Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: experience other than our own
- 1 The shape of the seventeenth century
- Part I England's troubles 1618–89: Political instability
- 2 Taking contemporary belief seriously
- 3 The unreformed polity
- 4 Reformation politics (1): 1618–41
- 5 Counter-reformation England
- 6 Reformation politics (2): 1637–60
- 7 Restoration memory
- 8 Restoration crisis 1678–83
- 9 Invasion 1688–9
- Part II The English Revolution 1640–89: Radical Imagination
- Part III Restoration 1660–1702: Reconstruction and Statebuilding
- Sources cited
- Index
7 - Restoration memory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: experience other than our own
- 1 The shape of the seventeenth century
- Part I England's troubles 1618–89: Political instability
- 2 Taking contemporary belief seriously
- 3 The unreformed polity
- 4 Reformation politics (1): 1618–41
- 5 Counter-reformation England
- 6 Reformation politics (2): 1637–60
- 7 Restoration memory
- 8 Restoration crisis 1678–83
- 9 Invasion 1688–9
- Part II The English Revolution 1640–89: Radical Imagination
- Part III Restoration 1660–1702: Reconstruction and Statebuilding
- Sources cited
- Index
Summary
I know … it is said that I intend the subversion of the religion and government, that I intend to govern by an army and by arbitrary power, to lay aside Parliaments … But … thos that say it the most … are … such as would subvert the government themselves and bring it to a commonwealth again.
Charles II to John Reresby, 15 February 1677All our misfortune arises from the late times. When the King came home, his ministers knew nothing of the Laws of England, but foreign Government.
William Sacheverell, 1678INTRODUCTION
The continuation of the troubles into the restoration period requires us to address two subjects. One is the continuation, or reappearance, beyond 1660 of the circumstances and fears by which they were sustained. The other is the initial failure of the restoration process to end them. This second matter is the subject of chapters 16–17. In relation to the first, two contexts will be identified. That in space, again, was the European situation. That in time was restoration memory. These were links to the troubles over which restoration governments had little power. Thus it was that only eighteen years after the return of the monarchy Charles II found himself facing a crisis universally considered similar to that which had destroyed his father.
The claim that the troubles did return, and that we must consequently see the period 1660–89 as one of continuing instability, has recently received significant attention. Restoration used to be taken as a given. Subsequent crises and the thought associated with them were considered to be superficial.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- England's TroublesSeventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context, pp. 161 - 181Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000