Though Charles II had ascended the throne on a wave of popular enthusiasm, his ideas were widely removed from those of his subjects. By birth and education his mind was drawn towards the aims and methods of French politics, and he leaned away from the Church of England. With this bias he inherited for Puritanism and the Presbyterians a dislike strengthened by personal experience. Coming into England without knowledge of parliamentary government, his first trial of it was far from encouraging. He found Parliament intolerant, suspicious, unstatesman-like. The Commons fenced in the Anglican Church with severe penal laws against dissent, and gave the king an income less than the annual expenses of government and the services by half a million pounds. Charles had been restored to a bankrupt inheritance, and with every good intention the Commons failed completely to render it solvent. Soon their good-will ceased. They were jealous of the royal expenditure. They did not perceive the royal wants. They destroyed the existing financial arrangements and did not replace them with better.[38] They desired to carry the Protestant and Parliamentary system to its logical end in controlling the King’s foreign policy and directing it against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. To Charles this was intolerable. To be forced to act at the bidding of Parliament was odious to him. He would be no crowned do-nothing. And here the fortunes of England touched on those of France. The schemes of Louis XIV for the expansion and consolidation of the French kingdom made it imperative that he should obtain for their prosecution the neutrality, if not the assistance, of England. He could not devote his energy to the settlement of his north-east frontier and the maintenance of his claims on the Spanish empire with a Protestant country ever ready to strike at his back. He was therefore always ready to pay for the concurrence of Charles and with him of England.[39] The establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, could it be effected, would be of material assistance to him. Especially on the religious side of his policy it would be a powerful support. Charles, on the other hand, desired to free himself from the financial control of Parliament and to grant toleration to the Catholics. He was therefore always ready to be bought. He was all the better pleased since co-operation with France brought him into conflict with the Dutch republic, which he disliked upon commercial and detested upon dynastic grounds. Toleration Charles found to be impossible, and he was subjected to constant annoyance by the attempts of the Commons to control his dealings. Thus his aims crystallised into a policy of making the crown supreme in the constitution and establishing the Roman Catholic faith as the state religion upon the approved model in France.[40]