Aims
This course aims to:
• examine the main events of Charles II’s reign
• explore the nature of Charles’s character and beliefs
• assess his significance, effectiveness and achievements as a ruler
Content
This course will examine the reign of Charles II, focusing principally on his personality and policies. We will explore his turbulent early life, partly spent in exile, and consider how and why he came to be restored to the throne in 1660. The course will then look at his career as King, his beliefs and motives, the use that he made of his powers, and the nature of his achievements. Particular attention will be given to the Restoration Settlement, and to the political world of Restoration England: its atmosphere, issues and tensions. The sessions will be devoted to particular segments of Charles's life and reign, running from his birth in 1630 to his death in 1685. Throughout the classes, there will be extensive reference to primary sources as well as to the complex historiography of the Stuart monarchy.
Presentation of the course
The sessions will take the form of direct instruction, accompanied by extensive hand-outs in the form of extracts from primary sources. There will be some time for questions and discussion in each session.
Course sessions
1. Introduction: Charles’s early life, 1630-58
This first session will look at Charles’s life from his birth down to the eve of the Restoration. We will examine his experiences during the Civil Wars of the 1640s, his attempt to regain the throne at the beginning of the 1650s, and his life in exile during the Interregnum.
2. The Restoration, 1658-67
This session will examine Charles’s Restoration in 1660, his return to England, and the setting up of the Restoration Settlement in 1660-2. We will look at the period down to the fall of Charles’s Lord Chancellor, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, in 1667, including the Plague (1665) and the Great Fire of London (1666).
3. Charles’s reign from 1667 to 1678
Here we will look at the period where politics was dominated by the so-called Cabal (1667-73) and then by the Earl of Danby (1673-8). We will examine the issues that divided opinion in these years, especially over religion and foreign policy, and conclude with the revelation in 1678 of an alleged ‘popish plot’ to kill Charles.
4. Charles’s reign from 1678 to 1685
This session will explore the attempts to exclude James, Duke of York, from the succession during the Exclusion Crisis (1678-81), and the defeat of those attempts, and then the reaction
in favour of the monarchy in the Tory Reaction of 1681-5, down to Charles’s death in
February 1685.
5. Charles’s rule in Scotland and Ireland
This final session will look at Charles’s rule in Scotland and Ireland, at the issues that dominated political and religious life in those two countries, and compare and contrast these with what happened in England. We will close with a final concluding assessment of Charles and his character and achievements.
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
• to explore the events of Charles II's life and reign
• to gain a deeper awareness of Charles II's personality, beliefs and motives
• to understand his life and career in the context of his times
Required reading
*Smith, David L, A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown (Basil
Blackwell, Oxford, 1998), ISBN 0631194029 paperback
*Tapsell, Grant, & Southcombe, George, Restoration Politics, Religion and Culture (Palgrave
Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010), ISBN 9780230574458 paperback
