Crown and Parliament

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A is the Cabal and B is the Earl of Danby.

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Interpretation A is largely convincing about the scale of the pardon. The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion of August 1660 pardoned almost everyone for what they had done during the wars and the Interregnum, as Charles had promised in the Declaration of Breda, and Charles urged Parliament to keep the list of exceptions short. Thirteen regicides were executed - ten in October 1660 and three more in 1662 - which really was a small number after twenty years of conflict. A is also right that former Parliamentarians kept their places: Monck became Duke of Albemarle, Anthony Ashley Cooper became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Edward Montagu, who had commanded the fleet for the republic, became Earl of Sandwich. Royalists even complained that the settlement gave 'indemnity for the King's enemies and oblivion for his friends'.

However, A plays down the revenge that was taken. The regicides who were caught were hanged, drawn and quartered in public - Pepys watched Thomas Harrison die at Charing Cross on 13 October 1660 - and others were imprisoned for life. On 30 January 1661, the anniversary of Charles I's execution, the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw were dug up, hanged at Tyburn and their heads stuck on poles at Westminster Hall. Sir Henry Vane, who was not a regicide, was executed in 1662, and Lambert stayed a prisoner until he died in 1684. The settlement was not merciful to everyone in religion either: the Clarendon Code drove about 2,000 ministers from their livings and punished dissenters for years.

Overall Interpretation A is convincing that the settlement was more lenient than might have been expected, and that Charles wanted to avoid provoking his former enemies. But 'forgive and forget' is too generous: the regicides were punished savagely and symbolically, and Puritans and dissenters were not forgiven at all.

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The break-up of the Cabal began with the policies of 1672. In January Charles stopped repaying the goldsmith-bankers in the Stop of the Exchequer, so that money could go to the fleet. In March he issued the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending the penal laws against dissenters and Catholics, and declared war on the Dutch in alliance with Louis XIV. These policies were linked: Charles wanted to fight the war without asking Parliament for money and to help Catholics as he had secretly promised in the Treaty of Dover. But they stored up trouble, because the war went badly and Louis XIV's invasion of the Dutch Republic made Catholic France look a greater danger than the Dutch. Pamphlets such as 'England's Appeal from the Private Cabal at Whitehall' (1673) accused the ministers of serving popery and France.

When Charles had to recall Parliament in February 1673 to pay for the war, MPs struck back. The Commons resolved that penal laws could be suspended only by Act of Parliament and held back money until the Declaration was withdrawn. In March Charles gave way. Parliament then passed the Test Act, which required all office-holders to take Anglican communion and deny transubstantiation. This was the turning point, because in June Clifford resigned as Lord Treasurer and James resigned as Lord High Admiral, showing that both were Catholics. Thomas Osborne, the future Earl of Danby, replaced Clifford.

The remaining ministers were divided. Shaftesbury, now Lord Chancellor, opposed James's marriage to the Catholic Mary of Modena and was dismissed in November 1673; he then became the leading opponent of the court. In January 1674 the Commons attacked Buckingham, who was dismissed, and Arlington, who moved to the less powerful post of Lord Chamberlain, and asked for Lauderdale's removal. Parliament forced Charles to make peace with the Dutch in the Treaty of Westminster in February 1674. By then the Cabal had fallen apart and Danby led the government. The ministry broke up because its policies of 1672 united Parliament against it, and the Test Act turned that anger into resignations.

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Clarendon has a strong claim to be Charles II's most successful chief minister because he guided the Restoration settlement, which lasted for the rest of the reign. However, Danby was more successful in managing Parliament and the king's finances, so overall I only partly agree with the statement.

Clarendon's greatest success was the settlement of 1660-62. As Edward Hyde he had helped Charles draft the Declaration of Breda, and as Lord Chancellor he steered its promises through Parliament: the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion pardoned almost everyone except the regicides, the New Model Army was paid off and disbanded without trouble, a permanent revenue of customs and excise was granted, and the Church of England was restored. After twenty years of upheaval this brought stability, and he kept power for seven years.

But Clarendon also had serious failures. The revenue fell short of the £1.2 million Parliament had estimated, so the king remained in debt. The Clarendon Code, though harsher than he wanted, created a permanent body of dissenters. He became unpopular for the sale of Dunkirk in 1662 and was blamed for the Queen's childlessness. Above all, the Second Anglo-Dutch War ended in the humiliation of the Medway raid in June 1667. Clarendon had lost the support of the court, the Commons and the king, and he was dismissed, impeached and forced to flee to France.

The Cabal was much less successful. The Triple Alliance of 1668 was popular, and the secret Treaty of Dover of 1670 brought Charles French money, but the ministry's main policies collapsed. The Stop of the Exchequer of 1672 ruined the government's credit, the Declaration of Indulgence had to be withdrawn in 1673, the Third Anglo-Dutch War achieved nothing, and the Test Act broke the ministry up. It left Parliament more suspicious of the court than ever and drove Shaftesbury into opposition.

Danby was the most skilful manager of Parliament. As Lord Treasurer from 1673 he brought order to the finances, helped by rising customs revenue, and built a 'Court party' of MPs rewarded with offices and pensions, which is why the Cavalier Parliament was nicknamed the 'Pensionary Parliament'. His Anglican and anti-French policies suited MPs: he arranged the marriage of James's daughter Mary to the Protestant William of Orange in 1677, and Parliament voted money for thirty new warships. However, Danby's fall was even more dramatic than Clarendon's. In December 1678 Ralph Montagu revealed a letter in which Danby, on Charles's orders, had asked Louis XIV for 6 million livres. He was impeached, the Cavalier Parliament was dissolved to save him, and he spent five years in the Tower.

Overall, I partly agree. Danby was the most effective at the day-to-day task of managing Parliament and money, and the Cabal was the least successful. But Clarendon's achievement was the greater, because the settlement he guided - indemnity, the restored Church and the financial and military arrangements - shaped the whole reign, whereas Danby's system collapsed with him in 1679. On that measure Clarendon was the most successful, even though all three ministries ended in failure.