The Road Back to the Throne: Restoration of the Monarchy 1660
In May 1660, Charles II sailed from the Netherlands and entered London to cheering crowds. Eleven years earlier his father had been executed by Parliament; now the monarchy, the House of Lords and the Church of England were being rebuilt at speed. The Restoration was not, however, a simple winding back of the clock. Parliament emerged from the settlement stronger than before, and the religious and political tensions that had caused the Civil War were postponed rather than solved.
Why the Republic Collapsed
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector since 1653, died on 3 September 1658. His son Richard Cromwell took over but had no military reputation and no support from the army. Within nine months Richard had resigned and the Protectorate had collapsed. England drifted through a succession of rival regimes: the recalled Rump Parliament, the army Council of Officers, and brief military governments. Trade suffered, taxes rose and ordinary people grew tired of rule by soldiers.
Cromwell died in September 1658. Within sixteen months his Protectorate had collapsed, the army was split, and General Monck was marching south from Scotland to call free elections.
General Monck and the Convention Parliament
General George Monck commanded the army in Scotland. In January 1660 he marched south to London with disciplined troops and demanded that the old ‘Long Parliament’ be properly dissolved and free elections called. The result was the Convention Parliament, which met in April 1660. It was not summoned by a king and so technically had no legal authority — but it had popular support, royalist sympathies and a clear mandate to negotiate the king’s return.
The Declaration of Breda
From his exile in the Dutch town of Breda, Charles II issued a careful public statement in April 1660, drafted with his minister Edward Hyde. The Declaration of Breda made four key promises designed to win over moderate opinion.
First, a free pardon for all who had fought against the Crown — except those Parliament chose to punish. Second, ‘liberty to tender consciences’ in religion, leaving the detail to Parliament. Third, payment of the army’s arrears so the soldiers would not block the king’s return. Fourth, a settlement of disputed land titles to be agreed by Parliament. Crucially, every difficult question was passed to Parliament — meaning Charles returned by invitation, not by conquest.
Parliament accepted the Declaration on 1 May 1660. Charles entered London on his thirtieth birthday, 29 May 1660, with bells ringing and wine running in fountains. Samuel Pepys, watching from the Strand, recorded that the streets were ‘strewed with flowers’ and the bonfires went on all night.
The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion
In August 1660 the Convention passed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion. Most former Parliamentarians were pardoned and the past was officially forgotten. The exception was the regicides — the men who had signed Charles I’s death warrant in 1649. Ten were executed in October 1660, most of them hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross. The bodies of Cromwell, his son-in-law Henry Ireton and the judge John Bradshaw were dug up from Westminster Abbey, hanged at Tyburn and beheaded. Cromwell’s skull was displayed on a pike on Westminster Hall for over twenty years.
What Was Actually Restored?
The settlement restored three things: the monarchy itself, the House of Lords (abolished in 1649) and the Church of England with its bishops. Bonfires, maypoles and Christmas were once again legal. But several powerful Crown weapons did not come back. The Court of Star Chamber and other prerogative courts stayed abolished. Feudal tenures, which had given the king income from his major landowners, were gone for good. In their place the king was given a fixed yearly income voted by Parliament — the first time the Crown had to live on a parliamentary allowance.
The Restoration brought back the monarchy, the House of Lords and the Church of England. It did NOT restore Star Chamber, the prerogative courts or feudal Crown income — meaning the new king depended on Parliament for money.
A common student misconception is that 1660 healed the country. It did not. The two issues that had caused the Civil War — who controlled religion, and who controlled the king’s money — were left unresolved. Parliament was now stronger because it controlled royal finance, but the king still claimed the right to choose his ministers and direct foreign policy. Twenty-eight years later these same tensions, sharpened by the question of a Catholic heir, would bring down Charles II’s brother James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
For now, in the summer of 1660, the country celebrated. Soldiers were paid off and sent home. Royalist gentry began returning to their estates. Charles II rewarded the men who had brought him back: Monck became Duke of Albemarle, Hyde became Earl of Clarendon and Lord Chancellor. The hard arguments about how the new monarchy would actually be financed and what to do about Dissenters had been postponed — and the next Parliament, the Cavalier Parliament of 1661, would take a much harder line than the Convention had done.