The Secret Service Under Charles II and James II

Abstract

The reigns of the last two Stuart kings are coloured by the fact that Charles II did not inherit his throne but was restored to it. During the first seven years of the Restoration era a second attempt to overthrow the monarchy naturally seemed possible to Royalists, whose memories of the discomforts of exile were still green. Hence a special organization to watch the movements of malcontents and report on their activities, developed under the control of the Secretaries of State. Contemporary State Papers offer abundant evidence to prove that much of the time of Nicholas and his successors was consumed in dealing with information, poured in by spies stationed in almost every English county, and in those parts of Europe and the New World where regicides and others had taken refuge.