in 1658, it was an easy matter for the Stuarts to
return to their old kingdom. Indeed, they were welcomed as "deliverers"
by the people who had found the yoke of the meek Puritans quite as hard
to bear as that of autocratic King Charles. Provided the Stuarts were
willing to forget about the Divine Right of their late and lamented
father and were willing to recognise the superiority of Parliament, the
people promised that they would be loyal and faithful subjects.

Two generations tried to make a success of this new arrangement. But the
Stuarts apparently had not learned their lesson and were unable to drop
their bad habits. Charles II, who came back in the year 1660, was an
amiable but worthless person. His indolence and his constitutional
insistence upon following the easiest course, together with his
conspicuous success as a liar, prevented an open outbreak between
himself and his people. By the act of Uniformity in 1662 he broke the
power of the Puritan clergy by banishing all dissenting clergymen from
their parishes. By the so-called Conventicle Act of 1664 he tried to
prevent the Dissenters from attending religious meetings by a threat of
deportation to the West Indies. This looked too much like the good old
days of Divine Right. People began to show the old and well-known
signs of impatience, and Parliament suddenly experienced difficulty in
providing the King with funds.

Since he could not get money from an unwilling Parliament, Charles
borrowed it secretly from his neighbour and cousin King Louis of France.
He betrayed his Protestant allies in return for 200,000 pounds per year,
and laughed at the poor simpletons of Parliament.

Economic independence suddenly gave the King great faith in his own
strength. He had spent many years of exile among his Catholic relations
and he had a secret liking for their religion. Perhaps he could bring
England back to Rome! He passed a Declaration of Indulgence which
suspended the old laws against the Catholics and Dissenters. This
happened just when Charles' younger brother James was said to have
become a Catholic. All this looked suspicious to the man in the street
People began to fear some terrible Popish plot. A new spirit of unrest
entered the land. Most of the people wanted to prevent another outbreak
of civil war. To them Royal Oppression and a Catholic King--yea, even
Divine Right,--were preferable to a new struggle between members of the
same race. Others however wer