Chapter The Restored Monarchy of Age of Dryden by History

who transformed electioneering and parliamentary management. However, Charles II was eventually victorious. The First Exclusion Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Amendment Act (1679) which gave subjects grater rights and less power to the state in political trials. When the Commons passed the first Exclusion Bill the King ordered the assembly be dissolved. In the second Exclusion Parliament (1679-81) the second Exclusion Bill was defeated in the Lords through the influence of Lord Halifax, who divided the Exclusion forces. Charles dissolved Parliament and called the third Exclusion Parliament to meet in Oxford to avoid the tumultuous City mob. As soon as the Commons began to debate Exclusion once again, Charles ordered Parliament's dissolution.

Charles II's final years were marked by absolute rule - in which he was aided by his ministers Rochester, Sunderland, Godolphin and Halifax - and Whig ruin and Tory triumph. Shaftesbury had over-exploited Exclusion and the Popish Plot, and opinion swung back to Charles. Shaftesbury fled into exile and his lieutenants were implicated in the Rye House Plot of 1683 to assassinate Charles and the Duke of York at Newmarket. Charles began a campaign to destroy Whig support in the boroughs - London and another 50 boroughs surrendered their charters voluntarily or were compelled to do so under the quo warranto proceedings. They returned 'regulated' - that is Dissenters were eliminated and Tory domination ensured. At this point Charles had neither desire nor need to call Parliament, with the boom in overseas trade and the financial reforms of Danby and Rochester, even though after 1684 by the terms of the Triennial Act he was technically acting illegally.

Though at the Restoration Charles had been reluctant to rely on the support of the 'old Cavaliers', in the early 1680s he worked with the Tories to crush the Whigs and the Dissenters. Whigs were ousted from their posts as JPs and from the militia, and in the corporations the Tories attacked them with grants of new charters, under which the disaffected could be removed at any time. This tactic often involved coercion to secure the surrender of original charters; this did not concern the Tories as the allure of municipal power outweighed all others. The judiciary became solidly Tory and the law was turned on the Dissenters and the Whigs. Even without the prerogative courts, the Crown crushed its political enemies. During 1681-5, Charles II's reign was perhaps the most authoritarian of the seventeenth century.