CHARLES II, King of England. - B. in London on 29 May 1630, d. there on 6 Feb. 1685. Son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, C. succeeded his father on the throne after the restoration of the Stuarts in 1661. In foreign policy C. inherited from Cromwell the anti-Spanish stance that turned to the advantage of Louis XIV. More fortunate was his colonial policy, which increased English possessions especially in North America. The conditions of Catholics during C.'s reign, although the king was personally well disposed toward them, did not improve, given the opposition of Parliament. C. himself was secretly a Catholic, and several times began negotiations with Rome to reconcile England with the Holy See; but he also sinned through weakness by signing decrees against Catholic priests and death sentences for the victims of the invented Titus Oates plot. On his deathbed C. converted to the Catholic faith.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: A. W. Ward, s. v. in Dictionary of National Biography, IV, p. 84 ff. and the bibl. cited there. On Catholicism in England under the reign of C. cf. bibl. under the entry Carlo I. Add: G. Boero, Conversioni alla fede cattolica di C. II, re d'Inghilterra... da docum. autentici e originali, Modena 1874, pp. 103-201; Pastor, XIV, v. index.

Silvio Furlani

@incollection{ec3_carlo_ii_re_d_inghilterra, author = {Furlani, Silvio}, title = {Carlo II, re d'inghilterra}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {848}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/carlo-ii-re-d-inghilterra} }

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Charles II, King of England

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