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.