The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.Prescott, Thomas H.
History
The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.
Prescott, Thomas H.
Biography; World history
The new Parliament proved to be chiefly composed of Cavaliers and
Presbyterians, men agreeing in their attachment to monarchy, though
differing in many other views. After some cautious procedure, in which
the fears inspired by the late military tyranny were conspicuous, they
agreed to invite the king from his retirement in Holland, and to
restore him to the throne lost by his father. They were so glad to
escape from the existing disorders, that they never thought of making
any preliminary arrangement with the king as to the extent of his
prerogative. On the 29th of May, being his thirtieth birthday, Charles
II entered London amidst such frantic demonstrations of joy, that he
could not help thinking it his own fault, as he said, that he had been
so long separated from his people.
One of the first measures of the new monarch was the passing of a bill
of indemnity, by which all persons concerned in the late popular
movements were pardoned, excepting a few who had been prominently
concerned in bringing the king to the block. Harrison, Scrope, and a
few other regicides, were tried and executed; and the bodies of
Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were raised from the grave and
exhibited upon gibbets. In Scotland, only three persons suffered――the
Marquis of Argyle, Johnston of Warriston, and Mr. Guthry, a clergyman:
it was considered remarkable, that the marquis had placed the crown
upon the king’s head at Scone in the year 1651. Excepting in these
acts, the king showed no desire of revenging the death of his father,
or his own exclusion from the throne. The Parliament which called him
home was constituted a legal one by his own ratification of an act for
that purpose. In the settlement of other matters, it seemed the
prevailing wish that all the institutions of the country should be
made as nearly what they were before the civil war as possible. Thus
the Episcopal church was established both in England and Scotland,
though not without causing about a third of the clergy in both
countries to resign their charges. The stern and enthusiastic piety
which prevailed during the civil war, was now treated with ridicule,
and the most of the people vied with each other in that licentious
riot and drunkenness which is condemned by all systems of faith. The
nation, in fact, seemed intoxicated with the safety which they
supposed themselves to have at length gained, in a restoration to the
imperfect freedom they enjoyed before the civil war.
Ireland, which, during the Protectorate, had been managed by Henry, a
younger son of Cromwell, acceded to the Restoration with as much
readiness as any other part of the British dominions. An act was
passed for settling property, by which the Catholics obtained some
slight benefits, but which, in its main effects, tended to confirm the
rights of the settlers introduced by Cromwell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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