2 - Court, City and Restoration

Summary

Welcom welcom welcom Royal May,

Welcom long desired Spring;

Many Springs and May's we’ve seen,

have brought forth what's Gay and Green:

But none is like this Glorious day which brings forth our Gracious King;

Which brings forth our Gracious King.

Then banish sad thoughts, and let us sing;

We have our Laws we have our King;

We have our Laws we have our King.

These lines were heard by Charles II within the first year of his return to England. Welcom Royal May was composed by Matthew Locke and performed before the restored king and his courtiers on 29 May 1660 or 1661. The final line, which juxtaposed Charles and the law, implied a natural alliance between the two, a commitment of the former towards the latter, and maybe even the precedence – if only to satisfy a rhyming scheme – of the law. The celebrations of 1660– 1 were not only for the return of the person of Charles II and the monarchy tout court, but also for that monarchy's devotion to the law. In May 1660 Charles wrote with satisfaction from Breda that both houses of parliament were ‘constituted of men who desire to restore the nation to a full peace and security, upon the right and safe foundation of the Lawes’. During the early 1660s Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, consistently associated the restored king with a dedication to the maxims of law and justice, which would ensure the lawful possession of subjects’ lives, liberty and lands. ‘The king’, Clarendon insisted, ‘could not suffer whilst the law and the judges were looked upon by the subject as the asyla for their liberties and security.’ The legality and commitment to the law of Charles II stood in contrast to the profound illegality of regicide and the extra-legal constitutional experimentation of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. The public association between king and law provided a salve for those who construed some of the actions of Charles I as being against the spirit and word of the English legal tradition, and who were concerned that his son might now do the same. It confronted and sought to undermine arguments that the restoration of monarchy would result in the restoration of tyranny and illegality.