What the Royal Family's Links to Slavery Mean in the Age of Epstein

"Early on the morning of May 29, 1660, flanked by twenty thousand armed men, King Charles II arrived in London to retake the throne. Bells rang out and ships fired their guns to mark the occasion. It was Charles's thirtieth birthday. England had been without a king for eleven years, after Charles's father was beheaded, on a temporary wooden platform outside Banqueting House, part of the palace of Whitehall. But the country's experiment as a republic was over. King Charles II was welcomed warmly."

"Charles's retinue included his twenty-six-year-old brother, James, the Duke of York. During the Civil War, James had been captured by Parliament. Aged fourteen, he escaped, from St. James's Palace, during a game of hide-and-seek and fled to mainland Europe, where he became a soldier. James was brave but blunt. "He was not dull; but he was cut off. His mind was isolated," Hilaire Belloc wrote, in a sympathetic character study, in 1928. "Complexity did not bewilder him, rather he missed it altogether.""

"Spare princes need something to do. King Charles put the Duke of York in charge of the Navy. Five years earlier, English forces had captured Jamaica, which became the country's portal to the Caribbean and its emerging American colonies. The Duke of York liked bold ideas. His cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, had heard of "a firm rock of gold of a great bigness" while exploring the Gambia River, on the coast of West Africa, a decade earlier. In December,"

On May 29, 1660, Charles II returned to London with twenty thousand armed men and received a triumphant welcome, marking the end of a republican experiment. Celebrations included bonfires, fountains flowing with wine, and entertainers joining the royal procession. The King's younger brother, James, the Duke of York, had been captured during the Civil War, escaped at fourteen, served as a soldier in Europe, and later received command of the Navy. English forces captured Jamaica five years earlier, establishing a gateway to Caribbean and American colonies. Prince Rupert reported rumors of large gold deposits along the Gambia River on West Africa's coast.

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