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The Day the King Defaulted pp 21–50Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Dramatis Personae

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Abstract

Provides a short biography of the key government participants in the story of the Stop of the Exchequer in 1672. They include England’s King Charles II, Queen Catherine, Thomas Clifford, Henry Bennet (Arlington), George Villiers (Buckingham), Anthony Ashley Cooper (Shaftesbury), John Maitland (Lauderdale), George Downing and Thomas Osborne (Danby). The chapter also explains the various titles of nobility that would have been applicable during the period in question and introduces the so-called CABAL of Restoration England.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In fact, the fast-food chain popular in the United States (but for whatever reason unsuccessful in England) was founded by a direct descendant of said Earl.

  2. 2.

    Played by Johnny Depp in the 2004 movie The Libertine.

  3. 3.

    See Gregory and Stevenson (2007, p. 246), as well as the encyclopedic (Schofield & Wrigley, 1981).

  4. 4.

    In fact, King James I (grandfather of our King Charles II) invented the title of baronet to raise much-needed funds.

  5. 5.

    My source for the life of King Charles II is based mostly on Fraser (2002), Uglow (2009), Coote (1999), Harris (2006) and, of course, the references in Pepys (1997).

  6. 6.

    In my mind, the best telling of the story of his trial and then execution is in Wedgewood (2011).

  7. 7.

    It is unknown what name he might adopt. Long live the Queen!

  8. 8.

    Technically, he became king in 1649, the moment his father died, and the records of his reign are noted from that point onward.

  9. 9.

    There are many (many) sources for the history of England under the Stuarts, but Trevelyan (1960) first published in 1904 is a good place to start.

  10. 10.

    King Charles II, by Antonia Fraser (Phoenix, 2002).

  11. 11.

    A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration, by Jenny Uglow (Faber and Faber Ltd, 2009).

  12. 12.

    Royal Survivor: The Life of Charles II, by Stephen Coote (Hodder and Stoughton, 1999).

  13. 13.

    For the more academic biographies, see Hutton (1989) and Miller (1991).

  14. 14.

    See, for example, the historical fiction book Plaidy (2005) for a popular portrayal.

  15. 15.

    See the interesting work by Holmes (2003) on some of the health issues faced by the Stuarts.

  16. 16.

    See Pincus (2009).

  17. 17.

    Aka “Uncle Eddie” in the prologue.

  18. 18.

    See Hobbes (2013).

  19. 19.

    Fans of the book Gulliver’s Travels might be interested to know that Jonathan Swift (the author) worked as personal assistant and secretary to Sir William Temple.

  20. 20.

    Sir William Temple: The Man and His Work, by H. E. Woodbridge (1940).

  21. 21.

    See, for example, the chapter on Clifford in Lee (1965), which is the source for most of the material in this section.

  22. 22.

    There was an element of strategy here as well, in that the King needed men such as Clifford to move (from the House of Commons) to help manage the House of Lords.

  23. 23.

    See Hutton, The Making of the Secret Treaty of Dover (1986).

  24. 24.

    The source for the historical material in this biography is the relevant chapter in Lee (1965), as well as Henry Bennet’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, written by Alan Marshall.

  25. 25.

    The source for most of the material is Bruce Yardley, ‘Villiers, George, second duke of Buckingham (1628–1687)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, as well as the recent book, The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home, by Natalie Livingstone, cited as Livingstone (2015).

  26. 26.

    Cited as Wilson (1954).

  27. 27.

    The source for this material is Tim Harris, ‘Cooper, Anthony Ashley, first earl of Shaftesbury (1621–1683)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, as well as the more detailed biography by K. H. D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury, cited as Haley (1968). See also the book by Isenberg (2016) for a fascinating discussion of Shaftesbury’s connection to the history of The Carolinas.

  28. 28.

    He is also closely linked to the infamous Popish Plot, in which a certain Titus Oates created (from whole cloth) a plot in which Catholic Jesuits were planning to assassinate King Charles II in the fall of 1678. The details of that disgrace would needlessly raise the hair on the back of your neck and take us far adrift from our story at this early stage.

  29. 29.

    For those interested in this fascinating story, see the book by Anna Keay, The Last Rebel, cited as Keay (2016). For all non-British readers, who might not have been force-fed this story in grade school, the Duke of Monmouth rebelled after his uncle James became king in 1685, and the tragic Duke lost his head (literally). All this might have never happened if Shaftesbury had not put delusions of grandeur in the Duke’s head.

  30. 30.

    See Hutton (1989, p. 305), for example.

  31. 31.

    See the relevant chapter in Lee (1965) on Lauderdale, as well as the recent (historical fiction) novel Royalist Rebel (Seymour, 2013) for more on Elizabeth Murray, the Duchess of Lauderdale.

  32. 32.

    The source for the material in this biography is the book by John Beresford, The Godfather of Downing Street, cited as Beresford (1925), as well as Jonathan Scott, ‘Downing, Sir George, first baronet (1623–1684)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. See also Lehman (2016) for more on Puritans, New England and money.

  33. 33.

    Downing at one point boasted to Pepys (December 27, 1668) that his Dutch spies were able to pickpocket the keys from de Witt’s pockets, use them to access state documents, copy them and then return the keys to his pocket without him noticing.

  34. 34.

    See A. Browning, Thomas Osborne: Earl of Danby and Duke of Leads (Oxford University Press, 1913) for most of this information.

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  1. Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Moshe Arye Milevsky

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Milevsky, M.A. (2017). Dramatis Personae. In: The Day the King Defaulted. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59987-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59987-8_2

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