6 - Thanking God those Times are Past

Summary

In the summer of 1660, the Convention Parliament unanimously enacted a statute making 29 May, the birthday of King Charles II, and the date on which he had arrived in London and Westminster, a national day of remembrance. According to the Act's preamble, the peaceful restoration of monarchical government after years of the ‘most deplorable Confusions Divisions Warrs Devastations and Oppression’ was a miracle: a ‘signall Deliverance both of his Majestie and His People’. Henceforth the people of England were to use the day to offer up to Almighty God ‘their unfeigned hearty publique Thanks’ for all the ‘publique benefits received and conferred on them’ by the king's return to rule.

As earlier chapters have already shown, the Restoration settlements profoundly shaped and influenced public remembering of the civil wars and Interregnum. This chapter shifts its focus from individual testimonies and historical writing to another powerful form of public remembering in late Stuart England: sermons preached at annual religious services of thanksgiving. 29 May was the day chosen by Parliament to celebrate the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, not the date on which the remnant of the Long Parliament called for new elections and voted to dissolve itself (16 March), not the date when the Convention Parliament first met (25 April), nor the date when it voted Charles II to have been king since 1649 (8 May), or the day when the king landed at Dover (25 May). The coincidence of the king's birthday and his rapturous welcome by Londoners seemed an irrefutable symbol that the ‘late unhappy times were over’.