Lord Chancellor Clarendon, which persecuted Dissenters and restricted

office-holding to communicant members of the Church of England. These

measures failed to create a one-party state but succeeded in keeping the
memories and issues of the 1640s and 1650s simmering away.
The first precarious decade of the restored monarchy was punctuated by
risings and plots, plague and fire, and naval defeats, and culminated in
Charles's attempt to solve his diplomatic, religious, and financial problems
at a single audacious stroke in 1672. Charles declared war on the Dutch in
alliance with Louis XIV of France; he issued a Declaration of Indulgence
which suspended all the penalties against Protestant Dissenters; and he
announced a suspension of the repayments on his debts. Unfortunately, the
quick victory needed to clinch this bold bid eluded Charles. Parliament was
recalled and the king was castigated for his arbitrary setting aside of the
religion and church "as established by law." In no uncertain terms Charles
was told that he had no power to suspend parliamentary statutes or to
dispense individuals from the provisions of statutes. More opposition was
probably generated by the declaration's unconstitutional character than by
its attempt to improve the position of non-Anglicans. Grudgingly parliament
offered war funds, but extorted in return a Test Act which was
designed to exclude Roman Catholics from public office. In 1673 Members
of Parliament gave voice to the emerging "Country" opposition which
helped to give a new shape to politics. A drift toward a more arbitrary style
of government was perceived in Charles's close links with France and in the
attempts of the Earl of Danby, the king's chief minister from about 1675, to
"manage" parliament through a system of placemen and bribery and in the
interests of "the old Cavaliers and the Church party." The preference
shown toward "the Church party" was suspect in itself. Many of the
English believed that the bishops of the church were unnecessarily intolerant
toward the Dissenters, and, even worse, that they encouraged Charles
and his brother in grandiose ambitions of absolutist government. As
Andrew Marvell put it in 1677, "there has now for diverse Years a Design
been carried on, to change the lawful government of England into an
Absolute Tyranny, and to Convert the Established Protestant Religion into
down-right Popery."6 The growing realization that Charles might not
produce a legitimate heir, and the fact that James, Duke of York, a
professed Catholic married to an Italian Catholic princess since 1673 w a s
next in line to the throne, did much to fuel anxiety about the growth of
popery and arbitrary government.
Then in the autumn and winter of 1678 the nation and parliament were
convulsed, first by Titus Oates's fanciful revelations of a Popish Plot,
involving the murder of the king, the burning of London, and the massacre