Charles was greeted by a tumultuous welcome from the
vast crowds gathered on the beach and a salute was fired
from the guns of the
Castle.
This acclamation must have, in some part, been due to
a feeling of relief at the prospect of having once more
a King and settled government after the turmoil of the
Civil War. The King must have been greatly moved by
the welcome he received, as letters which he wrote afterwards
show. The diarist
Samuel
Pepys was in the King’s entourage and described
the event, and an extract from the Dover Corporation
Records gives some further details of this historic
scene:
“Memorandum. - That the 25th May, 1660, the King
arrived in Dover Roads from Holland with twenty sail
of His Majesty’s great ships and frigates, the Right
Hon. Edward Lord Montague being General, and landed
the same day being attended by His Excellency the Lord
General Monck who first met His Majesty upon the bridge
let into the sea for His Majesty’s more safe and convenient
landing, and at His Majesty’s coming from the bridge,
the Mayor of this Town, Thomas Broome, Esq., made a
speech to His Majesty upon his knees, and Mr. John Reading,
Minister of the Gospel, presented His Majesty with the
Holy Bible as a gift from this town, and Mr. Reading
thereupon made a speech likewise to His Majesty and
His Gracious Majesty laying his hand upon his breast
, told Mr. Mayor nothing would be more dear to him than
the Bible. His Excellency the Lord General was accompanied
with the Earl of Winchelsea and a great number of nobility
and gentry of England and his life guard all most richly
accoutred.”
King Charles II was to keep magnificent Court at
Dover Castle
ten years later, when , in 1670, a secret treaty was
negotiated with the French King Louis XIV. The signing
took place under the cover of a State Visit by Charles’s
sister Henriette, Duchess of Orleans, who had been at
the heart of the negotiations. Charles was so anxious
to meet his sister, whom he had not seen for nine years,
that he arrived far to early at Dover. Then he returned
to London and embarked on a ship with the intention
of meeting her mid-Channel, but the winds were unfavourable.
Instead he went to Dover by road and greeted the French
fleet from his royal barge. As the King was accompanied
by a large entourage of courtiers and as Henritette
had with her courtiers, and members of her own household
numbering 250, the available accommodation was rather
strained. However there were ample balls, concerts,
plays and other festivities sufficient to camouflage
the signing of a secret treaty during the King’s two
week stay at the Castle.
