This key Seminar Study was first published as Restoration England: The Reign of Charles II in 1985. Unavailable for several years, the book has now been heavily revised, and expanded, to take account of over ten years of new scholarship. In particular, the Second Edition reflects new work done on political parties, the constitution, taxation, the church, and the legacy of the civil wars. As ever primary documents illustrate points raised in the text and an extensive bibliography directs readers to further reading. New for this edition is a chronology of the main events in Charles II's reign which, given the thematic treatment of the reign, readers are likely to find particularly useful. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 the event was widely greeted as a return to normal after the upheavals of civil war. In this short study Professor John Miller explores how far this was true and how far the civil wars had, in fact, weakened (or strengthened) the monarchy. The book divides neatly into two: in the first part the 'Restoration Settlement' of 1660-4 is examined in detail; and, in the second, the salient features of government, politics and religion under Charles II are considered, seeking to show how well the restored regime worked in practice. Throughout, complex issues of change over time are explained as clearly and concisely as possible and the Restoration is placed in the wider context of the development of England in the seventeenth century.

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.

From 1681 until his death in 1685 Charles II ruled without a Parliament, and his personal rule forms the central subject of this book. The author discusses the nature of the Whig and Tory parties at this crucial period of their formation as political parties, showing how they coped with the absence of a parliamentary forum.

British history in the period from the restoration of 1660 to the revolution of 1688, no less than in other periods, has been subject to 'revisionism'. This volume examines and analyses some of the challenging new theories relating to politics, society, religion and culture that have attracted attention in recent years. It provides both a wide-ranging survey of the principal themes of the post-restoration era, and a series of insights derived from the detailed research of individual contributors.

The reconstitution of the royal court in 1660 brought with it the restoration of fears that had been associated with earlier Stuart courts: disorder, sexual liberty, popery and arbitrary government. This volume illustrates the ways in which court culture was informed by the heady politics of Britain between 1660 and 1685.

Spain and the Irish Mission, 1609-1707 examines Spanish confessional policy in 17th-century Ireland. Cristina Bravo Lozano provides an innovative perspective on Spanish-Irish relations during a crucial period for Early Modern European history. Key historical actors and events are brought to the fore in her account of the missionary networks created around the Irish Catholic exile in the Iberian Peninsula. She presents a comprehensive study of this form of royal patronage, the changes and challenges Irish Catholicism had to face after the peace of London (1604) and the role that Irish missionaries played in preserving its place within the framework of Anglo-Spanish relations.

Written by a renowned scholar and broadcaster, this account of Wilmot's work strives to place it in its socio-political context and describe the way the poet and his work were co-opted after his premature death to serve contrasting political agendas.

An exploration of links between opinion and governance in Early Modern England, studying moral panics about crime, sex and belief. Hypothesizing that media-driven panics proliferated in the 1700s, with the development of newspapers and government sensibility to opinion, it also considers earlier panics about cross-dressing and witchcraft.

In a seventeenth-century English landscape populated with towering political and philosophical figures like Hobbes, Harrington, Cromwell, Milton, and Locke, William Penn remains in many ways a man apart. Yet despite being widely neglected by scholars, he was a sophisticated political thinker who contributed mightily to the theory and practice of religious liberty in the early modern Atlantic world. In this long-awaited intellectual biography of William Penn, Andrew R. Murphy presents a nuanced portrait of this remarkable entrepreneur, philosopher, Quaker, and politician. Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration focuses on the major political episodes that attracted William Penn's sustained attention as a political thinker and actor: the controversy over the Second Conventicle Act, the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, the founding and settlement of Pennsylvania, and the contentious reign of James II. Through a careful examination of writings published in the midst of the religious and political conflicts of Restoration and Revolutionary England, Murphy contextualizes the development of Penn's thought in England and America, illuminating the mutual interconnections between Penn's political thought and his colonizing venture in America. An early advocate of representative institutions and religious freedom, William Penn remains a singular figure in the history of liberty of conscience. His political theorizing provides a window into the increasingly vocal, organized, and philosophically sophisticated tolerationist movement that gained strength over the second half of the seventeenth century. Not only did Penn attempt to articulate principles of religious liberty as a Quaker in England, but he actually governed an American polity and experienced firsthand the complex relationship between political theory and political practice. Murphy's insightful analysis shows Penn's ongoing significance to the broader study of Anglo-American political theory and practice, ultimately pointing scholars toward a new way of understanding the enterprise of political theory itself.

Charles II's use of access to his person as a political tool was a feature of his reign. At first he believed this access was an important part of uniting the kingdom, but later he controlled it as a means of manipulation, of both supporters & opponents.