ABSTRACT
In January 1660 Monck expressed the view that those who had bought land during the revolutionary period formed so significant an interest that their anxieties could not be disregarded in any settlement of the nation. The Declaration of Breda promised that all things relating to grants, sales, and purchases of land should be determined in Parliament, ‘which can best provide for the just satisfaction of all men who are concerned’. Eventually a compromise was reached. Church, crown, and Royalists’ confiscated estates were to be restored, but not lands sold privately by Royalists. In practice this meant that a great deal was left to private negotiation. Even Oliver Cromwell’s son, Henry, was able by various devices to keep or to sell most of the estates which had been granted to him. It was not thought worth the trouble of taking legal action to dispossess the purchasers of Henrietta Maria’s dower lands; the Queen Mother was given compensation instead. Any purchaser who had made himself conspicuous in bringing about the Restoration
had a good chance of a long lease on favourable terms. Such leases were ‘never denied to any of the Coldstreamers’ (Monck’s troops). The revenue expected from crown lands in 1663 was half the estimate of 1660.
