The most memorable affair of the following years was the announce ment, in 1678, of the pretended Popish Plot, in the midst of the ferment excited by which Charles, apprehensive of the lengths to which the parliament, participating in the popular excitement, appeared to be ready to go, adopted the bold course of dissolving that body, which had eat, one year excepted, during the whole course of the reign. Of three more parliaments however which he afterwards suc cessively called, none turned out more compliant or manageable; and he dissolved the last of them, which had been surninoued to meet at Oxford on the 28th of March 1681, after it had sat only a week. In the first of the three, which met in March, 1679, the Habeas Corpus Act was passed. Meanwhile an alarming insurrection of the Scotch Covenanters, driven mad by the oppressive administration of Lauder dale, had been suppressed by their defeat at Bothwell Bridge, on the 22nd of June 1679. From the year 1681 Charles governed without parliaments, and after the most arbitrary manner. In 16S3 many of the municipal corporations in the kingdom were compelled to surrender their charters into the hands of the king, by writs of 'quo warrant° ' being issued against them. Their charters were restored with such modifications as placed the municipalities entirely under the influence of the crown, and made them subservient to the king's purpose of having the House of Commons under his absolute control. (See tho charters of Bedford, Ipswich, Lynn Regis, &c., granted by Charles 11.) But Charles did not live long enough to meet a House of Commons elected under this system. The outrageous proceedings of the govern ment at length provoked the conspiracy of some of the friends of liberty and the constitution, known by the name of the Rye-Houso Plot, the detection of which was followed by the execution of Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, the two most eminent persons involved in it, and of several of their subordinate associates. Charles was sud denly seized with apoplexy on the 2nd of February 1685, and expired on Friday the 6th. He had for some time been a Roman Catholic, though the fact was carefully concealed, and he died in communion with that church.
Many of the legislative measures of this reign were of great import ance. By the Corporation. Act, Roman Catholics and Dissenters were excluded from all corporate offices, and it is only in our own day that the exclusion was repealed : this act however it should be remembered was carried in direct opposition to Charles and the court. The Habeas Corpus Act, as already mentioned, was passed in this reigu. By a statute passed in the twelfth year of this king's reign, the old military tenures, one of the most oppressive relics of feudalism, were abolished, and one tenure of free and common socage was established for all the freehold lands of the laity. The right of wardship of infant heirs to lands held by military tenure, a right which was for the benefit of the guardian rather than the ward, ceased by the same statute, which enabled every father, by deed or will, to appoint guardians of his estates, and of course of his infant children.
Charles IL was married on the 21st of May 1662, to Catherine, daughter of John 1V. king of Portugal, who long survived him ; but he had no children by his queen. His natural children were, 1, James, duke of Monmouth, by Mrs. Lucy Walters, born at Rotterdam in 1649, ancestor of the dukes of Buccleuch; 2, Mary, also by Mrs. Walters; 3, Charlotte-Jemima-HenriettseMaria Boyle (alias Fitzroy), by Elizabeth Viscountess Shannon; 4, Charles, surnamed Fitz-Charles, by Mrs. Catherine Peg; 5, another daughter by Mrs. Peg, who died in infancy ; 6, Charles Fitzroy, duke of Southampton, by the Duchess of Cleveland; 7, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Grafton, by the same, ancestor of the dukes of Grafton; 8, George Fitzroy, duke of Northumberland, by the same; 9, Charlotte Fitzroy, by the same; 10, Charles Beauclerc, duke of St. Albans, by Mrs. Nell Gwynn, ancestor of the dukes of St. Albans ; 11, Charles Lenox, duke of Richmond, by Louisa Quo rouaille, a French woman, created Duchess of Portsmouth, ancestor of the dukes of Richmond ; and 12, Mary Tudor, by Mrs. Mary Davis.