Second and charles whitehall9/23/2023 ![]() ![]() Celebrity was arguably invented in the restoration era. Charles’s courtiers, with their libertine and scandalous lives, also attracted a good deal of attention. The diary of Samuel Pepys testifies to this and the king’s mistresses, such as the actress Nell Gwyn, became the first public celebrities, famous for being famous. Our own new king has something of a similar story, though the relationship with the new Queen is now formalised in a way that Charles II was unable – and probably unwilling – to do.Ĭharles II’s sexuality and lifestyle also made him an object of great public fascination. Even whilst his wife (the Portuguese Katherine of Braganza) lived, Charles installed Portsmouth in a lavish apartment in Whitehall and she became increasingly seen as an alternative, controversial consort. Charles II was a notorious womaniser, with a long list of lovers and illegitimate children but he did eventually settle down with one, the Frenchwoman Louise de Kerouaille, who he created Duchess of Portsmouth. He is well versed in environmentalism and many other projects.Īnd both monarchs had mistresses. Charles III is also intellectually curious and keen to meet with key players, such as Greta Thunberg, as well as heads of state. The seventeenth century king had a laboratory for experiments and interacted with key artists and intellectuals: John Dryden, whose poem Annus Mirabilis commemorated the disaster yeas of fire and plague the diarist and virtuoso John Evelyn and Christopher Wren, who rebuilt London after the Fire of London and whose St Paul’s Cathedral is still a focal point of state ceremony. With devolution strained, Scottish restlessness again seems likely to challenge the relationship with England.Ĭharles II was intellectually curious, like his modern counterpart. During the republic era, Scotland (and Ireland) had been (forcibly) united with England and Wales and given representation at Westminster the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 pulled that formal union apart and in 1679 restless Scots rebelled against the Anglophile regime north of the border. And the constitution in relation to Scotland is another common factor. Charles III may well feel a need to re-invent the role of the monarch and his readiness to restrain his opinions from ‘meddling’ in political affairs may well be constitutionally testing. ![]() In re-asserting his constitutional role, the new king aroused opposition from those who clung to republican ways or who thought that the king’s rule was becoming increasingly ‘arbitrary’. He has publicly declared a willingness to become ‘Defender of Faith’ rather than ‘Defender of the Faith’, the formula coined for Henry VIII – ironically initially to defend Catholicism and then the newly Protestant Church of England.Ĭharles II had to re-invent monarchy after it had been abolished for eleven years. Charles III has a similar antipathy to religious formulas and an expansive attitude to other faiths. Perhaps as a result of his exile, when he had courted both Presbyterian Scots and Catholic princes for support, or perhaps because his country had been split apart by a religious civil war, or perhaps out of a personal indifference to religious dogma, Charles II wished to adopt a tolerant religious settlement of his kingdom. ![]() Charles II was a ‘monarch in masquerade’ Charles III may well have to be one too.Ĭharles II and Charles III share a tolerant attitude to religious faith. Charles III has waited longer, of course, and though his apprenticeship was less traumatic it may well have as enduring an impact on how he behaves as monarch and he may have to emulate his name-sake by hiding his opinions and his true self. During his exile, Charles had to swallow distasteful policies foisted on him by his temporary allies, leading to a life-long tendency to disguise his true self. Although the monarchy was restored in 1660 and Charles came to the throne, the somewhat traumatic experience of his ‘travels’ lived with him for the rest of his life. Charles II, whose father Charles I lost the civil wars and was beheaded in 1649, endured a long period of exile, in which he toured the courts of Europe looking for both refuge and support in his bid to regain his kingdom. Published 12 September 2022, Mark Knightsĭo Charles II (1630-1685) and Charles III (1948-present) have anything in common? Over three hundred years apart, there are, of course, many differences but are there any parallels between the two monarchs and the two ‘Carolingian’ periods?īoth Charles II and Charles III came to the throne after a long wait. ![]()
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