' British History '-7
' The Restoration'
RHODA POWER
Last week you heard all about the Civil War under Charles I. Today in a .dramatic interlude Miss Rhoda Power is to tell you about the Restoration-so called because, after the Commonwealth and the death of Cromwell, a Stuart king was restored to the throne.
It was the year 1660, Charles II was back from exile, and for the most part the people of England were rejoicing. The setting is an inn where people of different temperaments take shelter from the rain. The house agrees to stand a round of drinks in return for hearing the strangest thing that any of those present ever saw.
The pedlar declares it was seeing
Cromwell, laid out after his death like a king ; the Puritan, that it was seeing England rejoicing at a calamity ; the innkeeper's wife that it was seeing a Puritan vying for a bumper of ale; the potboy-but that must remain a surprise.
You will hear all kinds of views. Do you think with the Royalists that Charles I was a martyr, and England, under Cromwell, a miserable country where pleasure was forbidden, and Charles II, whatever his shortcomings, the most fascinating of all English kings ? Or do you think with the Puritans exactly the opposite ?