Mary's uncle was King Charles II, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland ; her maternal grandfather, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, served for a lengthy period as Charles's chief advisor.

He refused a bribe from Louis XIV, but allowed his wife to accept a gift of 10, 000 crowns ; in 1670 he was the only minister besides the Roman Catholic Clifford to whom the first secret treaty of Dover ( May 1670 ), one clause of which provided for Charles's declaration of his conversion to Romanism, was confided ; and he was the chief actor in the deception practised upon the rest of the council.

Piero quickly gave up as Charles's army neared Florence and surrendered the chief fortresses of Tuscany to the invading army, giving Charles everything he demanded.

Based on the unfavouring attitude of the chronicler of the Mainz continuation of the Annales Fuldenses, the chief of Charles's opponents in the matter was probably Liutbert, Archbishop of Mainz.

Charles's, chief claim to remembrance is that he was the first ruler to adopt the system of hiring his soldiers out to foreign powers as mercenaries, as a means of improving the national finances.

Charles's chief weakness, it says, was in yielding to Parliament's demands for the head of the Earl of Strafford ; for this sin, Charles paid with his throne and his life.

Thus he was scandalized by Charles's ‘ almost monstrous management of the original and chief dependence of the Baring family ’ ( ibid., D7 ).

Another object of jealousy to Arlington was Sir William Temple, who achieved a great popular success in 1668 by the conclusion of the Triple Alliance ; Arlington endeavoured to procure his removal to Madrid, and entered with alacrity into Charles's plans for destroying the whole policy embodied in the treaty, and for making terms with France.

The group, who came to prominence after the fall of Charles's first prime minister, Lord Clarendon, in 1667, was rather called the Cabal because of its secretiveness and lack of responsibility to the " Country party " then run out of power.

Charles's reign was also characterised by religious conflicts.

This was the first recorded meeting of Charles's future parents.

John Finch was impeached the following day, and he consequently fled to the Hague with Charles's permission on 21 December.

However, following the attempted coup of ' The Incident ' in Scotland, Charles's credibility was significantly undermined.

While he cared little for who should become King of Poland, the cause of protecting the King's father-in-law was a sympathetic one, and he hoped to use the war as a means of humbling the Austrians, and perhaps securing the long-desired Duchy of Lorraine from its duke, Francis Stephen, who was expected to marry Emperor Charles's daughter Maria Theresa, which would bring Austrian power dangerously close to the French border.

Charles's imperial policy was focused on the dynastic sphere and abandoned the lofty ideal of the Empire as a universal monarchy of Christendom.

Frederick was concerned about Burgundy's expansive tendencies on the western border of his Holy Roman Empire, and to forestall military conflict, he attempted to secure the marriage of Charles's only daughter, Mary of Burgundy, to his son Maximilian.

Charles's persistence worked, as Peter's army was checked by Ottoman troops.

The term ' Whig ' entered English political discourse during the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678 – 1681 when there was controversy about whether or not King Charles II's brother, James, should be allowed to succeed to the throne on Charles's death.

After months of negotiation with Charles VI of France, the Treaty of Troyes recognised Henry V as regent and heir-apparent to the French throne, and he was subsequently married to Charles's daughter, Catherine of Valois.

Paul Davis says the core of Charles's army was a professional infantry which was both highly disciplined and well motivated, " having campaigned with him all over Europe ", buttressed by levies that Charles basically used to raid and disrupt his enemy, and gather food for his infantry.

) Had Charles Martel failed, Henry Hallam argued, there would have been no Charlemagne, no Holy Roman Empire or Papal States ; all these depended upon Charles's containment of Islam from expanding into Europe while the Caliphate was unified and able to mount such a conquest.

The major foreign policy issue of Charles's early reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

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 Roman Catholic.

However, the royalist fleet that came under Charles's control was not used to any advantage, and did not reach Scotland in time to join up with the royalist Engagers army of the Duke of Hamilton, before it was defeated at the Battle of Preston by the Parliamentarians.

Her son, James Crofts ( afterwards Duke of Monmouth and Duke of Buccleuch ), was one of Charles's many acknowledged illegitimate children who became prominent in British political life and society.

Nevertheless, the Scots remained Charles's best hope of restoration, and he was crowned King of Scotland at Scone on 1 January 1651.

With Cromwell's forces threatening Charles's position in Scotland, it was decided to mount an attack on England.

After the death of Cromwell in 1658, Charles's chances of regaining the Crown at first seemed slim as Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son, Richard.

Charles's dissolution of the chamber of deputies, his July Ordinances, which set up rigid control of the press, and his restriction of suffrage resulted in the July Revolution of 1830.

Charles's cause was taken up by the Aragonese, and the king's attempt to make his second wife lieutenant-general was set aside.

Charles's orders provided that the various army corps will retreat, following the pace set by Bellegarde's I Korps.

Most significant is Charles's apparent conversion, which is expressed very subtly at the end of the book, set more than 20 years after his first meeting Sebastian.

In 1609, he was part of a group of actors who set up a new playing company, the Duke of York's Men, which became known as Prince Charles's Men after 1612.

In 1628 he petitioned the king's favourite the Duke of Buckingham to forward a ‘ Proposition of profitt and honor ’ to the king which set out the need to encourage continued colonization of Newfoundland, and which specifically mentioned a plan to build a settlement to be called ' Carolinople ' ( i. e. " Charles's Town ").

To the interlude is set King Charles I's trial and execution, with rubato adding atmosphere ; the only sound effect is implied to be that of Charles's head falling ( followed by a solitary giggle from Cromwell ).

Charles's army set up siege lines to the North and West of the city ; the South and East were guarded by the rivers Krur and Rhine, respectively.

A fleet was prepared in Harfleur at King Charles's expense to invade Wales under Owain's command and set sail just before Christmas.

The Parliamentarian force, now free of Charles's army, retreated towards Aldermaston as quickly as possible and eventually made it to Reading and then London, where Essex received a hero's welcome.

King Charles's army had been reinforced as it marched, and outnumbered that of Essex by nearly two to one.

** Seven Years ' War – Battle of Leuthen: Frederick defeats Prince Charles's Austrian army in what is generally considered the Prussian king's greatest tactical victory.

Charles XII moved from Saxony into Russia to confront Peter, but the campaign ended with the destruction of the main Swedish army in Poltava ( now Ukraine ), and Charles's exile in Ottoman Bender.

No connected resistance was offered to the converging march of Prince Charles's army along the Danube, Khevenhüller from Salzburg towards southern Bavaria, and Prince Lobkowitz from Bohemia towards the Naab.

The Bonnie Prince public house in Chellaston, Derby — near Swarkestone Bridge where Charles's army decided to turn back and return to Scotland

Having taken Carlisle, Charles's army progressed as far as Swarkestone Bridge in Derbyshire.

The reports of a government army turned out to have been false, but Charles's retreat gave the English time to muster an actual army.

The Dauphin was forced to agree to many of Charles's territorial demands and to promise to finance for him a standing army of 1, 000 men for his personal use.

In January 1364 Charles met Edward, the Black Prince at Agen in order to negotiate the passage of his troops through the English-held duchy of Aquitaine, to which the Prince agreed perhaps because of his friendship with Charles's new military adviser Jean III de Grailly, captal de Buch, who had been betrothed to Charles sister and was to lead his army to Normandy.

Meanwhile Charles's brother Louis of Navarre led an army augmented by contingents pledged by the captains of the Great Company and the freebooter Séguin de Badefol through the Black Prince's territories and across France, evading the French royal forces sent to intercept him and arrived in Normandy on 23 September.

Charles's retreat left Napoleon with two options: pursue the defeated Austrian army north of the Danube or occupy Vienna, which was now covered by a secondary enemy force and could not hope to hold out.

Although a Generalissimus, with supreme authority over the entire Austrian army, Charles's position was constantly undermined by his Imperial brother and the war party at the Court, who were corresponding directly on military matters with his Chief of Staff, General Major Wimpffen and some of the Corps commanders.

Bellegarde's good maneuver and Archduke Charles's inspired intervention ensured a totally successful counterattack, and avoided what could have developed into a dangerous situation for the Austrian army.

Some of them believed that King Charles's army had escaped encirclement after the battle through inaction on the part of some commanders.

The defeat at Nantwich thwarted King Charles's plan to create a field army in the Northwest based on regiments returned from Ireland.

Their sack of Naples finally provoked a reaction, however, and the League of Venice was formed against them, effectively cutting off Charles's army from France.

When Charles was removed by the army to Childersley ( 5 June 1647 ), Fairfax and his officers agreed that Charles's request for his chaplains should be complied with.

In violation of the laws, Cisneros acceded to Charles's desire to be proclaimed king ; he secured the person of Charles's younger brother Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor ; he fixed the seat of the courts at Madrid ; and he established a standing army by drilling the citizens of the towns.