London and the Restoration, 1659-1683

Articulate and restless London citizens were at the heart of political and religious confrontation in England from the Interregnum through the great crisis of church and state that marked the last years of Charles II's reign. The same Reformed Protestant citizens who took the lead in toppling the Rump in 1659-60 took the lead in demanding a new Protestant settlement after 1678. In the interval, their demands for liberty of conscience challenged the Anglican order, while their arguments about consensual government in the city challenged loyalist political assumptions. Dissenting and Anglican identities developed in specific locales within the city, rooting the Whig and Tory parties of 1679-83 in neighbourhoods with different traditions and cultures. London and the Restoration integrates the history of the kingdom with that of its premier locality in the era of Dryden and Locke, analysing the ideas and the movements that unsettled the Restoration regime. This is the first historical study to examine commonalities between the crisis that brought Charles II to his throne and the crisis at the conclusion of his reign.