The Restoration and the England of Charles II (Seminar Studies) by John Miller

Author:John Miller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781317887140
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-09-25T06:00:00+00:00

CHARLES II: KINGSHIP AND OBJECTIVES

At this point, one should remember the advantages and disadvantages of hindsight. In building up a broadly based impression of opinion within the ruling elite and in Parliament, a historian has access to a far wider range of sources than Charles II had. He had a rudimentary administrative and intelligence-gathering system [92]. He attended some debates in the Lords, but none in the Commons, and relied on second-hand accounts of their supposedly secret proceedings. Whereas now the media offer copious information on political events and attitudes, under Charles II the press was censored and politicians felt less need to justify their conduct to a wider public. Charles’s information on politics was, therefore, deficient.

Charles’s understanding of politics was also distorted by misconceptions about his subjects. He had been twelve in 1642. He had grown up amid the turmoil of civil war and the uncertainty of exile. In trying to explain his father’s execution he looked back beyond Pride’s Purge and the rise of the New Model to the civil war itself. Although most Parliamentarians had not wished to abolish the monarchy or to kill the king, one could with hindsight see their making war on him as leading inexorably to his execution. It would also seem logical that the roots of regicide should lie in a disaffection far more widespread than that of the few army officers and Rumpers who brought it about.

Thus, while the historian can argue that the great majority of Charles II’s subjects were loyal to the monarchy, one can understand why he should have believed otherwise. His distrust was reinforced by the sometimes ill-tempered disputes and criticism in Parliament, which he (and others) were all too ready to explain in terms of disaffection [Doc. 19].

Some have claimed that Charles inclined towards ‘absolutism’. In Louis XIV’s regime, the concentration in the king of authority and decision-making facilitated the more effective mobilisation of resources for war. It certainly impressed Charles and in an ideal world he might have liked to imitate it. There is, however, little evidence that he seriously intended to make England’s government like that of France. Absolutism had evolved in response to specifically French conditions. France had a far more complex and cumbersome administration than England, with great variations between provinces, which made it very difficult to establish effective control over them and to use their wealth and manpower in war. In order to overcome local and corporate vested interests, royal officials developed harsh, authoritarian methods, which they justified by means of an authoritarian political and legal theory. They developed these methods, not in pursuit of any theoretical model of government, but in response to pressing practical needs. France was partially surrounded by the territories of the French kings’ inveterate rivals, the Habsburgs. This ‘encirclement’ created a constant threat of war and forced the Crown to raise all the men and money it could from its diverse and recalcitrant territories. Its efforts were eagerly abetted by officials whose power and profits were enhanced by the extension of royal authority.

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