Charles II of England 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. 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
Duration of English Parliaments before 1660 not the conventional way of numbering Parliaments. The No. column contains the number counting forward from the accession of particular monarchs of England before 1660 (or the Commonwealth and Protectorate regimes of the 1650s). The duration column is calculated from the date of the first meeting of the Parliament, to that of dissolution, using a year-month-day format. Parliament grew out of the Curia Regis, which was a body which advised the King on legislative matters. It had come into existence after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. It replaced the earlier Anglo-Saxon institution of the Witenagemot, which had a