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After Oliver Cromwell´s death Charles II (the Merry Monarch; son of the executed King Charles I) was asked to return from exile in France, the masses rejoiced (1660). He re-established Parliament and the Church of England, Protestant and Roman Catholics were excluded from puplic offices.
Of the two political parties, the "Tories" (chiefly the landed aristocracy) supported by the King and the Church of England; the "Whigs" (mostly moneyed middle-class) stood for the Dissenters and the rights of Parliament.
1673, the Test Act: in 1672 Charles had secretly become a Catholic, issued the Decleration of Indulgence in favour of Catholics and Dissenters. Under pressure from Parliament, this led to be withdrawn, and was superseded by the Test Act. Through requiring that civil service appointments be made dependent upon taking the sacraments of the Curch of England, the Test Act secured final control of puplic affairs by the Established Curch.
1679 Exclusion Bill introduced into Parliament in 1679 proposed to exclude Charles´s brother James, who was avowedly Catholic, from succession. Charles prevented the passage of the Bill by repeated dissolution of Parliament.
1679 The Habeas Corpus Act - together with the Magna Carta, this is the greatest landmark in the establishment of the rule of the law in England. It was enacted ba Parliament against abitrary imprisonment (no person must bearrested without a judicial warrant and speedy trial).
The Habeas Corpus Act became later a symbol of English freedom as against suppression of subjects in absolutistic states. It is a part of Austrain law, too, probably it was the most important act passed in Parliamnet: arrested persons were to be questionend by a magistrate wihin three days, or set free.
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