'The Restoration Settlement was a failure.' Assess the validity of this view of the years 1660 to 1685.

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  • Created by: Gabby2004
  • Created on: 15-05-23 15:22

'The Restoration Settlement was a failure.' Assess the validity of this view of the years 1660 to 1685.

Advantages

  • Return of the stability and confidence in the economy -> the new monarch -> brough sense and order to the country -> restoration of the monarchy was seen as a symbol of stability
  • Covention Parliament 1660 -> rejected Presbyterian structure -> existed under the republic -> restored the Anglican Church
  • Act of Oblivion 1660
  • Triennial Act 1641 -> renewed in 1661
  • Clarendon Code -> 1661-1665 -> enforced with enthusiasm -> allowed Charles to achieve religious aims -> enforced the supremacy of the Anglican Church -> ended toleration of radical dissenting religions -> Corporation Act | Act of Uniformity | Coventicle Act | Five Mile Act
  • Corporation Act 1661 -> restricted non-Anglicans from sitting on borough corporations -> ensured that the influence of dissenters was vastly reduced
  • Militia Act 1661 -> Parliament ensured that they controlled the militia
  • Privy council -> most important organ of government -> doubled to 120 -> to accomodate an increasing number of different factions -> difficult to manage -> Charles had to rely on a smaller inner circle
  • Licensing Act 1661 -> censorship -> restricts radicals from printing material
  • Existing excise taxes were utilised -> parliament approved a £1.2 million annual income
  • Act of Uniformity 1662 -> parish priests should once again accept the Book of Common Prayer -> 1,800 ministers -> unable to conform -> expelled -> deprived of their livings -> 1,000 left the Church in the summer of 1662
  • Five Mile Act -> forbade ministers from going within 5 miles of their former parishes -> if they had been expelled under the Act of Uniformity
  • Quaker Act 1662 -> subjected Quakers to severe penalties if they refused to take the oath of allegiance -> authorities knew that their beliefs would not allow them to do -> they were vulnerable because they met in silence -> roused suspicion that they met for other secret purposes
  • George Fox 1664 -> founder of the Quaker movement -> arrested
  • Coventicle Act 1664 -> restricted dissenters -> no meeting in groups outside of the Church of England
  • Prosecution of quakers and baptists -> Five Mile Act -> Coventicle Act
  • 1669 -> those who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown and the Church of England -> arrested and often imprisoned -> Captain John Hodgson -> arrested 5 times in 18 month
  • Treaty of Dover 1670 ->  brough financial independence
  • 2nd Coventicle Act 1670 -> harsher than the first
  • 1677 -> James II's daughter Mary married the Protestant William of Orange
  • 1681 -> Whig leaders were arrested in Parliament -> Charles purged Whigs from local government -> particularly in London and the south-east -> presented them as republicans committed to a violent overthrow of the monarchy -> similar to that seen in 1649 -> brought down the number of Whig oppositions -> used prerogative powers to control the judiciary to remove them from office -> several executed -> Shaftesbury fled abroad
  • Rye House Plot 1683 -> a group of Cromwell's old soliders -> planned to kill Charles II -> the plot failed -> gave Charles an excuse to eliminate the remaining whig leaders -> consolidating his powers -> no longer had to call any more Parliaments for the rest of his reign
  • Ater the Exclusion Crisis 1684-1685 -> Charles' financial position improved -> the Crown raised a total revenue of £1.4 million
  • Increased revenue collected via custom duties -> real cause of financial success -> from improved international trades
  • Tory party ensured that the Clarendon Code was enforced with renewed enthusiasm against the dissenters
  • Persecution and suppression of the whigs -> freedom of speech was suppressed when whig views were put forward in print
  • JPs who had previously prosecuted Catholics -> replaced with men prepared to prosecute dissenters
  • Judges who were disloyal lost their jobs -> a list of trusted Whig judiciaries was found in Shaftesbury's papers -> all expelled from their role
  • The corporation of the City of London -> now controlled by those loyal to the king -> when petitions demanding the exclusion of James were presented to the corporation -> they were thrown out

Disadvantages

  • Renewal of the 1641 Triennial Act -> did not include any mechanisms to enforce the calling of a parliament -> every 3 years   -> Charles could resort to personal rule if he wanted
  • Militia Act 1661 -> the king alone was in supreme overall command of the armed forces
  • Cavalier Parliament 1661-1679 -> Charles II was not able to get power
  • Savoy Palace Meeting 1661 -> discuss details of long-term religious settlements -> both high-church and low-church represented -> impact of Venner's rising and the election of the Cavalier Parliament meant that High Anglicanism would now dominate -> four acts of the Clarendon Code
  • The Hearth Tax 1661 -> based on the number of fireplaces in a house -> authorised by Parliament in November 1661 -> levied in 1662 -> only generated 1/3 of the expected £250,000 revenue in the first year
  • Clarendon Code 1661 -1665 -> little popular enthusiasm -> the Acts were not enforced consistently or effectively
  • Act of Uniformity 1662 -> meetings continued in private houses -> despite the danger of arrest under the Coventicle Act
  • 1st Declaration of Indulgence 1662 -> attempted to suspend the Act of Uniformity -> would have allowed both dissenters and Catholics to worship with relative freedom -> resisted by a variety of bishops in the House of Lords and MPs
  • 2nd Anglo-Dutch War 1665-1667 -> Dutch were able to break the chain that blocked the Medway River -> destroyed 13 English ships at anchor on the other side
  • Great Fire of London 1666 -> sparked rumours of Catholic agents at work -> spread of plague led Charles to allow Parliament to blame Clarendon, his chief adviser -> replaced in 1667 with the Cabal
  • 1st Coventicle Act expires in 1667 -> led to a flurry of activity by dissenters
  • Louis XIV invades the Spanish Netherlands and attacks the Dutch 1667 -> English awareness that Catholic France was the biggest threat the country faced -> English diplomats negotiated a Triple Alliance with the Protestant Sweden and the United Provinces -> Charles was making early arrangements for the Treaty of Dover through his sister Henrietta who was married to the French king's brother
  • Charles facoured the pro-French policy for a number of reasons -> his mother was French -> he had spent time at the French court during his exile -> his sister Henrietta who had married into the French royal family was his favourite sibling -> he looked at France as an example to follow in the fields of art, culture and philosophy
  • 1668 -> Duke of York (Charles' brother) converts to Catholicism -> became public knowledge by 1669 -> made known when he refused to take Anglican Communion -> resigned the office of Lord Admiral -> gave clarity on this conversion -> possible for there to be a Catholic heir -> Whigs would later work to remove him from the line of succession
  • 1669 -> Presbyterian academy founded -> meeting houses were beginning to be built again -> further training academies were later built -> ministers' associations formed in the early 1670s
  • Treaty of Dover 1670 -> with the French -> committing England to further war with the Dutch -> public were unaware of a secret clause -> Charles had to declare his conversion to Catholicism at an appropriate time -> exchange for French subsidies -> free Charles from having to depend on parliament
  • 2nd Declaration of Indulgence 1672 -> parliament not in session -> as long as they weren't sitting then the Indulgence can be maintained -> Charles was facing major financial problems -> had to suspend payments to his creditors -> known as the Stop of the Exchequer -> suspending the laws that persecuted dissenters and proposing that they be allowed the freedom not to attend church and meet in licensed gatherings of their own -> a number of these licenses were given to dissenting congregations
  • Stop of the Exchequer 1672
  • Declaration of Indulgence explicitly allowed Catholics to worship in private -> led to hostile reactions from Parliament -> Catholic sympathies of Charles II and his brother had become increasingly apparent -> Parliament was just as concerned with Charles' apparent willingness to dispense with the law -> this action echoed that of continental Catholic monarchs
  • 1672 -> fear of Catholicism and absolutism increased -> Charles was seen to be attempting to copy Louis XIV -> upapologetically
  • 3rd Anglo-Dutch War 1672-1674 -> obliged to join because of the Treaty of Dover -> Charles had to go to parliament for funds
  • 2nd Declaration of Indulgence withdrawn in 1673
  • Test Act 1673 -> in place of the Indulgence -> forced holders of public office to deny key Catholic doctrines -> 90 ministers resigned
  • Dissenter licenses were not recalled until 1675
  • 2nd Pact with Louis XIV 1675 -> gave more money to Charles -> first payment of £100,000 being made in 1681 -> allowed Charles to embark on personal rule for the last 4 years of his reign
  • 1676 -> Danby carried out a census of dissenting groups -> in a bid to persuade Charles that persecution should be renewed -> only partially completed -> failed in its main purpose
  • 1677 -> James II married the Catholic Mary of Moderna -> Charles had no legitimate children -> likelihood that James would succeed his brother increased -> England would be ran by a Catholic monarch -> goes against the Restoration Settlement
  • 1677 -> another secret arrangement between Louis and Charles
  • Popish Plot 1678 -> Titus Oates and Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey -> planned to murder Charles and replace him with James -> planned by the Jesuits and French -> led to Oates accusing anyone he liked for 'participating' in the planning -> 35 Catholics killed in the ensuing hysteria
  • 1678 -> treaty -> Louis offered Charles more money -> Charles would disband his army of 30,000 men -> in return for further funds
  • Fall of Danby -> those suspicious of Charles' growing absolutism -> also challenged Danby's power and influence -> Danby was impeached -> he had been accepting French subsidies -> accused of manipulating parliament -> sent to the Tower of London until 1684
  • Charles dissolved 1679 parliament -> avoid escalation of crisis -> new election -> produced anti-Danby MP majority -> became known as whigs
  • The next step was to exclude James from the throne -> replace him with Charles' illigitemate Protestant son James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth -> Charles saw it as an attack on hereditary divine right    -> used his prerogative to override Parliament -> ability to delay legislation and dissolve Parliament
  • 1679 -> dissolved Parliament so that the Exclusion Bill could not be read by the Lords
  • 2nd Exclusion Bill 1680 -> defeated by the Lords -> they were under pressure from Charles as a result of his personal appearances at debates
  • First payment pf £100,000 from Louis to Charles 1681 -> financially independent -> able to work without the need to consult Parliament -> said the 1681 Parliament should meet at Oxford rather than Westminster to avoid conflict -> when the Whigs passed another Exclusion Bill he was able to dissolve Parliament and order the arrest of Shaftesbury -> without concerning himself of the financial consequences
  • Fall of the Cabal

Evaluation

In conclusion, there were significantly more failures of the Restoration Settlement which held more weight than the successes that it did have, therefore suggesting that the restoration of the monarchy was successful, despite Parliament's manipulation and lack of trust over Charles II, but the restoration of the Church of England was still actively being challenged, even by the king, which means that it was therefore unsuccessful in achieving this aim.

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