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2. Restoration
In English history, the
reestablishment of the monarchy with the accession (1660) of Charles II
after the collapse of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. The term is often
used to refer to the entire period from 1660 to the fall of
James II in
1688, and in English literature the Restoration period (often called the age
of Dryden) is commonly viewed as extending from 1660 to the death of John
Dryden in 1700
After the death of Oliver Cromwell in Sept., 1658, the
English republican experiment soon faltered. Cromwell’s son and successor,
Richard, was an ineffectual leader, and power quickly fell into the hands of
the generals, chief among whom was
George Monck, leader of the army of
occupation in Scotland. In England a strong reaction had set in against
Puritan supremacy and military control. When Monck marched on London with
his army, an opinion was confirmed that the exiled king should be recalled.
Monck recalled to the Parliament the members who had been
excluded in 1648, which voted its own dissolution and elected the Convention
Parliament, which met in the spring of 1660. An emissary was sent to the
Netherlands, and Charles agreed to issue the document known as the
Declaration of Breda, promising an amnesty to the former enemies of the
house of Stuart and guaranteeing religious toleration and payment of arrears
in salary to the army. Charles accepted the subsequent invitation to return
to England and landed at Dover on May 25, 1660
Control of policy fell to Charles’s inner circle of old
Cavalier supporters, notably to Edward Hyde, was eventually superseded by a
group known as the
Cabal. The last remnants of military republicanism were
violently suppressed, and persecution spread. The Cavalier Parliament, which
assembled in 1661, restored a militant
Anglicanism and Charles II attempted
to reassert the old absolutist position of the earlier Stuarts
The crown, however, was still dependent upon the
Parliament for its finances. The unwillingness of Charles II and his
successor, James II, to accept the implications of this dependency had some
part in bringing about the deposition of James II in 1688, who was hated as
a Roman
Catholic as well as a suspected absolutist. The
Glorious Revolution
gave the throne to
William III and
Mary II
The Restoration period was marked by an advance in
colonization and overseas trade, by the Dutch Wars, by the great plague
(1665) and the great fire of London (1666), by the birth of the Whig and
Tory parties, and by the Popish Plot and other manifestations of
anti-Catholicism. In literature perhaps the most outstanding result of the
Restoration was the reopening of the theaters, which had been closed since
1642, and a consequent great revival of the drama. The drama of the period
was marked by brilliance of wit and by licentiousness, which may have been a
reflection of the freeness of court manners. The last and greatest works of
John Milton fall within the period but are not typical of it; the same is
true of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). The age is vividly brought
to life in the diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, and in poetry the
Restoration is distinguished by the work of John Dryden and a number of
other poets.
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