1660-1834 Empire and industry

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"The shouting and joy expressed by all" at King Charles II's restoration to the throne was, so Samuel Pepys recorded in his dairy, "past imagniation". There were fireworks and bonfires and dancing in the streets; Church bells rang and cannon roared as the King rode into the capital accompanied  by an immense retinue of gentlemen in doublets of cloth of silver and velver coats, of foootmen in purole liveries, and soldiers in buff uniforms trimmed with silver lace. Not only royalists but all except the most diehard republicans welcomed the return of the monarchy, and they were not to be diappointed, the new King showed himself anxious to placate his former enemies as well as to reward his friends, They were given offices at court and in government impartially, and the protenction of an Act of Indemnity and oblivion was extended to everyone except those who had signed Charles I's death warrant and a very few other.

the curtains of reopened theatres rose upon comedies by Willian Wycherley, Congreve and Dryden, The King himself founded two theatre companies in Covent Garden where Inigo Jones's piazza and his church of St Paul's had been built some thirty years before; and he became, either personally or through his friends, one of London's greatest benefactors. He laid the foundation wtone of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea which was designed by Christopher Wren whose first work, the Sheldonian Theatre, had recently been completed at Oxford. He had the Queen's Chapel, opposite St James's Palace refurnished for his Portoguese wife, Catherine of Braganza. He extended the royal aviary. the site of the present Birdcage Walk, and he improved Constitution Hill which is believed to have got its name from his habit of taking walks there. He began a new palace at Greenwich which, designed by Inigo Jones's pupil. John Webb, is now the Royal Naval College, and at Windsor he employed the architect, Hugh May, to rebuild the state Appartments where the delicately painted ceilings by the Neapolitan Antonio Verri and the richly carved cornices and frames by Grinling Gibbons were much admired by the King, whose taste for the exuberant and sensuous style know as Baroque had been formed in paris and Versailles, He granted land in the area known as Soho after the ancient hunting cry, to his friend Henry Jermyn, Earl of  St Albans, who was also given several other streets around St James's square, all named after members of the King's family or Servants.