ABSTRACT
The enterprise of the Ironsides abroad ended with the reduction in the size of the standing army at the Restoration, and until the Revolution the problem of creating an army for service abroad without endangering liberties at home helped to prevent continental intervention by England. The restoration of Roman Catholicism was necessary for the restoration of his prerogative, and the reduction of parliamentary and popular influence on government. From 1667 to 1673 there was the experiment of independent royal government; thereafter, Charles had to take account of parties. In England, the difficulty of deciding which conscience was right, which interpretation of God’s Law was right, had stimulated theories of toleration and of a secular state which influenced the attitude of dissenters after the Restoration and moderated their extremism. The country party would have been driven out of political and official life, and England would have been reduced to the restless impotence behind Scottish public life.
