The name used by historians for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty to the British throne in 1660 after the failed experiment in republicanism (1649-59) by the Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell. The English Civil War had ended with the execution of King Charles I. When Cromwell died, the Commonwealth collapsed. In an effort to save the nation from the chaos into which it was slipping, a number of notables invited Charles II, the exiled son of the decapitated king, to return to England and assume the throne, which he did on 29 May 1660. The new king made an attempt at reconciliation of sorts, and the Restoration usshered in a new age of (relative) religious toleration and cultural expression.
Historians also use the term for the period between the Restoration (as understood above) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
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