In 1661 fresh elections brought together another Long Parliament. This, the Cavalier parliament, would sit, off and on, for 18 years. It was not inspired by a spirit of compromise. The programme they introduced tried very hard to squish the horrid innovations of the revolutionary period back into the bottle, and search for the uniformity and ‘natural’ order of things that seemed to have been lost.

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Transcript

Last week we finished off our bit of historiography with the wildly contrasting views of Charles, hero of the people, villain of the poe-face, serious minded historian. We’ve seen him get married, and seen Queen Catherine come to a full understanding of the phrase 2’s company, 3’s a crowd, as Castlemaine claimed the place as Queen of the royal bedroom. Catherine will soon find out that 4. 5, 6 or more is also a crowd, but we’ll come to that later. And we’ve seen how the Restoration settlement worked out in practice in Scotland and Ireland. So, howzabout in England?

Well, a bit of context might be the thing first.

Firstly, I might mention the King’s Right Hand Man who would have a strong influence over what happened – though it doesn’t do to overstate his influence, there is no one dominant minister, and Charles was nobody’s pushover. But I speak of Edward Hyde, now rewarded for long, loyal; royal service, by being made by the Earl of Clarendon. He is also made Lord Chancellor, and will stay as the king’s most trusted minister for several years. Many of his fellow courtiers hated him though; Clarendon was not over endowed with powers of diplomacy, he grew increasingly pompous, though his advice very often seems sound; generally pacific, and conciliatory. But never mind that, plenty around him detest him and want him out – in which guide we will meet Gorgeous George Digby again – remember him? The noble idiot whose consistently rubbish advice helped push Charles I into howlers? And the Queen Mum Henrietta Maria hated him also, with a passion. Clarendon came as a package with his daughter Anne Hyde. Anne Hyde was herself a powerful character, and in 1659 had secretly married the King’s brother and heir James. When she gave birth to a son, who they named Charles, This secret marriage of course all came out there was fury and recrimination, but there was nothing to be done; she was Duchess of York and you’ll all just have to grin and bear it. Clarendon was furious and embarrassed; in fact demanded his own daughter be arrested. Thanks Dad, you’re a brick.  Anne would be an ever present influence on James until her death in 1671 – by which time their son had also died. She was a convert to Catholicism, and is often credited with persuading James to do the same.

Charles was initially pretty even handed in appointing his full ministerial team, across the factions of the Commonwealth, and nor was never wedded to one individual, and was callously capable of discarding them – loyalty to his ministers was not a thing for him. He famously once said

My words are my own but my actions are my ministers

So that’s one thing, Clarendon is back. Now, we’ve talked about all the joy and love Charles had received; everyone desperately wanted to forget everything that had happened, all the violence, division, all the moral stuff the Commonwealth had pushed on everyone. And afterall the clue is the name  – the Act of Oblivion. Let’s obliviate. And everyone was publicly thoroughly eager to demonstrate their loyalty, and for the majority it was genuine; the cult of Charles the Martyr took off, and his Basilikon Icon sold out, they couldn’t print enough.

And so you might be excused for thinking all he had to do is turn up, tell everyone to stop hugging each other and sharing their undying mutual love for a moment while he told them what he wanted. The parliament – duly chastised would take a list of his demands and pass them happily into law, and bob’s your father’s brother, and he could focus on his science lab and who to share his bed with that night.

Sadly, it wasn’t quite like that, and Cromwell’s head might provide us with a suitable metaphor. As you know, Cromwell had been dug up, and his head had been stuck on a 20 foot pole on the roof of Westminster Hall, where Charles had met his end. There it sat for 24 years, flesh melting from it until it was just a white, hollow eyed skull. There was a fat chance of forgetting the Revolution if you passed by that, and there was fat chance all the divisions of the revolution and the memory of its violence would simply oblivate. The settlement that emerged was coloured by it – because none of the issues that caused it had really gone away.

Charles’ basic  attitude to his rights were set by the example and memory of his sainted father, and his admiration for the France he had seen at the court of Louis XIV. He loved the culture, the society – and he loved Louis’ power, majesty and authority. Scotland might give us an example of how he would like things to go in England, all things being equal. However, Charles was not his father, and knew full well that politics is the art of the possible, and in the future will show his utterly pragmatic skill. For the moment, he was happy to leave the dirty work to parliament, and he knew when fight a battle and hold the line – and when to beat a graceful retreat, and fight another day. His attitude to religion and to the succession will demonstrate his skill in this. On religion, he fights and then retreats, but seeks always to emphasise the King’s personal authority over religion. On hereditary succession, the very basic requirement of the Divine Right of kings – on that, he fights, holds his ground, and when all seems lost, he wins.

So we’ve been through the constitutional outcomes of the Settlement – everything reset to 1641, so the star Chamber and Church court of High Commission remain banished, arbitrary taxes outside of parliament also a no-no, triennial act so election every three years – though that will die in 1664, at the kings insistence, or at least be neutered. But all the rest is the same as 1640. King is head of the militia, appoints whomever he likes as his ministers, and appoints judges at his pleasure for, elections are held in the same daft chaotic mess of constituencies as before. And an election is what we have in 1661.

The background to this crucial election is firstly one of fear. Venner’s rebellion of Fifth Monarchists, although puny and easily repressed, raised a terror in people hearts that, as the cry went from the hopeful and fearful alike, ‘The ’41 will come again’; a fear of rebellion and the renewal of civil war. There were enough Republicans around to fuel this fear. There will be rumours and conspiracies discovered which keep those terrors live – the Tong Plot in 1662 planned to completely re-establish the Republic. It never stood a chance, and had more blue blood spies in it than a Full Stilton, and with deep irony spent most of its time arguing about what form the Republic would take, come the Revolution Brothers and sisters. But still it existed, and maybe the iceberg rule applied?

Then there was a widespread, popular reaction against what many saw as the chaos of religious liberty, all those Dissenters from the Anglican tradition and BCP – for Anglicans in particular, everyone must be forced back onto the straight and narrow. And then into the election, may royalists carried resentment against the Land settlement; the King’s supporters, who had dreamed, fought and died for him, expected full restitution. This was clearly not the case; instead a commission was set up to consider applications, and most royalists had to take years going through the courts to get even partial restitution. Because the 1660 Convention Parliament had contained a very large contingent of Presbyterians.

So, it was not simply a party; the election was conducted in an atmosphere of fear and disappointment and expectation. I think I may have made the point before that in many general elections, constituencies were not contested; the local grandees just decided whose turn it was, and presented just one or two acceptable candidates. There had been far more contested elections in 1640 than usual, and that was the case in 1661. The government worked actively to make sure people made the right choice; and there were some MPs directly within their gift, like the Universities, who both returned 2 MPs, which seems a hoot – that was only stopped in 1950 would you believe. Anyway, the universities could be leaned on, and so could any office holders. It is a feature of Charles’ parliaments that he had a group of placemen who could be relied on to see issues in, you know, the right way.

The result was the Cavalier Parliament. The Presbyterians got a beating – only in London did they and Independents still dominate and win some seat. In the 1660 Convention Parliament, 51% had still been Presbyterian or Independent; in the Cavalier Parliament that falls to just 20% The Anglicans were firmly in control.[1] The Cavalier Parliament, by the way, will continue until 1679. Yes, 1679. How long is that parliament then? It’s so compliant, that Charles just keeps proroguing it for a session or two and then calls them all back, because generally it’s sympathetic. But bye elections make it less and less so. But it has a nice long innings this one, helped by the emasculatio0n of the Triennial Act in 1664.

And although Charles liked the cut of its jib, no one could put the revolutionary Genie back in the bottle. Parliament had felt its power and that could not be consigned to oblivion, or become a rubber stamping operation – it could cut up rough. There were royalists and Anglican Divines who still claimed, like one, that the king was

accountable to none but God[2]

But the majority in parliament did not agree. And even the celebratory words of Clarendon have a sting in them. He celebrated the Restoration by declaring

‘we have our King again, and our Laws again, and Parliaments again’

For Clarendon, and many Anglicans in parliament, the king returned on the same terms that Charles’ father had tried to violate; king was subject to parliament, and the king was subject law.

The evidence of this is quick to emerge. The Revolution had finally burned royal pretension to raise revenue by prerogative. So parliament agreed that £1.2m was sufficient annual revenue for the king, to be raised by customs and excise. Charles disagreed, and anyway the actual revenue that could be collected was little more than £900,000, and extra ad hoc calls like the 1662 Hearth Tax did not put it right. The long and short was that the king remained on a financial leash; he was able to raise a royal guard, of around 3000, which is not nothing; but he could not afford that bug bear of English Politics – a Standing Army. The Commonwealth had managed 60,000 at its peak. Louis XIV had 100,000 with which to enforce his desires. It which context 3,000 is a bit poxy. Even the Scottish parliament allowed him more and voted Charles the money to maintain a standing army of 22,000 men. This was an army explicitly under the personal command of the King, and available to be deployed anywhere in his three kingdoms. You can see why Whigs like Shaftesbury would look anxiously at the example of royal rule to the north. And they would.

The religious settlement that emerges from the Cavalier parliament over 4 years or so is fascinating, and has a royal prerogative angle too. Before the Cavalier election there had been a lot of talk about Comprehension. What Comprehension meant was a freer wording and doctrine which gave latitude for Presbyterians and Independents to stay within a broad Anglican church. Effectively returning to the days of Elizabeth and Archbishop Whitgift in a way. After the election, all of that talk of toleration and comprehension ceased, and was replaced by a pretty vicious and relentless attack on dissenters. An Act of Uniformity required ministers to reject the Solemn League and Covenant, and accept a new BCP – which bore a Laudian imprint. 10% of all the Ministers immediately refused this oath of Uniformity, and left the church, and it’s been calculated by the end of this process 1909 minsters would have left – from a total population of 9,000 parishes, so over 20% – a purge, effectively. A Corporation Act of 1661 banned anyone from town office who would not take the Act of Uniformity, and a widespread purge therefore also followed in Town Corporations.

The Quakers were even more despised than anyone, despite George Fox’s pacifist declaration. The Quaker Act of 1662 imposed imprisonment on anyone who refused oaths – as did Quakers; and then more than 16 were banned from meeting together at any one time. Now we are beyond the days of burning or executing heretics; but Restoration prisons are only a little less deadly; maybe 400 Quakers may have died in prison.

The attack on Protestant Dissenters went on; in 1664, the Conventicles Act banned meetings of 5 or more for any religious meetings outside of the Anglican rite; in 1665 the Five Mile Act banned non-juring ministers from returning to within 5 miles of their previous parish – non juring meaning those who refused to take the oath of Uniformity. All together, this collection of statutes have been called the Clarendon Code; which is pretty unfair, since it seems Clarendon himself was in favour of comprehension not repression.

A couple of things about this. In the Whiggish historical tradition, this this is all supposed to be the period of toleration here, so what’s going on here? Well one thing is that it has been shown that the debates in parliament were a lot more acrimonious and close than might be thought from the outcomes; probably about 40% of MPs over the whole life of the Cavalier parliament sympathised with dissenters, and supported comprehension and flexibility. And after all as far as the official rubric went, Protestants didn’t believe in persecuting people for their religious opinions – that was a popish principle, they would claim[3]. But Dissent equated in the Anglican mind with the thing that everyone was supposed to be forgetting. You know what I mean – the thing caused by the owner of that Skull up there. I forget the word um….No Kings. Wait – ‘Republicanism that’s the one!’ Religious Dissent, it was thought, was the handmaiden of Sedition. Such as in a future and further Conventicle act in 1671, the act was targeted at

Where seditious people met…[who] under the pretence of tender consciences.. etc etc

But despite this programme of um, ‘not religious persecution’, Dissent did not collapse; it would remain at around 6% of the population. Larger than Catholics and yet pretty weeny you might think, nothing to worry about. But they weren’t quiet about it, there was no stiff upper lip going on here, nothing about playing up and playing the game, Nope, they made a terrible fuss about it, and took to their old ways of protest. They might have hit the streets with protest and petitions, except an act of 1661 had banned what was called ‘Tumultuous Petitioning’. So they generally took to pamphlets and writing, and flooded the world with written argument and protest. So although small in numbers the continuing survival of Dissent is deeply significant. Because it magnified and expanded that background panic that rebellion and revolt was just around the corner, and the 41 would come again. So, something had to be done about all this political debate.

The Restoration government was of the firmly considered opinion that all that mad newsheet stuff might be OK for a republic, but we don’t want that any more, and so censorship was the order of the day, and in 1662 was born the Licencing Act, everything had to be approved before publication, printing presses had to be approved, the government could search and destroy at will, nothing seditious or anti Anglican could be published, no cute small furry animals were to be insulted. Nowt. Because as the act said,

The exorbitant liberty of the press…[had] been a great occasion of the late rebellion of the kingdom and the schism of the church

And the man to lead the charge, and would agree with every word of that, is a sort of wildly Restoration character with all the contradictions of the age, who I think we have mentioned before – from Hunstanton in North Norfolk, I give you, ladies and Gentlemen – Roger L’Estrange.

On the one hand our Rodge the Dodge is a thoroughly cultured and agreeable fellow. Simply lovely don’t you know. Talented viol player, a prolific writer, translated classical and contemporary works. Bon viveur and great company. Pepys met him

‘a man of fine conversation I think; but I am sure, most courtly and full of compliment’

John Evelyn also thought he was a solid chap, and that he had a writing style with the common touch of shared by his adored king,

that of the tavern and the market-place mixed with the fashionable slang of the day, appealing not only to gentlemen and scholars but to men of affairs, to shopkeepers and artisans.[4]

How lovely. On the other hand he was a rottweiler. More royalist than his king, Full Fat Tory, Anglican and believer in divine right, hated puritans, republicans and dissenters, a relentless pursuer of whigs. His biographer wrote

he never for a moment accepted the desirability of a free press.

The very idea of open full and frank exchange of political ideas was a nonsense, and he thought hoi polloi should jolly well know their place. He was appalled at the mayhem of newsbooks and pamphlets of the Commonwealth. And the thought of the public reading was just a bad idwea

Because I think it makes the multitude too familiar with the actions and counsels of their superiors[5]

Fair point Roger. So he was outraged at all the coffeehouse stuff in London of the 1650s, and all the options around, snorting that

Every carman and porter is now a statesman

So on the one hand, a hoot, bon viveur, often seeming to carry out his job in taverns, gambler and drinker and of course suitably libertine – there was even a rumour that he

‘would wink at unlicensed books, if the printer’s wife would but….

Dot dot dot, fill in the blanks in your own mind. On the other hand, cvlosing down printers, ruthlessly jailing anyone who stepped out of line.

This might be illustrated by the story of John Twyn, printer, non conformist and widowed father of 4, who was discovered printing a tract justifying the execution of Charles I. L’Estrange raided his print shop in 1663 at 4am, Twyn panicked and tried to throw the tract out of the window, but he was caught red handed and tried for treason. Despite everything, he refused to reveal the author of the tract, was convicted, and on 24th February 1663 was taken to Tyburn, hanged, disembowelled, and quartered, his head displayed over Ludgate and his quarters over other city gates. Fun, Fun, fun. Still, the Licensing Act 1662 is the first occasion where by law every printer was required to provide one copy of every book to a library. So you know, every cloud…

L’Estrange and the Licensing Act did have an impact – the number of publications did fall, but the cat had been released from the bag by the likes of Marchamont Needham, and the cat was having too much fun murdering pigeons in the park to be stuffed back in there. Stas on the way. Ready?  In 1660 2,730 new titles had been published; by 1663 it had fallen to just over a third of that, 1,000 new titles, and wouldn’t increase again until the Licensing act lapsed for a few years in 1679. But 1,000 is still a lot comparted to pre 1640 years. And the Coffeehouse revolution of the 1650s continued to grow and grow, with all that chat and debate.

What of Charles’ attitude to all of this? His attitude to freedom of debate is probably reasonably well characterised by the fact that this was his government, and sedition, criticism of royalty policy and debate about anything other than politically correct ‘we do what God’s anointed tells us to do’, was not in the interests of God’s anointed. That being you know, Charles II. He was right behind Roger. And in fact in December 1675 he personally loses his rag, throws his toys and various marital aids out of his pram and produces a royal proclamation banning all Coffeehouses as

the great resort of Idle and disaffected persons” producing “malicious and scandalous reports”

against his good honest government. Prohibition lasts about 11 days, when the uproar forces him to hastily withdraw it; Charles as ever, knew when to push and when to hold back.

The thing about religion is much trickier. It could well be that just as Cromwell was always more in favour of religious toleration than his parliaments, the same might well apply to both Charles II and James VIIth and II.

The emerging Anglican tyranny of the Cavalier parliament was not to Charles’ personal views, and it was very much not in line with the Declaration of Breda. So in 1662, he sent a note to parliament, asking them to confirm his proclamation, a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending penalties against both Non conformists and Catholics. He does the same again in 1670. This supports a long tradition that Charles was always a Catholic in secret, supported by some impressively effusive forgeries called the de Cloche letters. In 1670 he will sign a secret treaty with Louis XIV committing to convert to Catholicism, and on his deathbed, he does indeed seem to convert. And from another angle, it’s reasonably well agreed that Charles was not a particularly religious man anyway; one of his most famous quotes is that God would not

make a man miserable only for taking a little pleasure out of the way

It’s argued that he was attracted to the display and theatre of Catholicism, because it was much more suitable to support the mystique of monarchy that he was trying re-establish – as indeed it appealed to a disproportionate number of aristocrats. Conversely, the austerity of Presbyterianism seemed far too down to earth and dirt under the fingernails; he once described it as

“no religion for gentlemen,”

Ronald Hutton spends some time discussing it at the end of his biography, and places a counter argument. He agrees that Charles never shows any genuine piety or religious fanaticism, which supports the notion of Charles as an opponent of persecution for religious beliefs. But for Hutton, Charles had other objectives in mind – one, the need for money, and secondly his determination to increase and reinforce royal prerogative power. So the promise to France to covert was to be accompanied by a large payment and therefore explained by his desire  for independence from Parliament and their purse strings. And in politics, Hutton presents Charles as essentially using politics cynically. Yes, by nature certainly not a committed persecutor; but equally, perfectly happy to condone it if it would secure his own advantage. There are multiple examples where he acquiesces to parliamentary pressure to have a round of implementing recusancy fines on Catholics, or banning the conventicles of dissenters, or sweeping up and imprisoning Quakers.

But in 1662 and 1670, he had a specific strategy in issuing Declarations of Indulgence, which permit relief from parliamentary rules towards both Dissenting Protestants and towards Catholics. His motivation, argued Hutton were less the principle of toleration; more the principle that the king had an absolute right to determine religion in his domains. He meant the Declarations as a way to confirm that the monarch had, and had always possessed the supreme prerogative in religious matters to overrule parliament, he was God’s vice Gerend, and governor of the church. And it suited him just fine that Parliament had imposed an Anglican Religious tyranny; because then, through his Indulgences, he could be seen as the friend of Dissenters, Protestant and Catholic; they needed him, and would gratefully and support him, as their defender against parliament.

It didn’t quite work. MPs and many outside parliament rejected the move on two bases – as already discussed they equated dissent with sedition, and secondly, because they saw toleration as a drift towards Catholicism, and Catholicism was equated with foreign arbitrary and tyrannical government. And many began quite quickly to believe that Charles, with his love of all things French, and his apparent sympathy for Catholics, was trying to turn England French in more ways than simply by adopting the magnificent powdered periwigs. Here’s one MP in 1663, claiming that Charles’ intention was

To change the constitution of the government of this kingdom and to reduce us to the model of France, where they have lost their liberties, and are governed by an arbitrary and military power

So the parliamentary attitude towards Charles Indulgences, therefore, was not purely about religious toleration so much as whether the king had the divinely ordained, prerogative power to make changes in religious, above the heads of parliament. And for that same reason many dissenters distrusted Charles’ move anyway – as they will with James, actually. Now, in 1662 there were many MPs than did believe he had that power, 118 of them – those who would become Tories, supporters of divine royal power. But there were more, 168 who denied the monarchy had, or had ever possessed, such power.

On each of these occasions, then, Charles had a choice; was this the time for a showdown, a trial of strength? Surely no one would want a return to civil war, the warm glow of restoration would surely pull him through? But in 1670, for example, at the same time as he proposed relief for Dissenters, parliament was voting about the financial settlement and extra funds he needed. So Charles traded the indulgence for an act of supply; backed down and got at least some of his money. And there you have the difference between Charles I and II.

So there we go. Now before we go this week, I have to tell you that I am very worried, and I will tell you what about, if you give me a moment. Quite a lot of people I think have been looking forward to the Restoration, and reading between the lines, I suspect it might be you are longing for the return of fun’ laughter and cute things that people are expecting, the Merry Monarch, king of bling, everyone’s having fun fun fun, and all that. And instead, you have been served up with the thin gruel of misery, poor grey, watery, the sort of thing not even Oliver Twist would ask for more of. We’ve talked about the historians’ dim view of Charles’ character, we’ve heard about the failure of Charles to restore Irish Catholics to their estates, to the rise of absolutism in Scotland, and an Anglican tyranny in England. Oh spare us! I’m sorry about that.

So we should have a bit of light and laughter, and what better subject to choose than the Theatre? I should turn to Samuel Pepys, who I have finally started to read and enjoy, after a life time of starting and failing to enjoy, and one of the things that that made me laugh is his complete and utter weakness, his inability to resist the theatre, which he absolutely loves, he constantly goes to, day after day; there’s one even where he sits down with his diary an gives himself a right dressing down for going so much, all that time and money and stuff, and swears he stop for a while. The very next day’s entry kicks off with a glowing and thoroughly thrilled description of the great play he went to the day before! No mention of abstinence! I understand in 1666 he tries to kick the habit by fining himself every time he goes.

Anyway in November 1660, he writes that he went to a

“new Play-house near Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields

And that it was

the finest playhouse that ever was in England

Charles II also loved the Theatre, as soon as he was able, in May 1660, he lifted the Puritan ban. In June his brothers James and Henry went to see Ben Jonson’s Epicene at the Red Lion in Clerkenwell. A month later Charles decided it was time to give theatre a helping hand – he granted Thomas Killigrew the right to establish a theatre company in his name – the King’s Company. Then he gave William Davenant, he of the Siege of Rhodes fame, the right to put on plays with his brother James’ The Duke of York’s patronage; and so the Duke’s theatre was born. These two companies would be the model for 150 years, and I have no doubt we’ll come back to theatre aplenty.

Charles was a big, big fan of all things French as we have mentioned, and not just of French absolutism; one of the things he’d become used to in France was watching female roles being played by, you know, women. And so it was, that one Margaret Hughes played Desdemona in December 1660; in 1662 Charles made women actors official with a royal proclamation.

He loved French music too – and he lost the heart of the dyed in the wool royalist John Evelyn when he dissed English musicians in comparison to the marvels he’d heard in France, and heard violins accompanying the organ, just like they did in France. [6]Evelyn might have despised republicans, but there was a limit to his royalist support. I’m not sure what he thought about another French culture Charles introduced – a load of fashion items such as face paint, muffs, perfume; and most strikingly, wigs. They’d been doing the wig thing, or perukes, since Louis XIII lost his hair, and his son XIV was also focally challenged, and really went for it – in the French court they had wigs so elaborate you couldn’t even sit down comfortably, sometimes constructed over intricate frames. So in 1663 when Charles started going grey, he saw this as the perfect solution to preserve his youth – and of course everyone copied him, as you do.

Well an observer form Oxford came to court in 1663 prepared to see women in this sort of get up – and almost fainted when he saw the royal horse guards also sporting the stuff. And before long all the aristocracy were at it – of course only the richest could afford the grandest, so it was a sort of wig race. In 1665 our Pepys finally adopted it too, worrying that he’d catch the plague because of it.

And, last bit of happiness – can’t have you feeling too happy over the griding misery of  power politics – so just one more. On November 28th, some of the members of the Invisible College, the natural philosophers who had such fun under the Commonwealth, came together at Gresham College in London to hear another lecture from a young prodigy, Christopher Wren. There was Robert Boyle, and William Petty, John Wilkins and others. And they decided to set up a Society, to transform knowledge, profit, and health and the conveniences of life – here it is, the growth of that optimism of the English enlightenment, that anything was possible the world could be changed, made better. The kicker was in the motto they chose in 1662 when they adopted a written Charter, and appointed a secretary, by the name of Henry Oldenburg; Oldenburg was the man who had taken over Samuel Hartlib’s network of improvers. The motto was Nullius in verba – take nobody’s word for it. All these improvements in knowledge and life would be based on experiment and observation, not faith – though they had the faith to absolutely believe improvement could happen, and that experimentation would demonstrate and prove God’s hand.

Now Charles was a lover of fine things, his personal closet stuffed with intricate and beautiful items; his closest courtiers reckoned he had a mechanical mind. So when approached by the society, he was delighted to agree to grant them a Royal charter which he did on July 15th, 1662; and on 3 April 1663 a new charter was issued, with the king noted as the founder and with the name of “the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge’, and finally a year later would agree to become their patron. It is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world.

[1] https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/survey/i-composition-house

[2] Harris, T: ‘Restoration’, p59

[3] Harris, T: ‘Restoration’, p55

[4] Howard Love, ODNB, Roger L’estrange’,

[5] Mortimer, I: ‘The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain’, p163

[6] Hutton, R: ‘Charles II’, p186