Encouraged by the support of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and the 1st Earl Cairns, he gave up his early ambition to lead a missionary's life in China, and began what was to prove his life ’ s work.

Some years later, having gained a reputation as a theological controversialist and become a person of importance among the Nonconformists, he attracted the notice of the Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury and the party which favoured the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne, and he began to write political pamphlets just at the time when the feeling against the Roman Catholics was at its height.

York began denouncing Shaftesbury to Charles II, and Charles II decided to remove Shaftesbury from his post as Lord Chancellor.

In the session of the Cavalier Parliament that began on 7 January 1674, Shaftesbury led the charge to keep England free from popery.

Shaftesbury, therefore began discussions with Monmouth, Russell, and Grey to launch co-ordinated rebellions in different parts of the country.

Other towns and cities began to follow Liverpool ’ s example, leading in 1884 to the founding of the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ( London SPCC ) by Lord Shaftesbury, Reverend Edward Rudolf and Reverend Benjamin Waugh.

Construction on St Giles House began in 1651, by Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper, later to become 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.

He began to move into more serious dramatic roles on television with his appearance as Lord Shaftesbury in the 2003 BBC historical drama Charles II: The Power and The Passion.

It was only when, in July of the same year, Oates's accusation against the Queen's physician, Sir George Wakeman, appeared likely to involve the Queen herself in the ramifications of the plot, that Scroggs began to think matters were going too far ; he was probably also influenced by the discovery that the court regarded the plot with discredit and disfavour, and that the country party led by Shaftesbury had less influence than he had supposed with the King.

He had no share in the schemes of Shaftesbury after the election of Tory sheriffs for London in 1682 ; upon the 1683 violation of the charters, however, he began seriously to consider the best means of resisting the government.

The name Canadian Mennonite University was formally announced in early 2000 and classes began in September of that year on a new campus, composed of the campus of Canadian Mennonite Bible College on the south-west corner of Grant and Shaftesbury and the former campus of the Manitoba School for the Deaf, located on the north-west corner of the same intersection.

Shaftesbury was reacting to Thomas Hobbes's justification of royal absolutism in his Leviathan, Chapter XIII, in which he famously holds that the state of nature is a " war of all against all " in which men's lives are " solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short ".

Sidney united with Lord Shaftesbury and others in plotting against the perceived royal tyranny, of a ' force without authority.

Shaftesbury, who sympathized with the Protestant Nonconformists, briefly agreed to work with the Duke of York, who opposed enforcing the penal laws against Roman Catholic recusants.

The Duke of York was opposed to Danby's strict enforcement of the penal laws against Catholics, and by April 1675, he had reached out to Shaftesbury to make a truce between them whereby they would be united in opposition to Danby's brand of Anglican royalism.

The Duke of York, grateful for Shaftesbury's assistance in the debate against Danby's bill, now attempted to reconcile Shaftesbury with the king, and Shaftesbury was admitted to kiss the king's hand on 13 June 1675.

It was not until 25 February 1678 that Shaftesbury finally apologised to the king and to parliament for his support of the motion in the House of Lords and for bringing a writ of habeas corpus against Parliament.

Shaftesbury supported the House of Commons when they introduced a Bill of Attainder against Danby, and voted in favour of the bill in the House of Lords on 14 April 1679.

In February 1681, Shaftesbury and his supporters brought another indictment against York, this time at the Old Bailey, with the grand jury this time finding the bill true, although York's counsel were able to pursue procedural delays until the prosecution lapsed.

The government's case against Shaftesbury was particularly weak-most of the witnesses brought forth against Shaftesbury were witnesses whom the government admitted had already perjured themselves, and the documentary evidence was inconclusive.

This, combined with the fact that the jury was handpicked by the Whig Sheriff of London, meant the government had little chance of securing a conviction and on 13 February 1682, the case against Shaftesbury was dropped.

Smith uses the metaphor in the context of an argument against protectionism and government regulation of markets, but it is based on very broad principles developed by Bernard Mandeville, Bishop Butler, Lord Shaftesbury, and Francis Hutcheson.

However the grand jury of Middlesex threw out the bill against Lord Shaftesbury, and were vehemently attacked for so doing by government supporters.

The character of Senator Antonio is a reference to Shaftesbury, and the grand plot resembles the Gunpowder Plot, among others, most notably the so-called " Spanish Conspiracy " against Venice of 1618.

Pordage brought out in 1679 the sixth edition of John Reynolds's ‘ Triumphs of God's Revenge against the sin of Murther ;’ he prefixed to it a dedication to the Earl of Shaftesbury.

On 15 March 1682 Dryden brought out ‘ The Medal, a Satire against Sedition ,’ an attack on Shaftesbury, and on 31 March Pordage published ‘ The Medal revers'd, a Satyre against Persecution ,’ with an epistle, addressed, in imitation of Dryden, to his enemies, the Tories.

Scroggs continued in his poor treatment of Catholic priests who came before him for trial, as he showed when he sentenced Andrew Bromwich to death at Stafford in the summer of 1679, however his proposing the Duke of York's health at the Lord Mayor's dinner a few months later in the presence of Shaftesbury indicated his determination not to support the Exclusionists against the known wishes of the king. At the opening of the Michaelmas Term he delivered a speech on the need for judicial independence: " the people ought to be pleased with public justice and not justice seek to please the people .... neither for my part do I think we live in so corrupted an age that no man can with safety be just and follow his own conscience.

Thus the " Cabal Ministry " never really unified in its members ' aims and sympathies, and fell apart by 1672 ; Lord Ashley, who became Earl of Shaftesbury, later became one of Charles II's fiercest opponents.

* November 9 – King Charles II of England removes Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, from his position as Lord Chancellor.

Without Parliament, the Whigs gradually crumbled mainly due to the Rye House Plot, with The Earl of Melville, The Earl of Leven, Lord Shaftesbury and the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, both being implicated escaped to the United Provinces and Algernon Sidney, Sir Thomas Armstrong and William Russell, Lord Russell being executed for treason.

In September 2010 the ' Fox Poker Club ' named after Charles James Fox, was opened in London's Shaftesbury Avenue.

Rupert allied himself with Lord Shaftesbury on matters of foreign policy, but remained loyal to King Charles II on other issues, and was passionate about protecting the Royal Prerogative.

Essex followed the lead of Lord Halifax, who advocated not the exclusion of James, but the limitation of his sovereign powers, and looked to the Prince of Orange rather than to the Duke of Monmouth as the leader of Protestantism, incurring thereby the hostility of Lord Shaftesbury, but at the same time gaining the confidence of Charles.

Holles, who was honourably distinguished by Charles as a " stiff and sullen man ," and as one who would not yield to solicitation ; now became with Halifax and Shaftesbury a leader in the resistance to the domestic and foreign policy of the court.

In the recess, Charles II entered into negotiations with Shaftesbury and other parliamentary leaders.

Charles Booth's Poverty Map shows the neighbourhood makeup shortly after Shaftesbury Avenue opened.

During 1892, the Royal English Opera House, which had been a financial failure in Shaftesbury Avenue, applied for a music hall license and was converted by Walter Emden into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed by Charles Morton.

In November 1684, at the command of King Charles II, Fell deprived John Locke, who had incurred the royal displeasure by his friendship with Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and was suspected as the author of certain seditious pamphlets, of his studentship at Christ Church, summarily and without hearing his defence.

Though his fame has become dimmed in comparison with that of Shaftesbury, Russell and Sidney, he was equally conspicuous in the parliamentary proceedings of Charles II's reign, and left a more permanent mark than any of them on the constitutional changes of the period.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC ( 22 July 1621 – 21 January 1683 ), known as Anthony Ashley Cooper from 1621 to 1631, as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Baronet from 1631 to 1661, and as The Lord Ashley from 1661 to 1672, was a prominent English politician during the Interregnum and during the reign of King Charles II.

During the ministry of the Earl of Clarendon, Shaftesbury opposed the imposition of the Clarendon Code and supported Charles II's Declaration of Indulgence ( 1662 ), which the king was ultimately forced to withdraw.

Opposed to the growth of " popery and arbitrary government ", throughout the latter half of the 1670s Shaftesbury argued in favour of frequent parliaments ( spending time in the Tower of London, 1677-1678 for espousing this view ) and argued that the nation needed protection from a potential Roman Catholic successor to King Charles II.

During the Exclusion Crisis, Shaftesbury was an outspoken supporter of the Exclusion Bill, although he also endorsed other proposals that would have prevented the Duke of York from becoming king, such as Charles II's remarrying a Protestant princess and producing a Protestant heir to the throne, or legitimizing Charles II's illegitimate Protestant son the Duke of Monmouth.

To accompany the commencement of the war, Charles issued a new round of honours, as part of which Ashley was named Earl of Shaftesbury and Baron Cooper of Paulet on 23 April 1672.

Shaftesbury, Arlington, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, and Henry Coventry all urged Charles II to divorce Catherine of Braganza and re-marry a Protestant princess.

Shaftesbury's actions in the 1674 session further angered Charles II, so on 19 May 1674, Shaftesbury was expelled from the privy council, and subsequently sacked as Lord Lieutenant of Dorset and ordered to leave London.

On 20 November 1675, Shaftesbury seconded a motion by Charles Mohun, 3rd Baron Mohun of Okehampton calling on the king to end the dispute of Shirley v. Fagg by dissolving parliament.