After twenty years of civil war most people looked to a return to ‘normalcy’ after the Restoration of Charles II in May 1660, yet the ‘Restoration Settlement’ settled very little. This course will explore this exciting period in English history. We will consider such topics as the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, the emergence of Whigs and Tories, the fear of Louis XIV’s France and the fact that the heir, James, Duke of York, was a Roman Catholic.