Conservative History Journal

Yesterday was the anniversary of both Charles II's birth and, more importantly, his astonishingly peacerful entry into London in 1660 at the start of his own long and rather controversial reign. Well, it has attracted a great deal of controversy then and since.

Through London Historians Tory Historian can link to an excellent article on the subject by Tom Sykes.

Francesco Giavarina [Venetian Ambassador to England] was not alone in waking up on the 30th May with a hangover and the creeping realisation that someone would have to pay for the party. On Tuesday 29 May 1660, his thirtieth birthday, Charles Stuart returned to London for the first time since he left as a boy at the start of his father’s long and bloody civil war. He rode into a city which a decade previously had looked on unblinking as Parliament severed his father’s head from his body and the nation from its monarchy. He had attempted to return before, but many plans and plots came to nothing. Even his invasion at the head of a Scottish army had failed. It had taken the death of Oliver Cromwell two years earlier, the crumbling of Parliamentary authority, and a distinct lack of options for his time to come.

And as every schoolchild used to know, he was determined never to go on his wanderings again, if it meand accepting a pension from the King of France.