straining relationships with the parliamentarians in England; the official statement of sympathy to Charles II from the Dutch went as far as possible to avoid calling him "your majesty". Most European nations had their own troubles occupying their minds, such as negotiating the terms of the recently signed Peace of Westphalia, and the regicide was treated with what Richard Bonney described as a "half-hearted irrelevance". As C. V. Wedgwood put it, the general conduct of the statesmen of Europe was to "pay lip-service alone to the idea of avenging the outrage [of the execution], and to govern their conduct towards its perpetrators by purely practical considerations". One notable exception was the Russian Tsar Alexis, who broke off diplomatic relations with England and accepted Royalist refugees in Moscow. He also banned all English merchants from his country (notably members of the Muscovy Company) and provided financial assistance to Charles II, sending his condolences to Henrietta Maria, "the disconsolate widow of that glorious martyr, King Charles I". Legacy The image of Charles' execution became vital to the cult of St. Charles the Martyr in English royalism. Shortly after Charles' death, relics of Charles' execution were reported to perform miracles – with handkerchiefs of Charles' blood supposedly curing the King's Evil among peasants. Many elegies and works of devotion were produced to glorify the dead Charles and his cause. After the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, this private devotion was transformed into official worship; in 1661, the Church of England declared 30 January a solemn fast for the martyrdom of Charles and Charles occupied a saint-like status in contemporary prayer books. In Charles II's reign, (as estimated by Francis Turner) around 3000 sermons were given annually to commemorate the martyrdom of Charles. Much Restoration historiography of the Civil War emphasised the regicide as a grand and theatrical tragedy, depicting the last days of Charles' life in a hagiographical fashion. Few saw the executed king's character as fallible. Britain's Lord Chancellor after the Restoration, Edward Hyde, for example, in his monumental History of the Rebellion (1702–1704), was one of the few sometimes critical of Charles's actions and perceived his flaws as a king, but his account the year of Charles' execution ended with a passionate condemnation of: After the Glorious Revolution, even as royalism declined, the cult continued to enjoy support; the anniversaries of Charles' execution created an annual "general madding-day" of