Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms, 1660-1685
Tim Harris
Language: English
Pages: 634
ISBN: 0140264655
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The late seventeenth century was a period of extraordinary turbulence and political violence in Britain, the like of which has never been seen since. Beginning with the Restoration of the monarchy after the Civil War, this book traces the fate of the monarchy from Charles II's triumphant accession in 1660 to the growing discontent of the 1680s. Harris looks beyond the popular image of Restoration England revelling in its freedom from the austerity of Puritan rule under a merry monarch and reconstructs the human tragedy of Restoration politics where people were brutalised, hounded and exploited by a regime that was desperately insecure after two decade of civil war and republican rule.
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Were acting against public opinion. It might make the implementation of some of the more controversial policies of the Tory Reaction (such as the purges of local government or the attacks on borough corporations) easier to swallow, because they would seem to be in tune with the public's desire to rid the nation of factious troublemakers. It could also defuse the potential for popular unrest, because if the radicals and the discontented could be encouraged to believe that public opinion was.
‘warned the people of extortion in ecclesiastical offices and of the many errors in their proceedings’ against nonconformists.195 In Dorset that same summer one JP not only discouraged informers but also gave the third of the fine levied on a nonconformist minister which by the provisions of the 1670 Conventicle Act should have gone to the poor of the parish back to the convicted preacher to distribute as he saw fit.196 It was the parish constables, however, who as a group proved the most.
Initiatives north of the border had on political developments and informed opinion within England. THE AFTERMATH OF BOTHWELL BRIDGE AND YORK'S FIRST SPELL IN SCOTLAND, 1679–1680 Although Scotland had proved to be a more rebellious country than England, we should be careful not exaggerate the extent of disaffection north of the border. Their inherent political and religious conservatism meant that the ruling elite in Restoration Scotland were never likely to join forces with popular.
1660–88 (1976), ch. 3; Elizabeth Hyman, ‘A Church Militant: Scotland, 1661–1690’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 26 (1995), 49–74. 58. Categories are adapted from Michael Perceval-Maxwell, The Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 (Montreal, 1994), pp. 8–9, incorporating the dramatic rise in Protestant dissent since the 1640s, for which see Phil Kilroy, Protestant Dissent and Controversy in Ireland, 1660–1714 (Cork, 1994); Richard L. Greaves, God's Other Children: Protestant Nonconformists and the.
In conflict with a neighbour could swear before the courts that he was in fear of bodily harm and have his neighbour find sureties not to cause him (or his family) any trouble or molestation. They were thus a not uncommon way of resolving disputes between private persons, and the sureties involved were normally quite trivial sums. For the king to demand lawburrows of his subjects, however, was more controversial, for it was tantamount to declaring that he was ‘in Dread of them’. Moreover, the.