy established in Scotland. They were some of them driven from office, and the ministry practically displaced, by the Test Act of 1673, when a High Church Cavalier Ministry again succeeded under Sir Thomas Osborne, afterwards Earl of Danby, Marquis of Carmarthen, Duke of Leeds, Lord High Treasurer 1673 - 1679. Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, Lord Keeper 1673 -1675, Lord Chancellor 1675 - 82.

After the impeachment of the Earl of Danby 1678 - 1679 the Privy Council was dissolved, and a new Council of 30 nominated, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury was President April 21st to October 15th, 1679. The Earl of Essex was First Lord of the Treasury March 26th to November 21st, 1679. Robert Earl of Sunderland became a Secretary of State 1678 - 1681, and again 1683 - 85.

The Thirty included the leading noblemen and gentlemen of all parties, but were never effective as a ministry.
As the struggle over the Popish Hot and the Exclusion Bill gradually turned in The King's favour, he relied upon what was now beginning to be called a Tory ministry.

Lord Keeper, Sir Francis North, Lord Guildford, 1682 - 1685.First Lord of the Treasury, the Earl of Rochester, 1679 - 1684; Sidney Earl of Godolphin, 1684 - 1685 (Secretary of State 1684). Lord Privy Seal, Marquis of Halifax, 1682 - 1685 Lord President of the Council, Earl of Anglesea, 1679 -1684. Earl of Rochester 1684, 1685.

ACTS AND DOCUMENTS

1660. Car. II. 12, c. 11. An Act of general pardon and oblivion, with certain exceptions, especially of the Regicides.
Car. II. 12, c. 30. An Act of attainder against the Regicides, who as members of the court or otherwise took part in the execution of Charles 1.
Of these 12 were executed, Colonels Harrison, AxteIl, Jones, and Hacker, Cook, Scot, Carew, Clement, Scroop, Hugh Peters, chaplain to the Court, and Barkstead and Okey later Colonel Hutchinson was excepted from the Act of Attainder, but was afterwards arrested on suspicion of being concerned in a plot of the Sectaries and died in prison.
Vane and Lambert., though not Regicides, were condemned, Vane executed, Lambert allowed to reside in Guernsey. Of the other leading men of the Army party George Fleetwood, Goffe, and Whalley resided unmolested in New England, Charles Fleetwood in England. Lisle and Ludlow went abroad, where the former was murdered. Richard and Henry Cromwell retired abroad, but returned and died in England, Richard at a great age in 1712. See Noble, History of the Regicides and the State Trials.
Car. II. 12, c. 24. Feudal tenures and dues abolished, and a revenue settled on the king in their place.
Oct. 25, 1660. A declaration published by the king favouring a compromise among religious parties. There had been at first attached to it a recommendation of toleration, but the old school of Puritan clergy, headed by Baxter, refused to consider a toleration extended to Socinians, Anabaptists, and Romanists. The Declaration was proposed as a Bill to the House of Commons and was rejected, Nov. 28th, 1660. See Baxter's own account in his Life, p. 276 and Old Parl.n. Hist.. xxiii. 28.
1661. Car, IL 13, Stat 2, c. 1. Office holders in corporations compelled to take the Holy Communion according to the rite of the Church of England, and to abjure the Covenant
1662. Car. II. 14, e. 4. The Act of Uniformity, approving the Prayer Book as recently revised by Convocation, requiring assent to it, and episcopal ordination by all persons holding ecclesiastical preferment.
In consequence of this Act, and the Act Car. II. 12, c. 17, restoring ejected clergy to their livings, from 1400 to 1500 ministers resigned their livings.
Car. II 14, c. 33. Printing regulated, all books to be licensed by authority.
1664. Car. II 16, 1. An act passed that Parliament should be called at least once in three years.
Car. II 16, c. 4. The Conventicle Act, severely punishing persons present at an unlawful assembly. It was a re-enactment with variations and less severe penalties of the act, Eliz. 35, c. 1.
1665. The right of the clergy to tax themselves in Convocation tacitly abandoned. See Hallam, Const. Hist.. iv. 60.
Car, II 17, c. 2. The Five Mile Act, forbidding persons who had held ecclesiastical preferment and who refused the oath of non-resistance, to come within five miles of any corporate town except when travelling, and prohibiting them from keeping schools.
This Act was passed in a panic, at the prospect of a descent of Republican exiles from Holland during the Dutch war, and in common with the Conventicle Act was the result not only of the rebound of popular opinion in favour of the Church, but of the attempted insurrection in London of 1661, and at Newcastle in 1663, and the knowledge that a large number of disbanded soldiers were about the country.
1667. The Treaty of Breda ended the war with Holland. See Koch et Schoell, vol. i. ch 3. 1668. The Triple Alliance negotiated by Sir William Temple between England, Holland, and Sweden.
This Alliance was not so entirely anti-French in its design as is sometimes represented. It was entered into with a view of arresting French progress in the Spanish Netherlands, dangerously near the Dutch frontier, but also with a view of compelling Spain to give up something to France, lest by continuing to resist she might bring on a general European war.
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was the consequence of the alliance by which part of Flanders was ceded by the Spaniards to France. See Koch et Schoell, vol i. , and Dumont, vii. pt 1, p. 107, for the formal treaty between England, Holland, and Sweden.
1670. Secret Treaty of Dover, negotiated through Charles's sister Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, by which Charles in return for support in money, and men when needed, from Louis XIV., undertook to support the latter against Holland, to procure the repeal of the penal laws against the Catholics and to declare himself a Catholic. Certain colonial and foreign possessions in America, Minorca, Ostend, and other places were to be secured to England if the Spaniards, as was probable, joined the Dutch; and the rights of the Prince of Orange, Charles' nephew, were to be considered in Holland, where the anti-Orange party was now in power. The whole of the Cabal Ministry were privy to the scheme of war against Holland; only Clifford and Arlington, the two Catholics, were admitted to the full contents of the treaty.
The English reader will find the best review of the negotiations in Ranke, Hist. of England, B. xv. ch. 6.
1672. Declaration of Indulgence issued by the King in favour of the Nonconformists. See Parl. Hist. iv. 515.
1673. The Test Act, Car. II. 25, c. 2, passed to nullify the Declaration, and make the Tests imposed upon all taking office more severe.
1674. Peace with Holland. The Dutch paying an Indemnity and yielding certain colonies to England. The King's Catholic schemes having been checked by the Test Act and. his nephew having been placed at the head of the Dutch state, he threw over the French king. See Koch et Schoell, vol i. ch. 7; Dumont, vii. p1. 1, p. 283.
1676. Secret treaty with Louis XIV., by which Louis pays the King to subordinate his foreign policy to that of France. Another treaty was made in 1678, but Charles kept the money and not the conditions. For the impeachment of Danby, springing out of the Treaties see Parl.. Hist. iv. 1060, and Hallam, Const Hist. ch. 12
1678. The Continental war ended by the Peace of Nimuegen, by which the powers wronged by France compound with her, but France fails to gain all that she had hoped to attain by the help of England. See Koch et Schoell vol i ch. 7.
1679. Car. II. 31, c.2.. Habeas Corpus Act " For better securing the liberty of the subject and preventing imprisonment beyond the seas. " The writ of Habeas Corpus was no new thing in England, and the principle is recorded in the Magna Chute, clause 29, but by this Act the law was put upon a plain and unequivocal basis.
At the time of its passing its authors were inciting prosecutions, during the Popish Plot agitation, in defiance of justice and reason. The Act was suspended in times of confusion, on nine occasions from 1688 - 1746 , from 1794 - 1800, and in 1817. Besides appearing among the Statutes, the Act is printed at the end of Stubbs, Select Charters .
The Acts given above are printed in the Statutes.

The Parliamentary History, referred to above, 1660, was published first in 1752. William Cobbett projected a Parliamentary History which incorporated many earlier publications, and came down to 1803. Since that date it has been continued under the name of Hansard.