Restoration

Britain's late seventeenth century was marked by upheaval and political brutality on a scale rarely matched since. Starting with the return of the monarchy after the Civil War, this account follows the Stuart crown from Charles II's accession in 1660 to the mounting unrest of the 1680s. Rather than accepting the familiar picture of a country delighting in release from Puritan strictness, Harris shows the suffering inflicted by a government that felt deeply threatened after two decades of civil war and republican rule. Its ordinary people were persecuted, pursued and exploited.