England under Charles II

REVIEWS necessity of lowering their -standards of living, and establishing government birth-control clinics. They might be kept from revolt for a time by an overwhelming show of force but the ultimate effect on proletarian powers of such a system of international government would be similar to the effect on "curious and carnal persons" of a realization that they were predestined to eternal damnation. They would, in the language of the Thirty-nine Articles, be thrust "either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living no less perilous -than desperation." That is to say, they would either embark on a desperate war of revenge, or else sink illto the wretchlessness of brutal dictatorship. Probably they would do both. The League sanction of starvation would then be enforced by the pious, satiated, democratic, and welfare states against the impious, proletarian, autocratic, and power states. In order to escape this nauseating spectacle the world can either refuse to disarm, and refuse to strengthen the sanctions of the League, in which event' it will get a 'good old-fashioned war as soon as Germany, Japan, and other dissatisfied powers are ready; or it can; by making a simultaneous and rapid advance along the three 'fronts of sanctiol1s, disarmament, ' and international legislation, establish an effective League which can maintain peace on the secure foundation of international justice. ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES 11* D. J. McDoUGALL The reign of Charles II has been, until the past few years, one of the' comparatively neglected periods of English history. To the historians of the nineteenth century, most of them steeped in the Whig tradition, it was but a black patch between the glories of Oliver Cromwell and those of William III, and they had no desire to linger over its details.' A political compromise is at best an uninspiring topic, and as their ideas of history seldom carried them beyond the narrow range of politics, they ""'Eng/and in the Reign of Charles II, by David Ogg, Oxford University Press. The England of Charles II, by Arthur Bryant, Longmans, Green and Co. The La'er Stuarts, 1660-1711-, by G. N. Clark, Oxford University Press. 417 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY found little here to invite study on a scale in any way comparable with that applied to the periods preceding and following it. The tradition is changing, and the historians of our own day, extending' their investigation to spheres of human activity other than those recorded in state papers and parliamentary debates, are finding in this reign material to warrant the judgment that it was, in fact, "one of the great formative periods in the growth of English civilization." Mr. Ogg's book is the most ambitious effort yet made to write the history of the ~eign according to this more comprehensive method. It is a solid, scholarly achievement, based on a wide collection of sources, some of them here utilized for the first time; and while it will probably not he accepted as the definitive history of the reign of Charles II, there can be no doubt about its winning high place among the standard authorities on the- period. It is a book for the specialist. Mr. Ogg does not wear his learning lightly, and his vast array of material, coupled with his uninspiring style, will greatly limit his public. At the outset he disavows any intention of writing a biography of Charles II, and for that there will be no regrets; for he shows no sign of that insight into the subtleties of character _and motive} without which the attempt would be vain to analyse and reveal the enigmatic character of the wily Stuart who could hold, and more than hold, his own with the most astute politicians of his time. In his judgment on the king and his policy, on the Duke of York, and, indeed, on all the political and constitutional questions of the period, he is content to accept the orthodox Whig view, with little variation or criticism. The shadow cast backward from 1688 is somewhat too evident, and Mr. Ogg's preconceptions- occasionally lead to conclusions strangely at variance with the evidence which he presents. -His description, for example, of...