Charles II: The Last Rally

''In that book my theme was the eternal conflict between One Man Government and the Rich. Napoleon said: the only institution ever devised by men for mastering the Money Power in the State is Monarchy. It is obviously true and is the most practically important of all political truths. The Government of the United States with its large development of presidential powers in modern times and the present struggle between those powers and plutocracy is a very good example in point. A still more forcible example is to be seen actively at work before our new governments calling themselves totalitarian are essentially extreme. Monarchies at issue with the plutocracies rule in the older world around to a large extent in France and obviously in Great Britain. As I dealt in my former book with the leading case of Louis XIV of France as a monarch standing up to the Money Power (and, upon the whole, successfully), so in this book I deal with the parallel and complementary case of his contemporary and first cousin, Charles II, Stuart King of England. He also found himself faced by that unescapable conflict between the Money Power and Monarchy; but, unlike his Charles II cousin Louis, Charles failed. The Money Power was too much for him. So long as he lived he managed to fend it off though not to tame it; but immediately after his death, in the less competent hands of his brother James ( the last real and active King of England, as also the last by hereditary right), Monarchy went down. The Monarch was driven out and the powers of government in England were taken over by a governing class of wealthy men, which class has remained in the saddle ever since.''--from opening pages of CHARLES II: THE LAST RALLY By Hilaire Belloc In  The Last Rally, Belloc narrates with clarity and vigor a central episode in the decline of the English Monarchy. Restored to the throne following the interlude of Cromwell's "Commonwealth," Charles II devoted his life as King of England to maintaining the integrity of the throne against all the forces arrayed against it: the power of the great landowners who worked through the Parliament; the influence of the Lawyers' Guild; and the irresistible mercantile and financial strength of the city of London. The story that Belloc brings to life is thus one of survival: the story of a state brought like a ship "through peril and storm under a great captain." It is also the story of manhood and determination in the face of overwhelming odds; as such it is a story that Hilaire Belloc was eminently qualified to write.