ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what is the so-called 'Restoration Settlement' and why is that label a misnomer. It also explores what extent did this failure to reach a thorough settlement contribute to the escalating political instability and growing conflict not only between Charles II and parliament but also between the crown and wide sections of the nation between 1660 and 1667. The main task facing the Convention Parliament, which met on 25 April 1660, was that which had faced every regime since the 1640s: to continue the search for 'settlement'. The powers of the restored monarchy were still enormous: the power of vetoing legislation, of dispensing individuals from parliamentary statutes or suspending statutes completely, of dissolving and calling parliaments, of making foreign policy. No greater contrast could have been devised than that between the broad, tolerant Cromwellian Church and the narrow, bigoted Anglican Church that was restored in the early 1660s.
