At Breda, under the solicitations of the Presbyterians, who were then all-powerful, Charles II. had made promises and allowed hopes of union and toleration to be entertained. Profoundly royalist and conservative, the Presbyterians were separated from the Church of England by questions of form and ecclesiastical organization much more than by fundamental doctrines of religion. In 1660 the king promulgated an ordinance known as the Healing Declaration, which satisfied the Presbyterians without gravely offending the Anglican Church. Some distinguished theologians among the Presbyterians had already accepted the episcopal ordination and had become bishops, when Parliament rejected the Royal Declaration, refusing to give it the force of law. At the same time began the restitution of Church property and the domains of the Crown, very soon definitively settled by the new Parliament. The lands of private individuals were in part restored to them after some delays; but voluntary sales were respected, whatever might have been the conditions under which they were effected. The reaction had commenced, and was violent and spontaneous. Charles II., cautious and indifferent, took in all this no personal part. He left full play to individual passions, which became excited by degrees. The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were torn out of their tombs, hung at Tyburn, then decapitated. King Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster beheld its sanctuary violated for the purpose of searching for the remains of persons buried under its roof during the revolution. The tombs of the mother and daughter of Cromwell, and those of Pym and Blake, were opened, and their coffins broken. On all sides popular vengeance exhibits the same hideous and cowardly traits. The English Royalist party were furnishing an example to the revolutionary populace, who were one day in France to profane the vaults of St. Denis. {347}