Charles II of England

Charles II became king of Scotland in 1649 days after his father Charles I was executed, but Oliver Cromwell crushed him at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 and sent him into continental exile for nearly a decade. Cromwell's death in 1658 opened the way for the Restoration, and on 29 May 1660 Charles returned to London amid public celebration. His reign threaded between religious pressures: Parliament passed the Clarendon Code to fortify the Church of England while Charles quietly favored tolerance, signed a secret pact with Louis XIV in 1670 promising eventual conversion to Catholicism, and saw his 1672 Declaration of Indulgence crushed by Parliament. The fabricated Popish Plot in 1679 ignited the Exclusion Crisis over his Catholic brother James and gave birth to the Whig and Tory parties; Charles dissolved Parliament in 1681 and ruled alone until his death in 1685. He fathered at least twelve illegitimate children, kept a court famous for its laxity, and left the throne to the brother whose religion had nearly torn the kingdom apart.