Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. After Charles I’s execution in 1649, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis that followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy and Charles was invited to return to Britain.
About Charles II of England in brief
Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. After Charles I’s execution in 1649, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis that followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and ruled alone until his death in 1685. He was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed. Charles’s wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by various mistresses. The major foreign policy issue of his early reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the Treaty of Dover, an alliance with his cousin King Louis XIV of France, and promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but theEnglish Parliament forced him to withdraw it.
Charles was one of the most popular and beloved kings of England. His reign was known as ‘the Merry Monarch’ in reference to both the liveliness and hedonism of his court and the general relief at the return to normality after over a decade of rule by Cromwell and the Puritans. He died in 1683, and was succeeded by his brother James. His parents were Charles I, who ruled the three kingdoms of England,. Scotland, and Ireland, andHenrietta Maria, the sister of the French king Louis XIII. His first son was born about a year before Charles, but died within a day. At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, along with several other associated titles. At or around his eighth birthday he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested. During the English Civil War, when Charles was still young, he accompanied his father during the campaigns of 1645, when he was made titular commander of English forces in the West Country. By spring 1646, his father was losing the war and Charles left England due to fears for his safety. At the age of 14, he went first to Jersey, then to Scilly, where he was already living in exile, and finally to his first living in Jersey, where his mother was living in Scilly and Scilly. At 1645 he was given the title Prince of Scilly by his mother.
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