The Declaration of Breda (dated 4 April 1660) was a proclamation by Charles II of England in which he promised a general pardon for crimes committed during the English Civil War and the Interregnum for all those who recognised Charles as the lawful king; the retention by the current owners of property purchased during the same period; religious toleration; and the payment of arrears to members of the army, and that the army would be recommissioned into service under the crown.
To overcome the difficulties, both practical and in terms of public relations, of a prospective King of England addressing his subjects from enemy territory, Monck advised Charles to relocate himself to the United Netherlands, and to date his letters as if they were posted from Breda.
However it had always been Charles's expectation, or at least that of his chancellor, Edward Hyde (later Earl of Clarendon), that all who had been immediately concerned in his father's death should be punished,[6] and even while at a disadvantage, while professing pardon and favour to many, he had constantly excepted the regicides.
These severely limited the rights of Roman Catholics and nonconformists, such as the Puritans who had reached the zenith of their influence under the Commonwealth, effectively excluding them from national and local politics.
The landed classes were reassured that establishing the justice of contested grants and purchases of estates that had been made "in the continued distractions of so many years and so many and great revolutions" was to be determined in Parliament.