Declaration of Breda - Background, Contents and Aftermath

Background, Contents and Aftermath

The declaration was named after the city of Breda in the Netherlands. It was actually written in the Spanish Netherlands, where Charles had been residing since March 1656; however, at the time of writing, England had been at war with Spain since 1655. To overcome the difficulties, both practical and in terms of public relations, of a prospective King of England addressing his subjects from enemy territory, Monck advised Charles to relocate himself to the United Netherlands, and to date his letters as if they were posted from Breda. Charles left Brussels, his last residence in the Spanish Netherlands, and passing through Antwerp arrived in Breda on 4 April, and resided there until 14 May. Then he travelled to The Hague and departed for England on 2 June. The declaration, however (actually several letters, addressed to Monck, the Houses of Parliament, and the City of London), was despatched as soon as Charles had crossed the Dutch border, and was dated 4 April (OS)/14 April (NS).

The declaration was drawn up by Charles and his three chief advisors, Edward Hyde, the Marquis of Ormond (James Butler), and Sir Edward Nicholas, in order to express the terms by which Charles hoped to take up "the possession of that right which God and Nature hath made our due".

The declaration promised a "free and general pardon" to any old enemies of Charles and of his father who recognised Charles II as their lawful monarch, "excepting only such persons as shall hereafter be excepted by parliament". However it had always been Charles's expectation, or at least that of his chancellor, Edward Hyde (later Earl of Clarendon), that all who had been immediately concerned in his father's death should be delivered to punishment; and, in the most unpropitious state of his fortune, while making all professions of pardon and favour to different parties, he had constantly excepted the regicides. Once Charles was restored to the throne, on his behalf Hyde steered the Indemnity and Oblivion Act through parliament. The act pardoned most who had sided with Parliament during the Civil War, but excepted the regicides, two prominent unrepentant republicans John Lambert and Henry Vane the Younger, and around another twenty were forbidden to take any public office or sit in Parliament.

In the declaration Charles promised religious toleration in areas where it did not disturb the peace of the kingdom, and an act of parliament for the "granting of that indulgence". However parliament chose to interpret the threat of peace to the kingdom to include the holding of public office by non Anglicans. Between 1660 and 1665 the Cavalier Parliament passed four statutes that became known as the Clarendon Code. These severely limited the rights of Catholics and nonconformists, such as the Puritans who had reached the zenith of their influence under the Commonwealth, effectively excluding them from national and local politics.

The declaration undertook to settle army pay arrears of the soldiers in the service of General Monck. The landed classes were reassured that establishing the justice of contested grants and purchases of estates that had been made "in the continued distractions of so many years and so many and great revolutions" was to be determined in Parliament. Charles II appeared to have "offered something to everyone in his terms for resuming government".

Copies were delivered to both houses of the Convention Parliament by Sir John Grenville. Other copies with separate covering letters were delivered to Lord General George Monck to be communicated to the Lord President of the Council of State and to the Officers of the Army under his command, and to the Generals of the "Navy at Sea" and to the Lord Mayor of the City of London.