Panegyrics hailing the arrival of Charles II in England in 1660 celebrated the return of an old order - a restoration of former ways and prior certainties. The previous two decades of political experiment and religious innovation were to be firmly canceled by the restoration of the monarchy and the Church of England, bringing with them political stability and settled order. In his Defense of the Epilogue appended to the second part of The Conquest of Granada (1669), John Dryden refers to the king and court's exile “in the most polish'd Courts of Europe” and argues that this experience “waken'd the dull and heavy spirits of the English” so that “insensibly our way of living became more free.” Another way of putting this brilliant apologia for changes in cultural habit is that the Restoration could not, in fact, restore the previous structures of authority. Politically and culturally, despite efforts to turn back the clock, the Restoration was a period of change, dynastic uncertainty, and intellectual inquiry. Although tied by both law and patronage to the fortunes and policies of the court élite, the Restoration theatres performed plays which reflected national unease and social alteration.