Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/194

 gibbets. In Scotland, only three persons suffered—the Marquis of Argyle, Johnston of Warriston, and Mr. Guthry, a clergyman: it was considered remarkable, that the marquis had placed the crown upon the king's head at Scone in the year 1651. Excepting in these acts, the king showed no desire of revenging the death of his father, or his own exclusion from the throne. The Parliament which called him home was constituted a legal one by his own ratification of an act for that purpose. In the settlement of other matters, it seemed the prevailing wish that all the institutions of the country should be made as nearly what they were before the civil war as possible. Thus the Episcopal church was established both in England and Scotland, though not without causing about a third of the clergy in both countries to resign their charges. The stern and enthusiastic piety which prevailed during the civil war, was now treated with ridicule, and the most of the people vied with each other in that licentious riot and drunkenness which is condemned by all systems of faith. The nation, in fact, seemed intoxicated with the safety which they supposed themselves to have at length gained, in a restoration to the imperfect freedom they enjoyed before the civil war.

Ireland, which, during the Protectorate, had been managed by Henry, a younger son of Cromwell, acceded to the Restoration with as much readiness as any other part of the British dominions. An act was passed for settling property, by which the Catholics obtained some slight benefits, but which, in its main effects, tended to confirm the rights of the settlers introduced by Cromwell.

Though Charles had been restored with the approbation of a very large portion of his subjects, his most zealous friends were the Royalists and Episcopalians; hence he almost immediately subsided into the character of a party ruler. It was deemed necessary that he should maintain an armed force for the protection of his person, and to keep down popular disturbances. He therefore caused several horse regiments to be embodied under the name of Life Guards, being chiefly composed of Royalist gentlemen upon whom a perfect dependence could be placed; and he afterwards added two or three foot regiments, the whole amounting to about 5000 men. The King paid these troops chiefly out of the money allowed for his own support, for Parliament did not sanction his keeping up such a force, and the nation generally beheld it with suspicion. This was the commencement of a standing army in England.

Personally indolent, dissolute, and deficient in conscientiousness, and surrounded almost exclusively by the ministers of the basest pleasures, Charles was not qualified to retain the sincere respect of a people whose habitual character is grave and virtuous. His extravagant expenditure soon cooled the affections of his Parliament, and he began to find considerable difficulties in obtaining money. To relieve himself from this embarrassment, he accepted £40,000 from the French king for Dunkirk, a French port, which had been acquired by Cromwell. For the same purpose, he married a Portuguese princess of the Catholic religion, who possessed a dowry of half a million. He also commenced (1664) a war against Holland, for apparently no better reason than that, in applying the Parliamentary subsidies necessary for keeping up hostilities, he might have an opportunity of converting part of the money to his own personal use.