ABOUT THE STATUE:
"Description
Statue 1685; pedestal 1835, incorporating 1685 inscription tablet (see Notes). Exceptional and important, lead, life-size, equestrian statue of King Charles II situated on tall, rectangular-plan, classical ashlar pedestal.
Equestrian statue with figure dressed in Roman martial imperial dress, sitting astride horse and with baton in right hand. Horse in standing position with right front leg raised.
Pedestal with shallow plinth, deep moulded base course, overhanging cornice. Sunken panels to all sides with egg and dart moulding. 1685 inscription tablet to E face.
Statement of Special Interest
A Group with Nos 2-11 Parliament Square, Advocates' Library, Signet Library, Parliament Hall, 1 Parliament Square, St Giles High Kirk, Lothian Chambers, City Chambers, Alexander and Bucephalus Statue, Queensberry Memorial and the Market Cross.
This life-size, grand, imposing, and finely crafted statue is the oldest statue in Edinburgh and may be the oldest lead equestrian statue in Britain. It is situated in Parliament Square, in front of the Parliament Buildings and behind St Giles Cathedral (both separately listed) and adds significantly to the gravitas of this particular architectural group. It is an exceptionally important statue with modelling of the highest standard. Recent research cited by D Howarth suggests that this statue came from the workshop of Grinling Gibbons, the famous Dutch sculptor. Gibbons is more widely recognised for his woodcarving and currently only 4 documented large scale works of his remain.
The statue was erected in 1685 as a tribute to Charles II (1630-1685). It depicts Charles dressed in Roman military dress and equates him with one of the Caesars. The baton he carries is a symbol of Imperial authority. The original pedestal was made from Craigleith stone by Robert Mylne, the King's Master Mason in Scotland. The original marble inscription tablet, extolling the virtues of Charles II was incorporated into the current, later replica pedestal and was written in Latin by an advocate, William Clerk."
--Historic Environment Scotland (
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ABOUT THE MONARCH:
"Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was king of England, Scotland and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, and king of England, Scotland and Ireland from the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 until his death.
Charles II's father, Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Although the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic, led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis that followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. After 1660, all legal documents were dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649.
Charles's English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his early reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the secret treaty of Dover, an alliance with his first cousin King Louis XIV of France. Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, and Charles secretly promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oates's revelations of a supposed "Popish Plot" sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles's brother and heir (James, Duke of York) was a Catholic. The crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories, and, following the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, some Whig leaders were executed or forced into exile. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and ruled alone until his death on 6 February 1685. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed.
Charles was one of the most popular and beloved kings of England, known as the Merry Monarch, in reference to both the liveliness and hedonism of his court and the general relief at the return to normality after over a decade of rule by Cromwell and the Puritans. Charles's wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James."
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