16 Restoration England 1660-1700

The year 1660 remains one of the most jarring pivots in the British narrative. On 29 May—his thirtieth birthday—Charles II returned to London, stepping into a vacuum of power left by the collapse of the Puritan Commonwealth. For eleven years, the nation had inhabited a world of drab austerity, an era often visualised in the stark black-and-white of a woodcut. When the “Merry Monarch” processioned toward the Banqueting House in Whitehall, he brought with him a “Technicolour” court defined by beauty, power, and passion. Yet this was more than a mere change in aesthetic; it was a sophisticated reclamation of authority. In the Restoration, art was never purely decorative. It was high-stakes political theatre designed to heal a nation disorientated by regicide and to rewrite the image of a shattered monarchy through sheer, unapologetic splendour.

1. The Execution of a King Was Seen as Cosmic Blasphemy

To appreciate the visual excess of the Restoration, one must first confront the “theological horror” that necessitated it. On 30 January 1649, Charles I was beheaded outside the Banqueting House—the very site of his son’s later triumph. This moment is preserved in the haunting work The Execution of Charles I by an Unknown Dutch artist, now housed in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

The painting documents a crowd in the throes of a spiritual crisis. Witnesses are seen fainting, not from modern squeamishness, but because they were witnessing the violation of “divine right.” In a world where the King was seen as God’s representative on earth, regicide was the gravest possible blasphemy. In the painting’s lower right corner, onlookers press handkerchiefs to the scaffold to collect the “martyr’s” blood as a relic. This collective trauma created a visual and moral void that Charles II would eventually fill with aggressive propaganda, using art to equate his return with cosmic order.

2. New Year’s Day Used to Be in Late March

Navigating the history of this era requires crossing a “calendrical fault line.” For the modern reader, Charles I was executed in 1649, yet parliamentary records from the time list the date as 30 January 1648. This discrepancy exists because, from 1155 until 1752, England used “Lady Day” (March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation) as the legal start of the New Year.

This led to a bewildering system of dual dating, such as “1648/49.” While England clung to the Julian calendar, Catholic Europe had adopted the Gregorian system in 1582, meaning a contemporary in Paris would have recorded the King’s death on 9 February 1649. It was not until 1752 that Britain finally aligned with the Continent, “losing” eleven days in the process. This seventeenth-century quirk persists in the modern UK tax year, which begins on April 6—essentially “New Lady Day” adjusted for those lost eleven days.

3. A Crown Worth Three Warships

When Oliver Cromwell rose to power, he viewed the regalia of the monarchy as symbols of a “detestable rule” and ordered the Crown Jewels to be sold or melted down. Upon his restoration, Charles II had to commission an entirely new set of regalia to signal the permanence of the Stuart line.

The cost was a deliberate statement of magnificence, influenced by the nine years Charles spent in exile absorbing the “licentiousness and depravity” of Louis XIV’s French court. The recreated Crown Jewels cost £12,184—the equivalent of three warships. The orb alone, a gold sphere encrusted with 365 diamonds and 375 pearls, cost £1,150. Furthermore, an additional £18,000 was lavished on two tons of altar and banqueting plate. As the historian might observe:

“The Restoration has been described as suddenly switching into Technicolour following the drab black-and-white of the Puritan Commonwealth period.”

4. When Christmas Was a Secret, Subversive Act

While the court invested in gold and diamonds to restore the visual majesty of the crown, the common people were still navigating the remnants of a legal code that had stripped away the most basic of social comforts. Parliamentary Acts in 1644 and 1647 had effectively banned Christmas because it lacked “biblical authority.” Shops were forced to stay open, and “Old Christmas” became a personification of resistance, depicted in woodcuts as a figure turned away by soldiers but welcomed by the common worker.

However, it is a mistake to view the Commonwealth as merely “bleak.” It was an intellectually charged era that birthed radical egalitarianism. At the Putney Debates of 1647, held at St Mary the Virgin, the political movement known as the Levellers argued for a written constitution, biennial Parliaments, and the revolutionary concept of manhood suffrage—”one man, one vote.” These radical ideas regarding the “native rights” of Englishmen provided an intellectual heft that the subsequent Restoration would struggle to suppress.

5. The Rise of “Heroic Women” Amidst Institutional Inequality

The Restoration era saw the emergence of the first female professionals, though they operated under the oppressive legal doctrine of feme covert. Under this law, a married woman’s legal identity was absorbed by her husband; she could not own property or enter contracts. Yet, three “heroic women” successfully defied these barriers:

• Aphra Behn: A former spy (Agent 160) and the first woman to earn a living as a playwright, staging 19 plays. She was shockingly frank, becoming the only woman until the 20th century to write about erectile dysfunction in her poem The Disappointment.
• Mary Beale: One of the most successful Baroque portraitists and the primary breadwinner for her family. Her income rose to a staggering £429 by 1677, and she notably gave 10% of her earnings to charity. Her husband Charles served as her studio manager, mixing her pigments.
• Elizabeth Mallet: Founder of Britain’s first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, in 1702. Located at Fleet Bridge (now Ludgate Circus), her publication was revolutionary for its restraint, providing foreign news without the editorial gossip typical of the era.

6. You Could Run the Coffee House, But You Couldn’t Sit in It

By 1675, England boasted over 3,000 coffee houses, known as “Penny Universities.” These were crucibles of the new commercial culture, yet they occupied a space of sharp gender contradiction. Sun Fire insurance records show that women owned roughly 10% of insured businesses—often coffee houses inherited through the “dower” system—yet they were strictly barred from entering as customers.

This exclusion spurred the “Women’s Petition Against Coffee” in 1674. Simultaneously, the demographic shift following the Civil War left many towns with an excess of single women. This gave rise to the derogatory terms “spinster” and “old maid” for the first time. In popular ballads, the “old maid” was a stock character who manipulated men to keep her money, reflecting the deep-seated social anxiety regarding independent women.

7. Ballads as Social Media: The Punishment of the Cuckold

While the elite commissioned portraits by Sir Peter Lely, the “social media” of the masses existed in the form of broadside ballads. Samuel Pepys collected 1,800 of these, which serve as a rare window into the lives of the poor. Ballads like ‘Rocke the Babie Joane’ and ‘Rocke the Cradle, John’ negotiated the shifting power dynamics of the household.

Central to these stories was the “cuckold”—a man whose wife had been unfaithful. Derived from the Italian cornuto, the term was visualised by a man wearing a hat with two horns. The social punishment was often a “skimmington,” where the husband was forced to ride backwards on a horse through town while neighbours banged kettles. In an era where a man’s masculinity was bound to his wife’s sexual reputation, these ballads revealed the precarious nature of social standing among the lower classes.

The Legacy of Spectacle

Charles II, the “Merry Monarch,” left a legacy that balanced the mind with the flesh. As a patron of the Royal Society and the personal supporter of Sir Christopher Wren, his reign redefined London’s skyline and the scientific world. His influence is not merely architectural or intellectual; it is genetic. His lineage continues through the late Princess Diana to the current British throne via the Dukes of Buccleuch, Richmond, Grafton, and St Albans.

Ultimately, we must ask: was the “Technicolour” freedom of the Restoration a genuine step toward social progress, or was it merely a shimmering coat of paint designed to mask an old and rigid hierarchy? Whether it was true evolution or sophisticated political theatre, the art of the era remains a testament to a monarchy that understood the absolute power of the image.

1. The Style That Wasn’t Supposed to Be English

History often begins with an insult. The word “Baroque” likely derives from the Portuguese barroco—a “rough or imperfect pearl.” To the Renaissance rationalist, this movement was a “noisy abundance” of eccentric redundancy, a startling departure from the symmetry of the past.

For England, a nation that prides itself on a “clear and sober” sensibility, the Baroque (1666–1711) was a scandalous inheritance. Born as Catholic propaganda in Rome to “teach, move, and serve” the faithful, the style used exaggerated motion and visceral drama to overwhelm the senses. How did this continental exuberance become the face of Protestant London? The answer lies in a series of accidents, scientific arrogance, and a few “un-English” secrets hidden in the stone.

2. Secret #1: The Saint with the Dirty Feet

The era’s soul was forged in the violent shadow of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. He didn’t just paint; he staged an assault on the eye using tenebrism—an extreme contrast of light and dark that lacked any intermediate safety net. Caravaggio was a man of radical contradictions: a painter of the sacred who lived as an outlaw. A contemporary, Floris Claes van Dijk, noted in 1601 that the artist was “ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him.”

This instability culminated in 1606 when Caravaggio killed a man and fled Rome under a papal death sentence. Yet, his “seedier side of life” became the Counter-Reformation’s greatest weapon. By painting sacred figures with “dirty feet” and placing them in contemporary rags, he brought the divine into the dirt. This radical naturalism was designed to provoke an emotional stimulus to piety, proving that even an outlaw could weaponize grace.

3. Secret #2: Staging the Divine

If Caravaggio provided the light, Gian Lorenzo Bernini provided the theatre. His masterpiece, The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, translates a mystic’s vision into an almost “orgiastic” display of marble. Saint Teresa’s own words provided the blueprint: “So surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it.”

Bernini, a charming courtier who attended mass daily, turned the Cornaro Chapel into a literal auditorium. Flanking the altar are marble boxes containing portraits of the Cornaro family, shown conversing as though they are spectators in a theatre box. This was “theatricality” with a purpose: to enact the Council of Trent’s directive that art must move the laity. It was doctrine made visceral, designed to triumph over the rising tide of Protestantism through sheer, staged ecstasy.

4. Secret #3: The Popish Dome of a Scientific Mind

The Roman drama crossed the Channel not through a priest, but through a scientist. Christopher Wren was an astronomer and anatomist, a founder of the Royal Society who approached architecture with mathematical precision. Following the Great Fire of 1666, Wren faced the gruelling task of clearing Old St. Paul’s. The stones had been fused by molten lead, a structural nightmare he attempted to solve with gunpowder. When the explosions proved too lethal—killing workers in the process—the man of science switched to battering rams.

Wren’s “better manner of architecture” for the new cathedral was met with fierce suspicion. Critics detected an air of “Popery” in the heavy arches and gilded capitals, complaining they were “unfamiliar, un-English.” The addition of the great dome—one of the largest in the world—was seen as a provocative nod to St. Peter’s in Rome. It is a delicious irony that England’s greatest Protestant landmark was built by a scientist accused of Roman tastes.

5. Secret #4: The Gambler’s Church and the Great Fire Accident

The English Baroque was often a victim of chance and personality. Take Thomas Archer, a country gentleman whose architectural career was a side-hustle to his role as the court’s “Groom Porter.” Archer was responsible for licensing all gambling—dice, billiards, and tennis—at court. His St. John’s, Smith Square, earned the nickname “Queen Anne’s Footstool” based on the legend that the Queen, annoyed by his questions, kicked over her footstool and demanded the church look “Like that!” In reality, Archer’s four towers were a structural necessity to counter subsidence. Archer’s style remained idiosyncratic and “Berniniesque,” heavily influenced by the undulating façades of Borromini he saw on his Grand Tour.

Even the Royal Palace at Hampton Court was a product of “excessive speed” and accident. A “catastrophic collapse” in 1689, caused by poor mortar, killed two workers and nearly ended the project. The Baroque facade we admire today only exists because Whitehall Palace burned to the ground in 1698, forcing the crown to pivot to Hampton Court. Here, the “noisy abundance” was finally tamed by Huguenot ironwork from Jean Tijou and the delicate, graceful murals of Antonio Verrio, marking the final, sophisticated breath of the era.

Conclusion: A Legacy Hiding in Plain Sight

By 1711, the English Baroque began to fade, surrendering to the “austere classicism” of the Georgians. It was a delicate, graceful style that momentarily allowed England to flirt with continental drama before retreating into Protestant restraint.

Wren’s work, however, remains the definitive verdict on the period. In the crypt of his great cathedral, his epitaph reads: “Reader, if you seek his memorial, look around you.” If the Baroque was designed to “impress and triumph,” what does our modern, minimalist architecture say about our own era’s values? Perhaps we have finally achieved the “clear and sober” rationality that the 17th century so feared it might lose, trading the ecstasy of the pearl for the utility of the stone.