Summary/Commentary on Restoration Article

My article is about the fight for London, and the city without Parliament during the Restoration from 1681-1682. This article shows just how hectic things were for London when Parliament fell and how opposition within and of parties came to be. The city seems to be in chaos, and the restoration is causing a political upheaval between parties. There is a quarrel between the crown and loyalists on one side, and the opposition on the other. Loyalists and the crown took on strategies to try to change public opinion in their favor and against opposition. Opposition to the loyalists and crown were parties called the Whigs and Tories. They contested in the courts about what to do about the Oxford Parliament, as well as to how to settle the national Protestant order. Ever since Parliament fell, we can see the changes and differences that occur between peoples. In September 1681, Narcissus Luttrell quoted “Ever since the dissolution of the last parliament, the press has abounded with pamphlets of all sorts…some, branding the two late parliaments, and standing very highly for the church; the other side defending the parliament, and cryeing up…the true protestant religion, and opposing a popish successor” (De Krey 223). Loyalists influenced urban and country reading particularly “to encourage loyal address of thanks to the king for the Oxford dissolution and for his Declaration” (223). Sir Roger L’Estrange’s Observator is the best known journal that combined the reporting of news with serious and satirical commentary. Other struggles that resulted from the fall of Parliament dealt with control of the law and courts, Episcopal Church versus the Protestant order, and a struggle about control of the institutions and offices of the Corporation. Loyalists and Whigs advocated “Presbyterian plot’ and Popish Plot, which was anti-Catholicism. The plots were aired in the legal sessions of London which became the principal political arena of the nation. Verdicts from these helped the Tory journalists in portraying the Whigs as advancing their interests at the expense of law and justice.


Works Cited:
De Krey, Gary S. “The contest for the city, 1681-1682: Introduction: The City without Parliament, 1681-1682.” London and the Restoration, 1659-1683. (2005): 221-225.