“I thought my blood derived a Crown to us / But now I find it derives only Treason”: Remembering and Forgetting the Civil War

The Restoration of Stuart monarchy in 1660 was presented as a moment where the conflicts of the past were forgotten. Yet memory of civil war and the brief period of republican rule that followed lingered. Charles II’s reign was one of political crisis, which became particularly marked during the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis (1678–81). Into this space of heightened political tension, John Crowne wrote The Misery of Civil War (1680), an alteration of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3. This chapter examines how Crowne’s play repackages Shakespeare to reflect on political and social tensions in the Restoration.