The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and the return to political power of the Scottish nobility resembled nothing so much as the mad dash of dogs for a dinner from which they had been kept too long. With fey exceptions the political leaders of the nation used the opportunities of the nest 30 years to compete with each other fir their own self-aggrandisement and to squabble and scheme for a share of the country's limited cash resources.
The idealism of the Covenant, if it had ever generally existed, was replaced by a general anti-clericalism that determined that 110 churchman, even the newly restored bishops. should exercise any power independently of the nobility, and a hatred of presbyterianism in particular. Even James Sharp, archbishop of St Andrews, after a brief attempt at independence of thought and action, was brought to heel by his political masters.
The constitutional reforms of the 104()s were reversed. They had provided for the development of the Scottish parliament into a genuine debating chamber for the forging of policy and the limiting of royal power along the lines of the English model. Throughout the Restoration the Scottish parliament was rendered impotent to modify policy by the ruthless control of the king's nominees. Military and political offices were exploited by their holders so that the greatest financial benefit might be extorted from them in order to repay royalists for their sufferings and their absence from the limelight in the 1650s.
For that was the root of the problem; for a decade the `natural' rulers of Scotland, the landholding classes, had been excluded from power. The Cromwellian army of occupation had taken over the running of the country. The Scottish aristocracy were in exile, in English prisons, or cowed into impotence by English tines and confiscations. When at last the republican experiment was over and the king restored, the nobility determined that they would again control the levers of power and patronage.
But how had this come about? What role had the king played in permitting this very unedifying situation? Just before the Restoration serious-minded religious Englishmen wanted to know what kind of a man this young king might be. For a brief period in 1651 he had been in Scotland, and so for a view of his character they applied to the Scots. 'Is it true,' they asked, `that he was a loose liver, untrustworthy, that lie broke his promises? Tell us what kind of a man he was when he was With you.' And the reply came back: `A most excellent young prince. No: of course he lived decently. No: he never broke his promises to us. You couldn't find a more likely young prince anywhere.'
As a view of Charles's character this was fiction. He was totally intent on regaining his kingdoms, using whatever methods were likely to succeed. Briefly and improbably, in 1650-51 Scotland and the Scots had seemed the most promising route to the throne lie truly prized: that of England.
The tierce theocratic Presbyterians, led by the maverick marquis of Argyll, had then been in power in Scotland. The price of their support was that Charles should sign the charters of the rebellion against his father: the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant. To give hill) his due Charles was not eager to sign, indeed held out as long as he could, but in the end he signed. Installed in Dunfermline, he surrounded himself with anti-Presbyterian advisors, and with courtiers who together

The price of his coronation
was an expression of
repentance for his own sins
and those of his family

created what seemed to the Scots a decadent ambiance wholly inappropriate to the Covenanted King.
The price of his coronation in January 1651 was an expression of repentance for his own sins and those of his family. These were restraints and insults at the hands of Presbyterians that Charles never forgot. When, in 1660, lie found himself with a nobility determined to crush the Covenants once and for all - and to restore their own power - he was happy, covenanted king or not, to go along with their plans, and was delighted by his surprisingly easy success.
This development was wholly unexpected, and indeed for some time simply incredible to a large proportion of the Scottish Presbyterians. For a start they did not see themselves as a homogeneous group and found it impossible to believe that for Charles it was enough that they were tarred with the same Presbyterian brush. Since at least 1648 it had been clear that there were two parties within the ministry, each with supporters among the political community.
The smaller, radical, theocratic kirk party, which represented at its height one third of the ministry, had fierce ideas. It was they who had forced Charles into signing the Covenants, and who had required of the king that lie behave according to Presbyterian requirements if he wanted their support. The Stuart view of kingship was extremely resistant to all restraints - something Charles I had illustrated all too clearly. Charles II similarly felt it as an unbearable limitation to have terms and conditions imposed on him by his subjects, especially when those subjects were Presbyterian ministers.
There was then, in Charles's view, ample reason for his hatred of the Protester party (as it was known), merely in the way they had treated him. But the Protesters had

The man to win most favour
at the Restoration was a
vindictive and stupid puppet
of English imperialism

further removed themselves from the possibility of favour by their collaboration with the Cromwellian occupation. Ironically the Protester party was itself divided and had been exceedingly ambivalent about how much support it should give to the Cromwellians and on what terms. Never the less the three most conspicuous part) leaders, the marquis of Argyll, Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston and Partick Gillespie, a minister, had all accepted public office and benefited financially and politically from their collaboration. Not surprisingly then, at the Restoration, they were heading for a downfall.
This likely fate for the Protesters was generally understood by the Protester! themselves and by the majority part) among the ministers, the Resolutioners The Protesters began to make desperate moves to protect themselves, including begging for help and support from their erstwhile enemies, the Resolutioners. The latter, however, would have none of it. The( leaders of the Resolutioner party remarked to each other and to anyone who would listen that what was coming to the Protesters was richly deserved. They had, after all, stopped praying publicly for the king collaborated with the Cromwellians and betrayed the central principles of the Scottish church in order to stay in power: the, had abandoned the principle that minister were instituted by presbyteries.
It appears not to have crossed the mind of the Resolutioners, until late 1660 at the earliest, that they themselves would suffer guilt by association. It was they who ha assured the English Presbyterians the Charles was a `most excellent prince', fearful only of continuing republican ascendancy. When James Sharp, their agent, was sent to Breda to greet Charles in the spring of 1660, his instructions were to present the king with the loyal congratulations of the Resolutioners and to urge him to smash the Protesters once and for all.
Yet in the mind of Charles and his advisors the case was rather different. In their view of things the Presbyterians had usurped royal power from the start. To Charles, it seemed that the Presbyterians wanted to tell bun how to rule, and if lie had any choice in the matter lie did not intend to let them. Moreover it had not slipped Charles's memory that Scottish Presbyterians had helped spark the Civil War. He had no intention of allowing Scotland to remain a security risk on the northern border.
What Charles could not accurately calculate in March-April 1660 was how much choice he would have in this or any other matter. Only after his triumphant restoration at the end of May did it gradually become apparent that Charles could do pretty much as he liked. The nations were, as one Scottish observer remarked, `on horseback with loyalty'. By experience, however (and by family tradition), Charles had learned to keep his options open and to play his hand with care. His reception of Sharp was cordial. Even if all Sharp got from the king ryas that decisions on Scotland would have to be deferred, he was overcome with loyalty, gratitude and respect for Charles.
Early in 1661, however, it was apparent that among the 'crowd of place-seekers' from Scotland who flocked to Charles, first in Breda and then in London, Presbyterians of any colour were rather small beer. The Scottish nobility were infinitely more important, and even they were arranged in order of priority. Charles had numerous debts to repay his noble Scottish subjects - military, economic and psychological - and they were not slow to exact reparation.
First in line was the earl of Middleton, who was not in fact one of the ancient Scottish aristocracy but a recently ennobled professional soldier. He had fought for Charles as the leader of Glencairn's Rising in 1654, but his real power to demand reward lay in more opportunist circumstances: unlike most Scots he had been in and around Charles's court in exile for much of the Interregnum.
Moreover, he had been befriended there by the man who had most power to influence the king, his chief advisor, Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon. Clarendon had taken up Middleton as his protégé, not because of his talents, which other than military were minimal, but because he intended to use him to urge Scottish policy in the way lie wanted it to go. Middleton had suffered the humiliation of having to do public penance at the hands of the ministers and was eager to take revenge. This suited perfectly Clarendon's ambitious plans for the enlarging of royal power at the expense of churchmen and the institutions. It would not be overstating the case to say that the man to win most favour at the Restoration was a vindictive, stupid and greedy puppet of English imperialism. This was not a hopeful augury for the future in Scotland.
Close behind Middleton, and hurrying to present himself at court, came the earl of Glencairn and a group of figures round him, especially the earl of Rothes. Their claim on the king rested not only on their military efforts, but on the punishments, financial and corporal, that they had suffered as a result. Glencairn had been imprisoned after the Rising and probably only narrowly escaped execution.

THE MERRY MONARCH

The celebrated diarist john Evelyn summed up Charles II's character well enough: 'A prince of many virtues, and many great imperfections.' Chief among his virtues was tolerance, a commodity that had been in sadly short supply during the religious and political upheavals that had led to his father's death and, in 1660, to his own arrival on the throne.
The flip side of this coin, however, was the moral laxity with which his reign and in particular his court has ever since been associated. The worldly Charles was shrewd enough to sec that his easy-going nature was ideally suited to the post-Cromwellian mood. And he surrounded himself with cronies like the earl of Rochester who behaved themselves in so scandalous a manner as to make the king himself appear almost straightlaced.
Moralising aside, it cannot be denied that Charles relished earthly pleasures and he took little trouble to disguise the fact. And his tastes were wide, embracing sport, theatre, music and intellectual activities as well as amorous pursuits.
Charles had a genuine passion for the arts - in part his reign represented a royalist backlash against the Interregnum - and lie was very eager to promote the theatre. Within three months of the Restoration lie was issuing patents to licensed theatre companies. Charles's interest spread across a wide spectrum, something that
Charles met the young actress Nell Gwynne at Tunbridge Wells in 1688. She, remained his mistress for the rest of his life.

demonstrates a contrast in the public persona of Charles and his intellectual hobbies. The king was deeply interested in science, especially chemistry, and in July 1662 lie granted the royal charter to the Royal Society. At the society's foundation it was reported that Charles `did well approve' of the institution and that he would be ready to 'give encouragement' to it. He kept his promise - presenting a mace to the society and granting it its arms.
Charles was also a keen race goer and Newmarket was his mecca. Not only was he an irrepressible gambler and friend to the jockeys, but he was a competent rider, winning in 1675 the coveted 'Twelve Stone Plate'. So fond was he of Newmarket that he even commissioned Christopher Wren to build him a home in the village.
It was, however, for his prodigious sexual appetite that he gained popular notoriety. He was nicknamed 'Old Rawley' (after the champion stud in his stables) and his pursuit of women led him into the highest and lowest of bedrooms. On one unfortunate occasion, he was stripped and robbed at one of the lowliest brothels in Newmarket, and saved only by revealing that he was the nation's sovereign ruler.
He married Catherine of Braganza, daughter of the king of Portugal, only after declaring her portrait 'not unhandsome' and discovering that she possessed an attractive dowry: £300,0(x) in cash, the port of Tangiers and Bombay.
The amoral nature of Charles's court set the tone of the Restoration period, and Charles himself is well summed up by the verse written by the earl of Rochester:
Here lies out, sovereign Lord the King Whose word no man relies on, Who never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one.

All of them had had heavy financial burdens placed on their estates, and they claimed that they had kept the royalist flank burning by their rebellion, and by their refusal to collaborate with the Cromwellian regime. They too wanted revenge on the ministers, whom they saw as having usurped noble power during the occupation and as having collaborated with the enemy. They also wanted financial recompense and political places and offices to repay them for their loss of power.
A third competitor for royal favour was the earl of Lauderdale. He was at a particular disadvantage in the statement of his case, as he had been imprisoned in England since his capture after Worcester in 161. He was not released until the spring of 1661, immediately before the Restoration, and so had had little opportunity for the politicking enjoyed by Middleton and Glencairn. On the other hand his sufferings had been severe, especially since the had been savagely penalised financially by the Cromwellians.
Of the three men, Lauderdale was the only one with any claim to a 'religious' past and he was closely associated with the Resolutioner party. The Resolutioners hoped that a grateful king would recognise the sufferings and loyalty of Lauderdale and themselves and reward them with the control of Scotland. However, this was never a very likely conclusion to the jockeying for position that took place.
It was probably July 1000, at the earliest, before Scotland's future began to receive royal attention. Scots were kept hanging about the court while the far more pressing matter of the settlement of England began.
As Chancellor of the Committee of Estates
Glencairn was virtually
the ruler of Scotland

The Scottish parliament was summoned for December 1660, but was postponed and only met in January 1661. Nevertheless, from about juts- the places and honours began to be shared out and policy determined. Middleton was given the post of royal commissioner to the forthcoming parliament, the most powerful position of all; Glencairn was made chancellor and Lauderdale, secretary of state. Of the three, Lauderdale's post was at the time seen as the weakest, since it required residence in London away from the main theatre of events in Scotland.
Others were appointed who were beneficiaries of the patronage of one or other of these men. It is, however, noteworthy that Charles also rewarded some who had less than perfect records of loyalty. The earl of Cassilis, for example, had been a supporter of Argyll and the radical Presbyterians; while the earl of Crawford, Lindsay, had like Lauderdale been a staunch supporter of the Resolutioners. It is likely that in this way Charles intended to avoid alienation of any significant group in the political nation. His intention above all was to hang on to his crown and, as lie said. 'not to go on his travels again', and lie was ready for any compromise to achieve that end. In this respect Charles was more generous than his noble supporters: there were few old scores that were not paid off in the 1660s, and Lauderdale was one of the very small number of Presbyterian loyalists who was not forced out of office in favour of a frantically royalist nobility.
At this date, however, much remained undecided, vet some kind of conclusion had to be made to the regime that had governed Scotland for a decade. The English commissioners who had administered the country had remained at their posts throughout the upheavals of 1659-60. In August their authority was brought to an end and replaced by the Committee of Estates, presided over by Glencairn as chancellor who was, for the moment, virtually the ruler of Scotland.
Within days of taking up his post he had arrested and imprisoned a group of Protester ministers who had met to draw tip a letter reminding the king of his obligations under the terms of the Covenants which he had signed. Such an attack on presbyterians was not a hopeful portent of things to come, but the warning signs were completely misread by the Resolutioners who, although a little concerned by the disrespect shown to ministers, were oblivious to the threat to presbyters-.
In December the vital policy decisions seem to have taken place. The tone of the discussion resembled more a competition among the nobility to demonstrate their royalism than any serious consideration of the good of the country. There was no talk of a continuation of the Cromwellian Union; that project was allowed to die quietly and unobtrusively. The royalism of the Scottish nobility also implied at this date a convenient nationalism; moreover, without the national institutions of parliament, the Privy Council, the legal establishment and so on, there would not have existed the offices with which to reward them. If that suggests that one of the major functions of the Scottish governors was to reward themselves rather than to consider the welfare of the governed, then that in fact is very much what happened.
The discussion in December focused on the nature of the ecclesiastical establishment. It was a meeting held without benefit of clergy and was conducted entirely on the pragmatic basis of whether it was politically possible to restore episcopacy. The proposal that episcopacy be reintroduced was Middleton's, but it met with general agreement - except from Lauderdale, who argued that it was desirable but should be delayed. Obviously Middleton's response was more gratifying to Charles, who gave his commissioner a free hand to judge an appropriate moment.
The crucial argument centred on the general agreement at the meeting that monarchy and presbytery were incompatible. The king's rights, the king's needs, the king's power, were the only important things. It was a telling measure of how terrified the Scottish nobility had been by their eclipse during the Interregnum, and by the whole Scottish revolution since 1637.
This determination to reverse the past was given strong expression in the parliament of 1661. Numerous acts exalted the king's prerogative rights to appoint officers, privy councillors and lords of session; to summon parliaments and raise armies. The Act Rescissory declared that the acts of all parliaments since 1633 were cancelled. At a stroke, then, the constitutional revolution of the 1640s was reversed and the possibility of Scotland's development of political maturity deferred until 1690. The reinstatement of the hegemony of a handful of royal appointees was underlined by legislation which excepted the nobility froth the authority of local justices. Unsurprisingly this was accompanied by legislation on taxation, relieving the nobility of much of the burden of paying it.

Throughout the period a
bored and careless monarch
allowed his officers to treat
Scotland as a private fief

Thus were the great spirits of the 1630s and 1640s succeeded in the 1660s by those of narrow and selfish interests. Episcopacy was in due course restored. Middleton, however, could not resist carrying his revenge too far. His mismanagement and financial extortion created unrest. Lauderdale, waiting only for such an opportunity, ruined Middleton by his allegations that the commissioner had claimed royal power for himself. There was no more dangerous charge and Middleton was summarily disgraced. Lauderdale's early history served him no better, however, as the most powerful Scottish politician. His career boasts nothing more positive than his own desire to remain in power.
Throughout the period a bored and careless monarch continued to allow his Scottish officers to treat the country as their private fief, provided only that he was not troubled with the tedious necessity of concerning himself. The `most excellent prince' had sadly betrayed his people.