He returned to England at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and was restored to his estates. He was never really prominent in political affairs nor among the Catholic community, although he did promote the removal of the anti-Catholic penal laws with King Charles II and James, Duke of York, and in the 1670s he apparently tried to mediate between James and the leaders of the Whig opposition. At his trial in 1680 he said vaguely that he might have promoted a policy of religious toleration in his speeches in the House of Lords, but could not remember this in any detail. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1665 onwards, becoming a council member in 1672.