The Convention Parliament (1660)

Met from April until December 1660 in order to deal with the Restoration of Charles II. It followed the Rump (dissolved in March 1660) and preceded the so-called ‘Cavalier’ Parliament, assembled in May 1661. The Convention Parliament first met on 25 April, after elections had been carried out. It has been estimated (Ashley 109) that almost 90 per cent of the members of the new House of Commons were Cavaliers or Royalist Presbyterians, while only 16 or 18 persons belonging to the Rump Parliament were re-elected.

Restoration of the King

On 1 May 1660 both houses of parliament voted to restore the king. The event is said to have been followed by a big wave of enthusiasm among people: “news […] greeted with many bonfires and the ringing of bells, people ‘drinking of the king’s health upon their knees in the streets’” (Harris, London Crowds 38). On 8 May Charles was proclaimed king. Seven days later, he met the parliamentary delegations at the Hague and entered London on the 29th, his thirtieth birthday.

Achievements

The Convention Parliament is said to have solved some of the most pressing problems posed by the previous 18 years and laid the foundations for stability (Seaward 11). One of their most important achievements is the passing of the Act of Pardon, Indemnity and Oblivion (August 1660), which pardoned all individuals and bodies corporate for actions committed under orders from all forms of authority during the civil wars, with the exception of those who had been involved in the regicide.

Other important decisions taken by the Convention include: the disbandment of the army, the establishing of a fixed annual income for the Crown (by maintaining the parliamentary innovation of the excise tax, a decision which was - in theory - sufficient to free it from reliance on the generosity of future parliaments) and the return of confiscated estates to the crown and the bishops. Nevertheless, the Convention failed to make headway on a religious settlement.

References

Ashley, Maurice. Charles II: The Man and the Statesman. Frogmore: Granada, 1973.

Harris, Tim. London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from the Restoration until the Exclusion Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Harris, Tim. Politics under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society 1660-1715. New York: Longman, 1993.

Jones, J. R. Country and Court England 1658-1714. London: Edward Arnold, 1978.

Seaward, Paul. The Cavalier Parliament and the Reconstruction of the Old Regime, 1661-1667. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Trueman, Chris. “The Restoration Settlement”. History Learning Site. N.d. Web. 14 June 2013. <[1]>.

“United Kingdom: The later Stuarts”. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., n.d. Web. 14 June 2013. <[2] >.