J.P. Kenyon describes how the childlessness of the Queen, and the conversion of James, Duke of York, to Roman Catholicism, produced a febrile state of opinion in Restoration London, out of which rumours of a “Popish Plot” naturally arose.
Not until the Revolution had collapsed from within, and the quarrelsome heirs of the Long Parliament had forfeited the right to govern, was the way clear for the restoration of a Stuart sovereign. The return of the monarchy, writes Austin Woolrych, was welcomed with enthusiasm as an alternative to social anarchy.
D.G.C. Allan introduces the eleven Secretaries of State employed by Charles II, who reflect in the variety of their personalities, the social brilliance and the shifting policies of the Restoration Age.
David Lunn explains how, on his death-bed, King Charles II received the sacraments from a priest he had first met some thirty-four years earlier, and at length made his submission to the Roman Catholic Church.
Stuart D. Goulding introduces the founder of the colony, Roger Williams, who returned to England in 1643 and 1651 and had many friends among the English Parliamentarians.
As a ‘common upholder of unlawful meetings and conventicles’, Monica Furlong remembers, the great preacher was imprisoned for twelve years in 1660.
R.T. Godfrey reflects on the nuances of Faithorne’s large range of prints, which were based both on his own drawings as well as the work of other artists.
Steven R. Smith finds that John Evelyn proposed some drastic remedies to combat the polluted air of London in the seventeenth century.
Only by a trick of fate in 1683, finds J.H.M. Salmon, were Charles II and his brother preserved from an ambush that might have put an end to monarchy in England.
Maurice Cranston assesses the background and impact to Thomas Hobbes' masterwork of religious and political philosophy.
