Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/782

 6^6 Outlines of European History Section 119. The Restoration After Cromwell's death his son Richard, who succeeded him, found himself unable to carry on the government. He soon abdicated, and the remnants of the Long Parliament met once more. But the power was really in the hands of the soldiers. In 1660 George Monk, who was in command of the forces in Scotland, came to London with a view of putting an end to the anarchy. He soon concluded that no one cared to support the Rump, and that body peacefully disbanded of its own accord. Resistance would have been vain in any case with the army against it. The nation was glad to acknowledge Charles H, whom every one preferred to a government by soldiers. A new Parliament, composed of both houses, was assembled, which welcomed a messenger from the king and solemnly resolved that, " according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is, and ought to be, by king, lords, and commons." Thus the Puritan revolution and the short-lived republic was followed by the Restoration of the Stuarts. Charles II was quite as fond as his father of having his own way, but he was a man of more ability. He disliked to be ruled by Parliament, but, unlike his father, he was too wise to arouse the nation against him. He did not propose to let anything happen which would send him on his travels again. He and his courtiers were fond of pleasure of a light-minded kind. The immoral dramas of the Restoration seem to indicate that those who had hJeen forced by the Puritans to give up their legitimate pleasures now welcomed the opportunity to indulge in reck- less gayety without regard to the bounds imposed by custom and decency. Charles's first Parliament was a moderate body, but his second was made up almost wholly of Cavaliers, and it got along, on the whole, so well with the king that he did not dissolve it for eighteen years. It did not take up the old question, which was still unsettled, as to whether Parliament or the king was really