ABSTRACT
Charles II – ‘a long, dark man as the parliamentarians had described him after the battle of Worcester – arrived in London on his thirtieth birthday. Charles returned to an England that was anxious to erase the memory of the previous three decades and return to the harmonious balance of the ‘ancient constitution’, but he was lacking in respect for inheritance that had so conspicuously failed to preserve the monarchy. As the first flush of enthusiasm for the restored monarchy faded it was only too easy for members of the Commons to slip into the assumption that extravagance was the cause of the King’s financial difficulties. The Convention restored to the Crown and Church all the lands that had been taken from them during the Interregnum. Most royalists got their land back before or after the Restoration, though the cost of recovery sometimes led to collapse in subsequent decades.
