King of
England; son and successor of Charles I.; born in
London, May 29, 1630.
His mother was Henrietta
 |
|
Charles ii. |
Maria, daughter of Henry IV.
of
France, and sister of the then reigning
King of that realm.
As the fortunes of his father waned, his mother returned to
France, where the son joined her; and, at
the Hague, he heard of the death of his parent by the axe, when he assumed the title of
King, and was proclaimed such at
Edinburgh, Feb. 3, 1649.
He was crowned at
Scone, Scotland, Jan. 1, 1651.
After an unsuccessful warfare with
Cromwell for the throne, he fled to
Paris; and finally he became a resident of Breda, in
Belgium, whence he was called to
England by a vote of Parliament, and restored to the
 |
|
Signature of Charles ii. |
throne, May 8, 1660.
He was a very profligate monarch—indolent, amiable, and unscrupulous.
He misgoverned
England twenty-five years in an arbitrary manner, and disgraced the nation.
He became a
Roman Catholic, although professing to be a Protestant; and, when dying from a stroke of apoplexy, Feb. 6, 1685, he confessed to a
Roman Catholic priest, and received extreme unction.
The throne descended to his brother James, an avowed
Roman Catholic.
See
James ii.
In March, 1663, Charles ii.
granted to several of his courtiers the vast domain of the Carolinas in
America.
They were men, most of them past middle life in years, and possessed of the “easy virtues” which distinguished the reign of that profligate monarch.
They begged the domain under pretence of a “pious zeal for the propagation of the Gospel among the heathen,” while their real object was to rob the “heathen” of these valuable lands, and to accumulate riches and honors for themselves.
It is said that when these petitioners appeared before Charles in the gardens at
Hampton Court, and presented their memorial so full of pious pretensions, the monarch, after looking each man in the face for a moment, with a merry twinkle in his eves, burst into loud laughter, in which his audience joined involuntarily.
Then taking up a little shaggy spaniel, with large meek eyes, and holding it at arm's-length before them, he said, “Good friends, here is a model of piety
[
99]
and sincerity which it might be wholesome for you to copy.”
Then, tossing the little pet to
Clarendon, he said, “There,
Hyde, is a worthy prelate; make him archbishop of the domain I shall give you.”
With grim satire, Charles introduced into the preamble of their charter that the petitioners, “excited with a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Gospel, have begged a certain country in the parts of
America not yet cultivated and planted, and only inhabited by some barbarous people who have no knowledge of God.”
See
State of North Carolina;
State of South Carolina. 
