Plague, fire and war

By the mid-1660s Charles II's honeymoon period was over and the situation worsened when two natural disasters seriously weakened crown finances, and dented national self-confidence: bubonic plague and the Great Fire. These calamities were compounded by an avoidable disaster, the humiliation at the hands of the Dutch navy, which seriously undermined the prestige of the monarchy.

Collecting the dead for burial
Public domain

The plague of 1665

The effects of the plague, which seems to have arrived at Yarmouth in 1663 and reached its height in the summer and early autumn of 1665, can perhaps be exaggerated. The mortality was high (70,000 deaths) but plague was a common phenomenon and it probably had more effect on the poor than on the trading and governing classes (Pepys’s life was not disrupted). It is known as the Great Plague because it was the last major incident of bubonic plague to hit England.

A plague doctor, from a
contemporary Italian print

The Great Fire of London

The effects of the Fire (3-6 September) were more serious. Contemporaries estimated that it gutted most of the City and destroyed 13,200 houses, 89 churches and goods valued at £3.5 million. The overall damage is estimated to have been £10 million. London’s commerce was brought to a standstill for six months. Pepys gives the classic account.

A painting of the fire, probably from the
seventeenth century.
Public domain

The Second Dutch War

Throughout the early 1660s relations with the United Provinces (the Dutch Republic) steadily declined. The fundamental causes of the war that England were economic, but the war also sprang from Cavalier Anglican dislike of the Calvinist republic. While Charles II admired France, he snobbishly viewed the Dutch as a society of low-born merchants. He also wanted to promote the interests of the future Stadtholder, his nephew William, Prince of Orange, against the States-General.


The war was the result of the expansion of overseas trade in the second half of the seventeenth century. Competition for the carrying trade to and from West Africa, the West Indies, North America, and the East Indies brought England into conflict with the Dutch, who carried the products of other nations more efficiently and cheaply than anyone else.

In 1660 the Convention Parliament passed a Navigation Act, along the lines of the Commonwealth's in 1651. It listed certain commodities that could only be imported in English ships and targeted the bulk cargoes that were the preserve of the Dutch carrying trade. Furthermore, all imports from the developing colonies in West Africa, Asia and the West Indies had to be conveyed in English ships. In 1663 the Staple Act required the colonists to import European goods only from England and only in English ships. The Navigation Acts were in accordance with the mercantilist philosophy of the age, and undoubtedly gave England a commercial advantage.

The East India Company was clamouring for war against the Dutch, whom it saw as its main rivals in the East Indies. (The Dutch East India Company had been set up in 1602.) The English were also laying claim to Dutch North American territories. In March 1664 Charles granted New Amsterdam at the mouth of the Hudson river to his brother James, duke of York.

War began unofficially in the summer of 1664 with a series of conflicts between Dutch and English traders. In the summer of 1664 Charles borrowed £200,000 from the City of London, and by February 1667 Parliament had provided more than £5m for the war. The only person with grave misgivings about the war was Clarendon, who did not believe the nation could afford it.

War was officially declared on 22 February 1665. At first the war seemed to go well, with a naval victory off Lowestoft on 3 June 1665, a victory which enabled the king to regain the popularity he had lost since the Restoration. 

The Battle of Lowestoft
by Hendrick van Minderhout
Public domain

But this victory was not followed up. Early in 1666 France and Denmark joined the war against England. Between 1 and 4 June 1666 Prince Rupert and the duke of Albemarle fought the Four Days’ Battle in the Channel. Two English admirals were killed, as well as 8,000 men, and twenty ships were destroyed.

 The Dutch in the Medway

In the autumn of 1666, before and after the fire, both Prince Rupert and the duke of Albemarle, the former General Monck, launched complaints about their fleets being inadequately supplied. When Parliament met in September 1666 it was in a highly critical mood, blaming the navy for maladministration and the government for corruption. On 26 September the Commons ordered the officers of the navy, ordnance and stores to bring in their accounts for inspection. However, the diaries of both Pepys and John Evelyn for October 1666 reveal the king’s apparent indifference to the warnings he was receiving.

By this time public opinion had turned against the war, and in January 1667 Charles began to negotiate a peace. In March the Dutch agreed to begin peace discussions at Breda. As a result, a large part of the English fleet was paid off and anchored in the Medway near Chatham, and economies made in repairing ships and shore defences.

On 7 June 1667 the Dutch admiral, de Ruyter, sailed into the approaches of the Thames. On 10 June his fleet captured Sheerness. On 12 June the Dutch attacked the naval base at Chatham, bombarded a stationary fleet, - kept in the dock for lack of funds- set fire to three large warships, and towed away the Royal Charles. It was a stunning national humiliation.

‘Had the old Protector had a grave, he would surely have been spinning in it.’ (Kishlansky, 1996, p. 239).

Pepys wrote: ‘I … fear… that the whole kingdom is undone.’ (Diary, Vol viiii, 1667, ed. Robert Latham (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1974), p. 262. He sent his wife into the country, and a few days later he made his will. On 12 July he wrote

‘It is strange how ... everybody doth doth nowadays reflect upon Oliver and commend him, so brave things he did and made all neighbour princes fear him; while here a prince, come in with all the love and prayers and good liking of his people ... hath lost all so soon, that it is a miracle what way a man could devise to lose so much in so little time’. (Diary, Vol. viii, p. 332.

Pepys, of course, wrote in code and this reflection wasn't for public consumption. The editors of the Diary note (p. 332, n. 2) that such opinions were common in the coffee houses. No wonder the government was alarmed at the proliferation of these places.

Willem Schellinks, 'The Dutch
Attack on the Medway'
Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery
Public domain

The Treaty of Breda concluded peace with the Dutch. Because they were threatened by Louis XIV's France, the Dutch were eager for a treaty even if it was disadvantageous to them. England therefore gained territory though the gains were seen at the time as minimal: the acquisition of New York and New Jersey. It seemed small consolation for the loss of Surinam on the north-east coast of South America to the Dutch and Nova Scotia to the French.

The fall of Clarendon

A scapegoat had to be found for the Medway disaster and Clarendon was the obvious candidate even though he had opposed the war. On 14 June Pepys recorded (Diary, viii, p. 269)

Mr Hater tells me at noon that some rude people have been as he hears, at my Lord Chancellor's, where they have cut down the trees before his house and broke his windows; and a Gibbet either set up before or painted upon his gate, and these words writ - 'Three sights to be seen; Dunkirke [which had been sold to the French], Tangier and a barren Queen'.

In July Parliament was hastily recalled in order to pay for the army hastily mobilised after this disaster. This session gave Clarendon’s enemies at court the chance to move against him. He was now isolated at court and within Parliament. The king's mistress and his bitter enemy, Lady Castlemaine, had declared that she hoped to see his head on a plate.

On 30 August Charles asked for his resignation. Clarendon complied, but refused to act on hints that he should leave the country.

On 10 October the seventh session of the Cavalier Parliament met. The mood was one of bitterness and disillusionment. As a peace offering the king agreed to dismiss his chancellor and he privately pressed for an impeachment. Articles were hastily collected, many of which were hearsay; there was no natural justice. But though the Commons wished to commit him to custody, the Lords, strongly influenced his by son-in-law the Duke of York, refused to allow this.

On 30 November Clarendon, protesting his innocence, withdrew from England. The two Houses condemned him to lifelong banishment. He fled to France, initially to Rouen and then to Montpellier. In the summer of 1674 he was given permission to move back to Rouen, to be nearer to England, but he died there on 9 December. His body was returned to England for burial. During his exile he wrote his History of the Rebellion, making him the greatest English historian since Bede. He never knew that he would be the grandfather of two queens.

Conclusion

1. By 1667 the first phase of the reign of Charles II was over. The euphoria that greeted the return of the Stuarts had gone and there was even some nostalgia for the glory days of the Protectorate.
2. In true Stuart fashion, Charles had sacrificed a loyal minister and now had to find new ministers to serve him.
3. The fundamental issue of the respective powers of the king and parliament remained unresolved. If anything, the balance had now tilted in parliament's favour.