n
absolute monarchy provided the most favourable conditions. Such persons
were now, accordingly, destined to supplant the older and responsible
ministers of the type of Clarendon and Ormonde, men of high character
and patriotism, who followed definite lines of policy, while at the same
time the younger men of ability and standing were shut out from office.

The first period of Charles II.'s reign (1660-1667) was that of the
administration of Lord Clarendon, the principal author of the
Restoration settlement. The king was granted the large revenue of
L1,300,000. The naval and military forces were disbanded, but Charles
managed to retain under the name of guards three regiments, which
remained the nucleus of a standing army. The settlement of estates on a
legal basis provided ill for a large number of the king's adherents who
had impoverished themselves in his cause. The king's honour was directly
involved in their compensation and, except for the gratification of a
few individuals, was tarnished by his neglect to afford them relief.
Charles used his influence to carry through parliament the act of
indemnity, and the execution of some of the regicides was a measure not
more severe than was to be expected in the times and circumstances; but
that of Sir Henry Vane, who was not a regicide and whose life Charles
had promised the parliament to spare in case of his condemnation, was
brought about by Charles's personal insistence in revenge for the
victim's high bearing during his trial, and was an act of gross cruelty
and perfidy. Charles was in favour of religious toleration, and a
declaration issued by him in October 1660 aroused great hopes; but he
made little effort to conciliate the Presbyterians or to effect a
settlement through the Savoy conference, and his real object was to gain
power over all the factions and to free his co-religionists, the Roman
Catholics, in favour of whom he issued his first declaration of
indulgence (26th of December 1662), the bill to give effect to it being
opposed by Clarendon and defeated in the Lords, and being replied to by
the passing of further acts against religious liberty. Meanwhile the
plot of Venner and of the Fifth Monarchy men had been suppressed in
January 1661, and the king was crowned on the 23rd of April. The
convention parliament had been dissolved on the 29th of December 1660,
and Charles's first parliament, the Long Parliament of the Restoration,
which met on the 8th of May