Charles I was executed on January 30, 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Thereafter, England entered a period known as the English Interregnum, during which the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland was led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell wielded dictatorial powers over these countries, and Charles’s son, also named Charles, spent the next nine years living in exile.
Oliver Cromwell
Fortunately for England, Scotland, and Ireland, Cromwell died in September, 1658, leaving no clear indication of who would be in power upon his demise. Any number of would-be successors made bids for power, but they fell away, one by one. Thus Charles was invited to return to Britain, and on this day in history, the English Parliament proclaimed him King of England. Moreover, all legal documents were creatively re-dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649.
The monarchy of Charles II is best known for two main policies. One was the enactment of the Clarendon Code, which embodied a series of mandates bolstering the hegemony of the Church of England over Protestant nonconformists and Catholics. The Code, not totally favored by Charles II who believed in a greater degree of religious tolerance, imposed a variety of forfeitures, civil penalties, and civil disabilities upon non-Anglicans.
King Charles II
The other was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Not only did Charles enter into a secret military treaty with his first cousin King Louis XIV of France, but Charles surreptitiously promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Political considerations, however, led him to defer his reception into the Roman Catholic Church until he was on his deathbead in 1685.
Charles was popularly known as the “Merry Monarch,” both because of the comparison between him and the staid, religious Cromwell, and also because Charles was something of a reveler. He had no living children with his wife, but acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by assorted mistresses.
Legal Legacy 
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