1657. dies, 1658, 3. his son cessor. mighty bastard himself. At last in 1657 the Refuses it, protector returned his final answer, "I say, I am "persuaded to return this answer to you. That I "cannot undertake this government with the title "of king, and this is mine answer to this great "and weighty business." So with the title of protector he bore the enormous burden of the government of the three nations until his death on the 3rd of September 1658. On his deathbed Cromwell he nominated his eldest son Richard as his September successor in the protectorship. He had never Had undervalued his descent from an old knightly nominated family, and could not bring himself to pass over Richard as his heir, whom he generally called "idle Dick," for his suchis more capable and noble son Henry. If he had done so the result might have been different; as it was the reins of power soon slipped from the hands of the honest but incapable Richard, and on the 29th of May 1660 Charles II. entered London as Restoration peaceably as if the great civil war had never been heard of. As a matter of course Charles was held to have become King of England in the moment on which his father's head fell on the scaffold, and the first year of his government was treated as the 12th of his reign. Since the birth of the Birth of Princess Henrietta no descendants of Charles I. had been born except the greatest of them, that posthumous son of William of Orange and the Princess Mary who is known in history of Charles II. William of 4. Deaths in the royal family. as William the Third of England. Within the next two years after the Restoration death was busy in the royal family. In the September Of Henry, of 1660 Henry, the promising young Duke of Gloucester, Gloucester, died in his twenty-first year. Mary 1660, Sep- of Orange, whose affection and aid had never Duke of tember. 1660, Of Eliza beth of Of Mary of failed her family during their long years of Orange, exile, followed her brother in December, and in December. February 1662 the high-minded Queen of Bohemia ended her troublous pilgrimage. A series Bohemia, of shameful transactions of the court at home 1662, February7. and abroad, alike alarming and humiliating to the nation, produced a terror and a rage which in 1678 culminated in the panic fury of the The Popish "Popish Plot;" and whilst the excitement of the plot, 1678. public mind still continued, the House of Commons Exclusion, on the 2nd of November 1680 resolved, “That a Bill of 1680. State of royal family. "Bill should be brought in to disable the Duke of "York to inherit the Imperial Crown of the realm." He had in 1671 publicly declared himself a Roman Catholic. To understand the full bearing of the parliamentary measure, it is necessary to review some important events which had occurred in the royal family. In 1662 Charles had married Catharine of Braganza. No child had been born Catharine of the union. From time to time projects of divorcing the queen had been entertained, even by the king himself, who, as he could scarcely hope for a more submissive wife than his virtuous Charles's marriage with of Bra ganza, 1662. Projects of divorce. marriage ration. Death of Anne, of James and injured consort had shown herself to be, may be credited with having wished to secure the The queen tranquillity of the nation by another and more protected by the fruitful marriage. But in the height of the panic kingduring the panic. of the plot the queen's very life was aimed at, Duke of and the king to his honour protected the helpless York's woman. The Duke of York had married, pro- with Anne bably shortly after the Restoration, Anne Hyde, the time of Hyde about daughter of the chancellor Clarendon. She had the Restoborn him eight children. Of these four sons, suc- Their cessively Dukes of Cambridge, and two daughters children. had died, and there remained only two daughters; Duchess Mary born in 1662, and Anne in 1665. In 1671 1671. the Duchess of York died, and in 1673 James Marriage married, first by proxy and afterwards in person, with Mary the Roman Catholic Princess Mary of Modena, of Modena, in spite of the remonstrances of the House of Isabella Commons, which, however, were not in time to of the prevent the marriage by proxy. A daughter of marriage the marriage, Catharine, was born in January, and time. died in October 1675. Another daughter, Isabella, Marriage of born in 1676, was still living. On the 4th of Mary to November 1677, the Princess Mary was, to the Orange, great joy of the bulk of the nation, married to 1677, Noher cousin William, Prince of Orange. She was A son born then her father's presumptive heiress. But three to James days after the wedding the Duchess of York bore after. a son, who was named Charles. He, however, He, however, December died in the December following. At the time, next. 1673. only child at this Princess William of vember 4. three days Dies Mary of Orange, her tive heiress introduc tion of Ex therefore, when the first Exclusion Bill was introfather's duced, Mary of Orange was again her father's presump- presumptive heiress. The Bill was read for the at time of first time on the 5th of November, and for the second time on the sixth. In the course of the clusion Bill. debates it was pointed out with much force that Progress of the Exclu- the exclusion of James alone, without providing a successor, might produce an interregnum in case Charles should die without issue, whilst James in Novem- had only daughters. Notwithstanding this grave Danger of difficulty, Parliament, in sending the Bill to a regnum if committee of the whole House, resolved "that it sion Bill through Commons ber 1680. an inter it should pass. Disregarded. and then on first "be an instruction to the said committee that the "exclusion in the said Bill do extend to the person "of James, Duke of York, only." Doubtless the majority of the House wisely thought that if the Bill carried main point of excluding James could once be up to Lords gained, provisions for the future government of thrown out the country would follow as a corollary, and feared to encumber the Bill with minute details which reading, November, would lead to interminable discussions. On the 1680. Parliament 15th of November William, Lord Russell, carried up the Bill to the House of Lords, where it was thrown out on the first reading; the Parliament was dissolved in January 1681. In March of the same year a new Parliament assembled at OxMarch. ford, and almost immediately afterwards a fresh New Bill of Exclusion Bill was introduced into the Commons. Exclusion in dissolved 1681, January. New Par liament at Oxford 1681, Commons. A few days after, the king dissolved the new and last dissolved. of Princess Birth and Charlotte, Parliament, and never during the remainder of The new his life summoned another. The Princess Isabella Parliament had died a few days before the meeting of this of Charles last Parliament. Another daughter, Charlotte, Death was born to the duke and duchess in 1682, and Isabella, died in the same year. I am particular in notic- 1681. ing the births of all the children of James and death of Mary of Modena, though those of females could Princess not affect the prospects of the Princesses Mary 1682. and Anne, because the fact that the duchess had already borne four children, the last as late as 1682, shows that there was no particular reason for suspicion, when a few years afterwards, Mary, who was then only thirty years old, had a son. The only other important event which occurred in Charles II.'s reign was the marriage in 1683 of Marriage the Princess Anne to Prince George of Denmark. Anne to It is very remarkable that James seems always to George of have considered himself bound to submit to his 1683. brother's educating his two daughters Mary and Anne as Protestants, and marrying them to Protestant princes, and the fact throws considerable light on the claims so much animadverted on of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and James I., to control the education and marriages of members of the royal family. of Princess Denmark, On the 6th of February 1685 Charles II. died, Death of after a short illness, and James II. ascended the Charles II., 1685, throne without opposition. But a few months February 6. |