Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/101

 on tolerant principles, the policy of the Act of Uniformity (1662), which contradicted his two declarations, was not his own policy.

In the adjustment of questions concerning the ownership of estates, the honour of the king was hardly less involved than the security of the state. But the course adopted was unsatisfactory; the king's estates and those of the queen dowager, of noblemen who had served the royal cause, and of the church, were restored by enactment (, i. 370 n.), but other claims were dealt with at haphazard. In general the petitions of aggrieved cavaliers became a never-ending trouble to Charles and his government; and the sum of 60,000l., voted as late as 1681, for distribution among the more needy of these claimants, fell far short of their demands (, ii. 305). In Ireland, the large grants of forfeited lands to the Duke of York and others aggravated the dissatisfaction. Charles's difficulties on this head were extraordinary; but there was no subject on which it would have better become him to take pains (cf. Cal. 1660–1, 217, and Somers Tracts, vii. 516 seq.) The king's revenue was settled by the Convention parliament at 1,200,000l., of which one-third was from the customs, tonnage and poundage having been granted to him lor life from 24 June 1660, and 100,000l. was derived from an excise on beer, &c., granted in return for his consent to the abolition of various feudal tenures and rights. Burnet (i. 287) states that he afterwards suspected his income to have been kept lower by the chancellor than parliament would have thought requisite, and James II subsequently thought that this might be accounted for by Clarendon's suspicions of the king's catholic sympathies (, i. 393). it is due to Charles to state that it is doubtful whether the income of the crown proved at all equal to the sum at which parliament estimated it (see, however,, i. 365 n.)

The interval between the dissolution of the Convention parliament (29 Dec. 1660) and the meeting of its successor was marked, among other events, by the outbreak of Venner's plot, and by the coronation of the king, which had been deferred to St George's day (23 April) 1661 possibly on account of the death in England of Charles's sister, the Princess of Orange, who had so actively exerted herself in favour of his restoration (24 Dec. 1660). Not long before (13 Sept.) he had also lost his brother the Duke of Gloucester, whom, according to Burnet (i. 308), he loved much better than the Duke of York. Of the coronation solemnities and festivities, and of the thunderstorm which burst overthem, ample accounts are preserved (see, 200–81; , Chronicle, 474–496, with lists of honours and dignities conferred from restoration to coronation; Somers Tracts, vii. 514–15; cf. Cal. 1660–1, 584–6). The first parliament summoned by Charles II met 8 May 1661. It immediately passed an act for the preservation of the king and government, providing among other things for the exclusion from office of any one who called the king a heretic or a papist, vested the command of the militia in the crown, and authorised a benevolence. In Ireland, where a parliament met about the same time as the English, the church was re-established. In Scotland an act rescissory began a complete reaction; Argyll suffered death; and the covenant was burnt by the common hangman. When opening the English parliament the king announced his approaching marriage with Catherine of Braganza [q. v.], daughter of John IV of Portugal, determined after protracted negotiations. His foreign policy at the beginning of his reign had been naturally tentative. First he had turned to the States-General, from whom he would have much liked a loan; but parliament crossed his plans in this quarter by renewing the Navigation Act. Then he tried Spain, ready to listen to a sovereign who had Jamaica and Dunkirk to restore; and schemes were formed for his marriage with Margaret Theresa, second daughter of Philip IV, and again with Eleonora, widow of the Emperor Ferdinand III. In such a matter France could not look on inactive, and not long before Henrietta Maria had succeeded in negotiating the marriage of her daughter and namesake with Philip, duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV (31 March 1661). The objection taken by Clarendon and others to a French marriage for the king himself must have rested on their fear of any increase of the queen dowager's influence. Portugal, on the other hand, more than ever menaced by Spain, was ready to purchase the alliance of England by very considerable concessions; and thus the marriage was determined upon, though it appears that Charles would himself have preferred a Spanish infanta, while Bristol was at the eleventh hour searching for eligible Italian princesses (, iv. 157–74; the rumour of the king's previous secret marriage with a niece of the Prince de Ligne, mentioned by Pepys, 18 Feb. 1661, was an unfounded scandal). The announcement of the marriage was very enthusiastically received in England, more especially as the Duchess of York had quite recently given birth to a son; it was not foreseen how costly a gift Tangier, which Portugal ceded on the occasion, would prove, nor how