The Restoration of Charles II and Historical Romance Novels of the time

Oliver Cromwell 1653 - 1658

Warts and All! That was what Oliver Cromwell told the artist who painted his portrait. He didn't want his flaws painted out, didn't want to look any different to what he did in the flesh. That phrase 'warts and all' has lingered for over three hundred years.

Cromwell formed a republic after the execution of King Charles I for high treason. Although some of our Kings have been deposed and even murdered, Charles I was the only one to be tried for treason and legally executed at a public spectacle outside Whitehall Palace.

Some of our Kings who were murdered, were Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI. Edward II is well known for being killed by having a red hot poke inserted into his anus, the idea being to shame him for his homosexuality as well as render him dead without leaving a mark.

Richard II is said to have been locked into a cell in Pontefract Castle and left to starve to death, the original of 'lock him up and throw away the key'. Richard was guilty of being a bit of a tyrant as well as unreliable and a useless King.

During the peasants' revolt, when the peasants arrived in London with their demands, Richard promised to meet those demands. As soon as they all went home he reneged on the deal.

Henry VI was the last Lancastrian King who had severe mental health problems and often went off into a fugue for months on end. He was captured during the Wars of the Roses and locked away by Edward VI, who probably ordered his death.

Back to Charles I. Charles clashed with his parliament when they refused him money to pay for his foreign wars and he retaliated by sending his Scottish armies to invade England. After a civil war between the royalists (also known as cavaliers - on the right; isn't he cute?) and the Parliamentarians, he was tried at Westminster Hall and convicted.

He believed in the divine right of Kings, that Kings were anointed by God and had a right to rule. Therefore, he refused to plead or offer up any sort of defence on the grounds that everyone was entitled to a trial by their peers, and he had no peers. It didn't save him.

But Cromwell was a dour and joyless man who outlawed many of the things the English held dear. He closed all the theatres, all the inns, and even made the celebration of Christmas unlawful. One was supposed to spend the day in prayer, not celebrating and partying.

Women were not allowed to wear makeup and if seen wearing any face paint, soldiers had the right to hold them down and wash it off. People were condemned to wearing dingy, cheerless colours, like black and grey, nothing bright or elaborate.

He also made adultery punishable by death. At least, it was for women; I am still not sure if the same applied to men who committed adultery and if anyone knows, please get in touch.

After five years of this, then two years of his inept son, the people of England had really had enough.

Charles Stuart, King Charles II, was King of England from 1660 until 1685, following the seven year rule of the Protectorate. And boy, were the people happy to see him!

After Cromwell and his son, the people of England were delighted to see the return of their rightful monarch, who had spent those years in exile in the Netherlands, planning to regain his throne. But he didn't have to fight for it; the people asked him to come back and so the constitutional monarchy, which is what we have today, began.

Charles was rightfully nicknamed the Merry Monarch. He did little save drink, eat, decorate himself with lavish clothing and bed women. He had countless numbers of mistresses, his favourites being Barbara Castlemaine and of course, Nell Gwynn.

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, even had a tunnel leading from the royal box, under the road, and into the King's private rooms where he could meet his mistress during the play. Bit of an affront to the actors, really, but I doubt he cared much about that.

I have always been convinced that he would not have been so popular with the ladies had he not been the King as I think he was really ugly. Anyone agree?

He was married to the long suffering Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess who tried her best, but was forced into having her husband's whores as ladies in waiting, a complete lack of respect.

Rumour has it that there was one lady whom Charles never managed to tempt and that was Lady Frances Stewart, who resisted his advances for years. She was reportedly very beautiful and the King commissioned a portrait of her dressed as Britannia. It is that image that was on all English coins until the change of coinage to the decimal currency.

1665 brought the great plague of London, the bubonic plague that wiped out thousands in the capital. Big red crosses were painted on the doors of plague sufferers and a guard posted outside to stop the residents from leaving and spreading the disease. Every night, men would come round, pushing cartloads of corpses and crying 'bring out your dead!'

Dead bodies would sometimes be tossed from the windows as the people were not allowed to leave their apartments.

In 1666 we had the great fire of London, which began in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane, where a tall monument now stands.

The fire wiped out most of the capital north of the river Thames and would have spread to the south, had the King not order that London Bridge be blown up to stop it.

It is said that both the King and his brother, James, Duke of York, formed part of the chain of people fighting the firing with buckets of water.

A wonderful romance novel set during the time of the Restoration is Forever Amber by Kathleen Windsor. This one is also available in Audible.

When it was published, the book was a runaway bestseller and is called the original bodice ripper, although there wasn't much bodice ripping going on.

It is a sad tale of an illegitimate girl, born at the time of the civil war and adopted by the farmers who helped her mother, who died in childbirth. She fell in love with a Lord, who was returning with the King, and she followed him to London.

She believed he would not marry her because she was not of the quality, so spent much of her life trying to acquire titles and wealth, in order to be his equal. She even became a mistress of King Charles II.

Nobody told her that she was of the quality, though born out of wedlock. It is a long and heartrending tale, full of historical detail, a wonder romance novel.

Unfortunately, it was the only bestseller that Kathleen Winsor ever wrote and the film that was made from it was pretty awful. It starred Linda Darnell as Amber and its only redeeming feature was Cornel Wilde as Lord Carlton. I've always had a hankering for him!

They didn't even think it merited colour, although that was freely available at the time. Not a good rendition, I'm afraid.

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