Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration

by Antonia Fraser

  Meanwhile, back in England, there was a meeting of ministers in June, known as the Althorp conference, which included Halifax, as well as Sunderland, Hyde and Godolphin. It was agreed that these ministers should labour to produce a more amenable Parliament. The King promised in return not to ask Parliament for money unless his foreign alliances necessitated it; and he gave securities against Popery (but not against the succession of James). Halifax pronounced himself satisfied with such a position. The Althorp conference was an earnest of the kind of reasonable accommodation the King might be able to achieve in the future.

  As a portent however it was far outclassed by certain outrageous public events which promised a very different outcome of the King’s struggles. Most notable of these was the attempt by Shaftesbury to indict the Duke of York as a Catholic recusant and Louise Duchess of Portsmouth as a common prostitute before a Whig Jury in Middlesex. The penalty for the latter crime was unthinkable for the royal mistress (Louise stood to be incarcerated in the stocks, amongst other painful humiliations). The penalty for the former was purely financial. Nevertheless the joint attack was a calculated piece of provocation on the part of the Exclusionists. In the event, Lord Chief Justice Scroggs had the jury discharged. And so the matter ended; although it had the effect of sending the terrified duchess scurrying over to the Exclusionists, hoping to save herself by abandoning the cause of James. The King’s mood became ever blacker and more withdrawn.

  ‘Our most solitary sovereign,’ Thomas Bruce called him. A rhyme by Lord Dorset, circulated that autumn, compared him to a King at chess, who has already lost his rooks and knights:

  (His Queens and Bishops in distress)

  Shifting about, growing less and less

  With here and there a pawn.

  One effect of this withdrawal was to make him increasingly inscrutable. As Barrillon wrote back to France, ‘His conduct is so secret and impenetrable, that even the most skilful observers are misled. The King has secret dealings and contacts with all the factions and those who are most opposed to his interests flatter themselves that they will win him over to their side.’25 It had never been particularly easy to gauge the secret emotions of Charles II, since his youth had trained him to hold his feelings, like playing-cards, close to his chest. Charles had, on the other hand, prided himself on being able to gauge the emotions of others – which gave him a double advantage. Now, in the momentous autumn of 1680, this inscrutability was to be a prime factor in the ultimate fate of the Second Exclusion Bill.

  For there is no doubt that a large proportion of those who voted in favour of it genuinely believed that the King was prepared to ditch his brother. As Halifax reported, by October 1680 half the world was absolutely confident that the King would quit the Duke of York and the other half absolutely confident that he would not.26 Yet, as has been expressed, the King had in fact no intention of doing so: so that one-half of the world was (as often happens) confident but absolutely wrong. Baffled by the King’s prudent secretiveness, the Exclusionists allowed optimism about his intentions to sway their judgement. They expected support from him and none came.

  Admittedly, the opponents of the Bill gained no great royal support either. The King had called Parliament for quite another purpose. Tangier, the Queen’s dowry, was in danger as an outpost, being beset by the Moors. Only vast injections of cash to raise more troops could be expected to save it from falling into their hands. The French discussions were still covertly proceeding, but, as Louis XIV appreciated, ‘He [Charles II] only treats with me to derive an advantage in his future negotiations with his subjects.’27 Under these circumstances, King Louis was in no hurry to conclude yet another secret agreement which might bolster up King Charles, but leave England officially no better disposed towards France than she had been before.

  Charles II therefore opened Parliament in October strongly on the theme of Tangier and its desperate plight. In the summer its defender, the Earl of Ossory, Ormonde’s son, had been killed. Charles had written a personal letter to his parents concerning the great loss, in which ‘I take myself to be an equal sharer with you both’.28 Without new fortifications – which had to be paid for – Tangier was lost: ‘Therefore I lay the matter plainly before you, and desire your advice and assistance.’ Throwing in assurances about the maintenance of Protestantism at home the while, the King pleaded for money which would provide ‘greater strength and reputation both at home and abroad’. He would also bring King and Parliament together. For above all he desired ‘a perfect union among ourselves’.29

  The answer of the House of Commons to this powerful pleading was to introduce the Second Exclusion Bill. The so-called Tangier Parliament did not share the King’s concern at the fate of this outpost – quite ignoring its strategic position on the Mediterranean; later one member of Parliament would refer to the King’s preoccupation with Tangier as being like Nero’s decision ‘when Rome was on fire, to fiddle’. The first reading of that Bill which the Commons considered so much more important took place on 2 November; the Bill was carried.30

  On 6 November the House of Commons moved that Exclusion did not apply to the children of the Duke of York; their title would be unimpaired. But the next day the King sent a message to the Commons, offering once again to agree to any securities with regard to the maintenance of Protestantism, provided the ‘descent in the right line’ was not touched. The day after that the House of Commons, ignoring the King’s suggestion, moved that Mary, James’ elder daughter, should inherit the throne (as would have happened if her father had been dead).

  At this point Sunderland moved over to the Exclusionist cause, to the indignation of the King. Sunderland’s point was that Exclusion represented the only viable alternative to a French involvement. He also dreaded dissolution and the prospect of yet another unsatisfactory Parliament. And he threw in for good measure that it safeguarded the King’s own life. But Charles, intent on his own steady course, referred to Sunderland’s behaviour, in an audible aside, as ‘the kiss of Judas’.31

  The meetings of the Commons also took place against a dramatic background of movement on the part of the rival claimants. The Duke of York, who had returned from Scotland in February, was despatched thither again by the King in October. Monmouth, who had still not learnt his lesson about the limits of the King’s indulgence, set off on a series of progresses around the country which aroused a satisfying loyal chorus of support from those who witnessed them. It is possible that Monmouth was encouraged in this unlicensed display of strength by Shaftesbury. If so, Shaftesbury also had not yet understood the King’s capacity for sharp action when tried too far; the lesson would shortly be rammed home for him.

  The Commons, having passed the Bill on the third reading, with the question of James’ descendants left open, passed it on to the Lords. And at this point the Lords, seeing an opportunity to avenge themselves for the various insults and insolences dealt them by the Commons during this period of warfare between the two chambers, joined battle.

  In 1678, for example, the House of Lords’ right of originating Bills of Supply (that is, money bills) had been attacked by the Commons. The latter claimed that ‘all aids and supplies … are the sole gift of the Commons’. Later the Lords counter-attacked on this particular subject; but in the autumn of 1680 the defeat of the Exclusion Bill offered the possibility of revenge in a different area.

  The King himself paid the debate in the House of Lords the closest attention; a practice he had begun in the days of the Roos Divorce Bill, another measure which had seemed likely to affect the fortunes of his family. On occasion he threw in a word himself, and was formally thanked by the House. The King’s posture in the House of Lords was characteristic: he began by sitting on the throne, then moved to the fire, where he felt more comfortable, and finally went round like ‘a common solicitor’, as Burnet vividly expressed it, lobbying on behalf of his own interests.32

  Many of the speeches – so far as can be judged from the existing texts since the deba
te has only come down to us in fragmentary note form – expressed a reassuring conservatism. The contribution of old Lord Ailesbury was one such example.33 Ailesbury was certainly over-optimistic when he suggested that James might turn Protestant, as Henri IV had turned Catholic (how that celebrated conversion continued to haunt the descendants of Henri Quatre!). But when he spoke along these lines, ‘If the right heir should be thrown out may we not be subject to invasions abroad or Wars at Home. More insecurity from Wars than to suffer him to Reign’, he was striking exactly the note of alarm which had long sounded in the King’s ears. Lauderdale prayed that ‘We must not do Evil that good may come of it’ and reminded the House – another significant touch – that the Duke of York was ‘Son to Charles the First of Blessed Memory’ as well as ‘only brother to King Charles 2d’.

  But the key speech came from Halifax. Only details of Halifax’s superb and successful effort remain:34 but from these it is clear that he dwelt firmly on the possibilities of revolution – or at least an armed rising under James – which the passing of the Bill might offer. These references to the power of the Duke of York in Scotland, Ireland and elsewhere ‘with the Fleet’, caused fury when they were reported to the Lower House. One MP exclaimed angrily that Halifax should be told, ‘If the Duke had such power, it was time to take it out of his hands.’ But Halifax remained steady. The Catholic succession, if it occurred, could be dealt with by other means, such as limitations. To throw out the Duke of York’s claim by means of a Bill was to provoke exactly the kind of trouble they all wished to avoid.

  It is clear from the reports of contemporaries that Halifax’s decision to oppose Exclusion proved crucial. Only Halifax had the trenchant style necessary to cut down Shaftesbury, capable of demonic leadership in such a cause. There was one particularly telling exchange. Shaftesbury suggested sarcastically that Halifax could not really believe the Duke to be a Catholic, since he ‘combated with such warmth’ their own reasonable precautions against the Duke’s Catholicism. To this Halifax riposted that of course he knew the Duke to be a Catholic. Since he feared the consequences of the Duke’s Catholicism, he had opposed the Declaration of Indulgence (which Shaftesbury had supported) and worked for the Triple Alliance (which Shaftesbury had worked against). At this Shaftesbury was ‘much disconcerted’.

  Dryden afterwards paid tribute to Halifax’s influence: his

  piercing wit and pregnant thought

  Endued by nature and by learning taught

  To move assemblies …

  So much the weight of one brave man can do.

  During the ten-hour debate Shaftesbury never got up to speak without Halifax answering him. The final verdict was that Halifax’s rapier was ‘too hard’ for Shaftesbury.

  At the end of the day the Second Exclusion Bill was defeated by sixty-three votes to thirty. And so the issue of the succession was, unexpectedly to many, disastrously to not a few, settled for the time being in favour of the Catholic Duke, who represented the old order as well as descent in the right line. As for Exclusion, another satiric couplet summed up its dismissal in lines not quite up to the level of Dryden, but pithy nonetheless:

  Our Renowned Peerage will not have it so,

  The Demi-Gods and Heroes thunder, No.35

  1 It is now in the Pierpont Morgan Collection, New York, having been purchased from an unknown source in the present century.

  PART FIVE

  His Autumnal Fortune

  ‘In his autumnal fortune … yet there remaineth still a stock of warmth in men’s hearts for him.’

  LORD HALIFAX, Character of King Charles II

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Bolder and Older

  ‘Men ordinarily become more timid as they grow old; as for me, I shall be, on the contrary, bolder and firmer and I will not stain my life and reputation in the little time that perhaps remains for me to live.’

  Charles II, March 1681

  With the defeat of the Second Exclusion Bill, it might appear that Charles II, that expert on the subject of survival, had survived yet again. To Sir John Reresby, on the eve of Christmas 1680, the King had never seemed more at his ease, his sang-froid never more marked. At his couchée, that semi-official gathering of an evening, Charles weighed in a humorous vein against the fallacy and emptiness of those who pretended to a greater degree of sanctity than their neighbours: they were most of them ‘Abominable Hypocrites’. Above all, as the King had told Reresby the previous month, he was aware of the need of sticking by his old friends, otherwise ‘I shall have no Body to stick by me.’1

  Much of this must be regarded as whistling to keep the royal spirits up – as well as the spirits of those surrounding the royal person. The King’s real mood was better expressed a few months later at that classic confrontation, the Oxford Parliament, when he observed something along these lines: ‘Men ordinarily become more timid as they grow old; as for me, I shall be, on the contrary, bolder and firmer and I will not stain my life and reputation in the little time that perhaps remains for me to live.’2 The deaths resulting from the Popish Plot, the persistent chicaneries (as he saw them) of the Whig opposition, the attacks on his wife, mistress and ministers, had produced a new ‘Severity in his Disposition’.

  James Welwood attributed this directly to the Catholic executions: and Welwood, although writing some time after the event, at the request of Mary of Orange (he was her physician), knew the Court gossip.3 It is also possible that such severity had always been latent beneath the courageous forgiveness which Charles II displayed at the Restoration. But a more plausible case can be made for the fact that all the Stuarts became more conservative as they became older – those that survived to do so. James I, who died in his late fifties, certainly developed a kind of obstinacy very different from the dexterity he displayed as monarch of Scotland. It scarcely needs stressing that Charles I, who was executed at the age of forty-seven, had shown these tendencies; James Duke of York had been marked for his rigidity since his thirties. Charles II, a far more flexible character in every way, who had learnt in a hard school the value of pliancy, was nevertheless not quite immune from the same tendency.

  The next few months constituted the greatest challenge yet to the King’s nerve. He discovered in the course of them that this new boldness, the boldness brought by age, led to triumph, not disaster. This result did not encourage the King to revert to his previous easy-going stance. The concept of ‘peace for his own time’ was abandoned since, like so many other attitudes of appeasement, it had manifestly failed.

  The day after the defeat of the Exclusion Bill, Shaftesbury struck again. He still did not reckon himself to be totally overborne on the subject of the King’s successor. ‘Sick in health’, he was ‘yet in action nimble and busy as a body louse’.4 If Monmouth’s chances had temporarily vanished beneath a hail of mockery from Halifax, then the other expedient (of divorce) could be resurrected. In the House of Lords the next day, Shaftesbury outlined another project ‘as the sole remaining chance of liberty, security and religion’. This was designed to separate the King from his existing Queen, and provide him with an opportunity for ‘a Protestant consort’, and thus leave the Crown to his legitimate issue.

  This gained little support in the Lords. It also offered the King an opportunity to demonstrate his loyalty to his wife publicly. That night he ostentatiously supped with the Queen, when he had been in the habit of supping with the Duchess of Portsmouth. And, even more ostentatiously, he took his post-prandial nap in the Queen’s chamber. It was a signal rebuke to Shaftesbury’s plans. Queen Catharine had been ill that autumn, her fragility producing the usual unattractive speculation about her possible successors, including some cold ‘northern princesses’ and the daughter of the Earl of Manchester. Now the King had made it clearer than ever that she could not be attacked with impunity.

  His speech to Parliament on 15 December was one of bitterness and disappointment. He had not succeeded in obtaining those funds which would enable Tangier to
be made secure; as he saw it, Parliament had preferred to concentrate on this perpetual bickering over his successor, while forgetting the wider issue. He had hoped for a united front; they had responded with dissension. He had given them assurances concerning religion and they had not responded with any kind of financial backing. ‘I should be glad to know from you,’ exclaimed the King, ‘as soon as may be, how far I shall be assisted by you, and what it is you desire from me.’5

  One further piece of Parliamentary presumption he ignored. During the autumn session the House of Commons had reacted to the King’s new treatment of the judiciary by asking for a change in the tenure of the judges – or else for some limitation to their powers. The King made no reference to this request. All the same, the mantle of royal protection could not be flung out much further than the King’s own circle. In January the House of Commons made a move towards the impeachment of Lord Chief Justice Scroggs (in the event, the House of Lords refused to take him into custody and then Parliament was prorogued). More serious was the move of the House of Commons against Lord Stafford.

  The five Catholic lords were still languishing in the Tower of London, to which they had been committed two years before. Although various Catholic priests, mainly Jesuits, had been put to death, and others condemned, no trial had yet taken place of these far more prominent victims. Scaffolding had been erected in May with a view to preparing Westminster Hall for such a magnificent public event. The mob, with its taste for gloating rhyme, had sung of the preparations beneath the windows of the imprisoned peers.