Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/99

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Charles
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Charles

offered in vain to Charles sfier the Restoration-she afterwards married the Duke de Mazarin, and lived in England as the kings pensioner and mistress), and the Spaniards ad strong reasons for not wishing to exasperate the actual English government (Ranke, iv. 40-4). Towards the end of December Charles, who on his return journey paid a conciliatory visit to his mother at Paris (Clarendon, vii. 362) was back in Brussels. here remained only a very faint hope that Monck's march into England might produce some change for the better, and only gradually the significance of his proceedings ame clear at Brussels (ib. 420). When the elections for the ‘free’ convention parliament were at hand, Charles is stated to have communicated with some leading men, who in retuni signified their desire to ‘revert to their duty’ (Sir Philip Warwick, Memoires), and this may have been the origin of the private conferences held by Warwick, Manchester,and others with Bridgman and other royalists. But Monck was still unapproachable by the royalist agents, till at last Sir John Greenville ventured to place in the genera1's hands the credentials with which he had been furnished by the king. About the beginning of April Greenville returned to Brussels, followed by a message from the presbyterians informing the king that they had induced Monck to acknowledge him on the basis of the treaty of Newport (Hallam, ii. 290-1; cf. Christie, i. 220) It came too late, for the king and his advisers already had under consideration conditions not very different from the subsequent terms of the Declaration of Breda (as to Broghill's Irish scheme, which he says was only frustrated ‘by the prosperous accounts from England, see Orrery State Letters, i. 63-5). Monck was anxious that Charles should quit the Spanish Netherlands, and, against the will of the Spanish government, who had actually issued orders for detaining him, he crossed the frontier to Breda. The famous declaration, and the letters addressed to the council of state, the officers of the army, the two houses of parliament, and the authorities of the city, were dated 4 April 1660 from Breda, but were really handed by the king immediately after he had crossed the frontier to Greenville, who, with Mordaunt, carried them to London (for their text see Clarendon, vii. 454-76; also Somers Tracts, vii. 394-7; on the significance of the concessions made in the declaration by Charles, see J. S. Wortley's note to Guizot's Monck, 253; and Hallam, ii. 288-302; for the proceedings which followed in London, Whitelocke, iv. 409-13). On 8 May Charles II was solemnly proclaimed in Westminster Hall in the presence of the two houses, in the city before the lord mayor, and elsewhere. At Breda he was of course besieged with congratulations and applications of every kind, and urgently invited back to Brussels by Don John's minister, and to Paris by Queen Henrietta Maria, according to Clarendon, at Mazarin's instigation. But he preferred an invitation to the Hague, accompanied by the opportune gift of 6,000l. He could now allow himself full play as the ‘fountain of honour, and made a large number of knights. Then the English fleet under Montague (soon afterwards earl of Sandwich) hove in sight, and lay off the coast till about the middle of May. Shortly afterwards came the deputations of lords, commons, and city, who, together with ‘eight or ten' presbyterian divines accompanying them, were very graciously received by the king, though these last could not, according to Clarendon (vii. 501-3), extract from him certain promises concerning the services in the Chapel Royal which they had at heart. On 22 May he followed his brothers on board the Naseby, which, was hereupon rechristened the Royal Charles (Pepys). On the 24th he set sail, and on the 20th he landed at Dover. Here he was welcomed by Monck, whom he kissed and called father; by the mayor of the town, from whom he received a very rich bible, saying it was the thing he loved above all things in the world (Pepys), and by a large multitude ‘of all sorts.’ His progress was by Barham Down to Canterbury, where he heard sermons Whitelocke, and thence by Rochester and Blackheath, where Moncks army was drawn up, to St. George's Fields in Southwark where he was received by the lord mayor and aldermen. After passing through the city and by Charing Cross, the procession reached Whiteha1l, where the two houses of parliament were awaiting the king, at seven in the evening of 29 May (see the tract England's Joy, 1660, reprinted in Somers Tracts, vii. 419-22; cf. Whitelocke, iv. 414-16). As to his restoration in Scotland, he had expressly refrained from giving any directions himself (see his letter to Lauderdale, 12 April 1060, in Lauderdale Papers, i. 13; cf. ib. 17, 18) It was easily accompanied by the parliament which met in Edinburgh on 1 Jan. 1061, and repealed all acts passed since 1639, besides renouncing the covenant. In Ireland, where after the fall of the protectorate a convention of officers of the army had entered into an understanding with Charles, there was great confusion, which showed itself in the conflicting addresses presented to the king in London (Clarendon, Lafe, i. 442-60); nor did the declaration issued by him (30 Nov. 1660) for the settlement of Ireland, which had not been