Charles was born in St. James's Palace on 29 May 1630. His parents were King Charles I, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Queen Henrietta Maria, the sister of King Louis XIII of France. Charles was their second son and child. Their first son, who was born about a year before Charles, had died aged less than a day.[4] England, Scotland and Ireland were Christian countries, but worship was divided between different denominations such as Catholicism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, and Puritanism. Charles was baptised in the Chapel Royal on 27 June by the Anglican Bishop of London William Laud and brought up in the care of the Protestant Countess of Dorset, though his godparents included his mother's Catholic relations, Louis XIII and Marie de' Medici.[5] At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, along with several other associated titles. At or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested with the Honours of the Principality of Wales.[4] During the 1640s, when Charles was still young, his father fought Parliamentary and Puritan forces in the English Civil War. Charles accompanied his father during the Battle of Edgehill and, at the age of fourteen, participated in the campaigns of 1645, when he was made titular commander of the English forces in the West Country.[6] By Spring 1646, his father was losing the war, and Charles left England due to fears for his safety, going first to the Isles of Scilly, then to Jersey, and finally to France, where his mother was already living in exile and his first cousin, eight-year-old Louis XIV, was king.[7] In 1648, during the Second English Civil War, Charles moved to The Hague, where his sister Mary and his brother-in-law William II, Prince of Orange, seemed more likely to provide substantial aid to the royalist cause than the Queen's French relations.[8] However, the royalist fleet that came under Charles's control was not used to any advantage, and did not reach Scotland in time to join up with the royalist Engagers army of the Duke of Hamilton, before it was defeated at the Battle of Preston by the Parliamentarians.[9] At The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter, who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married.[10] Her son, James Crofts (afterwards Duke of Monmouth and Duke of Buccleuch), was one of Charles's many acknowledged illegitimate children who became prominent in British political life and society.

In the later half of 1660, Charles's joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his youngest brother, Henry, and sister, Mary, of smallpox. At around the same time, Anne Hyde, the daughter of the Lord Chancellor Edward Hyde, revealed that she was pregnant by Charles's brother, James, whom she had secretly married. Edward Hyde, who had not known of either the marriage or the pregnancy, was created Earl of Clarendon and his position as Charles's favourite minister was strengthened.[25] The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660, and Charles's coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661. Charles was the last sovereign to make the traditional procession from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey the day before the coronation.[26]

Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of 2 February 1685, and died aged 54 at 11:45 am four days later at Whitehall Palace.[65] The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors; however, more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of uraemia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction).[66] On his deathbed Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: "be well to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve",[67] and told his courtiers: "I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying."[68] On the last evening of his life he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea originated, is unclear.[69] He was buried in Westminster Abbey "without any manner of pomp"[68] on 14 February.[70] Charles was succeeded by his brother, who became James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland.