"It is practically impossible to separate the failure of the Restoration Settlements from the personality of King Charles II. In an age of personal monarchy, royal personality mattered. At first, as with nearly all new rulers, only the king's good points shone through. Charles II was highly intelligent. He spoke fluent French and some Italian; he had a particular interest in science, maintaining a laboratory, and serving as the founding patron of the Royal Society. He was also witty, affable, and approachable. (He would, in our own day, have made a terrific TV talk-show host.) This was in sharp, and in the most part, agreeable contrast to his father, who had been impossibly aloof and formal. The new king was also vigorous, as he proved on the tennis court and in the bedroom: in the words of one historian, he was "unmistakably the 'sport' of his line." More importantly, he was tolerant, flexible, and open to compromise- again, in welcome contrast to his father."

"Above all, Charles II saw the need for healing after a quarter-century of bitter conflict. At Breda he had promised forgiveness to his enemies, and, in general, he lived up to that promise: fewer than 40 old rebels and servants of the Commonwealth and Protectorate were left out of the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion (1660). The most serious revenge was reserved for those who had signed Charles I's death warrant and, of these, only 11 were executed. Those unfortunate souls, however, suffered the full fury of the traditional punishments associated with treason: they were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and their boiled remains impaled on the City gates. The new regime even vented its wrath on the dead: the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, and John Bradshaw were exhumed and hanged at Tyburn in their shrouds. Afterwards their heads were placed on pikes at Westminster Hall- the place of Charles I's trial- as a warning to all potential rebels."

"On the other hand, Charles II forgave many surviving Roundheads, reappointing them to the offices they had performed so well for the Commonwealth and Protectorate, rewarding them for their new-found loyalty with titles, pensions, and lands. This eased bitterness on their part and it kept experienced and competent people in government. But it also left many old Royalists, impoverished by their long and faithful service to the Stuarts in defeat and exile, resentful that they were not rewarded more generously. In fact, most Royalist nobility and gentry regained the lands lost during the Interregnum, but those further down the social scale were not so lucky. A fund of £60,000 was established for indigent officers, but individual pay-outs were tiny. Hence the dark Royalist joke that the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion meant indemnity for the king's former enemies and oblivion for his friends."

"Charles II's willingness to slight old friends for new ones was, in fact, characteristic of the man. A his reign progressed, it became increasingly clear that his loyalty to servants and favorites was undependable; that his intelligence frequently manifested itself as cunning and duplicity; that his charm was often deceptive and self-serving; that his easy-going nature was also lazy and indecisive; and that his flexibility was, in part, the corollary of having no long-term goal or plan. Basically, Charles II was a cynic- and who could blame him? After all, the people who now professed their undying loyalty and affection for him were the very ones who had fought against his father. He would never fully understand their prejudices. On his last visit to his dominions in 1651 he had been forced to hide in a tree before sneaking out of the country in disguise. During the ensuing exile of over eighteen years he had been threatened, denounced, promised to, lied to, used, and spied on by them- as well as by every government in Europe. Often, he would find that a confidential servant was in the pay of his enemies; or that a fellow monarch had used him as a pawn in some diplomatic game of chess with Cromwell. No wonder that he trusted no one. He never knew when the English, Scots, and Irish would change their minds once more and force him to go "on his travels" again."

"So, perhaps understandably, the young but wizened king decided to make hay while the sun shone. Hence his laziness. Hence his apparent lack of a long-term plan, besides survival. Hence his almost obsessive interest in "diversion": having fun and relieving boredom through the pursuit and patronage of art, music, literature, the theater, witty conversation, gambling, drinking, and womanizing. A positive result of these tendencies was that the Restoration court was the greatest center for cultural patronage of its day. It has been credited with introducing England to the comedy of intrigue, the first stage actresses, the man's three-piece suit, periwigs, and such delicacies as champagne, tea, and ice cream."

"The King was only fifty-six, and in appearance lively and robust, but his exorbitant pleasures had undermined his constitution. To represent him as a mere voluptuary is to underrate both his character and his intellect. His whole life had been an unceasing struggle. The tragedy he had witnessed and endured in his youth, the adventures and privations of his manhood, the twenty-five years of baffling politics through which he maintained himself upon the throne, the hateful subjugations forced upon him by the Popish Plot, now in his last few years gave place to a serene experience. All the fires of England burned low, but there was a genial glow from the embers at which the wearing King warmed his hands. Halifax, now more than ever trusted, still urged him to the adventure of a new Parliament, and Charles might have consented, when suddenly in February 1685 an apoplectic stroke laid him low. The doctors of the day inflicted their tormenting remedies upon him in vain. With that air of superiority to death for which all mortals should be grateful he apologised for being "so unconscionable a time in dying." James was at hand to save his soul. Old Father Huddleston, the priest who had helped him in the days of the Boscobel oak, was brought up the backstairs to rally him to Rome and give the last sacrament. Apart from hereditary monarchy, there was not much in which Charles believed in this world or another. He wanted to be King, as was his right, and have a pleasant life. He was cynical rather than cruel, and indifferent rather than intolerant. His care for the Royal Navy is his chief claim upon the gratitude of his countrymen."

"[I]f we suppose that Charles II was serious in intending to bury the protestant religion, the liberties of England, and the Dutch commonwealth in one grave, he may be considered as the most criminal of all English Princes. And, if we impute his indecisive and desultory measures, after he withdrew from the war, either to levity, or to the influence of the sums he received from foreigners, his conduct will appear in a very mean light. But, if his motives were really as criminal and mean as they are generally supposed to have been, the consequences of them afford one of the many instances in the English history, in which good has arisen to the English nation from intended evil."

"Strong leaders, even absolute monarchs, owe their strength to a natural social constituency rather than to an authoritarian personality. For Charles, it was the nexus of squire and parson that fuelled the uncompromising counter-revolution of populist Anglicanism. These were the men, like the Vicar of Bray, for whom Good King Charles's days were golden, at least in retrospect. At the time, they found him often reluctant to go as far as they wished in persecuting Catholics and Dissenters. Only later did Charles's reign assume the golden glow of nostalgia, as unhappy Tories under the first two Georges sought a stylish archetype which would highlight, by contrast, the Hanoverian boorishness. Then, Charles's rule came to seem a symbol of the triumph of indulgence, pleasure and tolerance over rigour, earnestness and bigotry. But at the time, it was a much more ambiguous affair."