Religion, Politics and the Church in Stuart Britain, 1603-1714

Autorentext

Eilish Gregory is an Honorary Fellow in the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University and author of Catholics during the English Revolution, 1642-1660: Politics, Sequestration and Loyalty (Boydell, 2021).

Klappentext

Examines the challenges faced by the church across England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in a period of significant transformation and turmoil. Under the Stuarts, the Church - as established across England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland - witnessed a transformation in its character and structure, not least because of the civil strife of the 1640s and 1650s. This book examines the challenges that the Church faced in the period. It considers how the Church dealt with political confrontation initiated by (and against) successive Stuart monarchs, political leaders, and ecclesiastical authorities; explores the Church's ability to evolve across the seventeenth century, taking in particular account pastoral care in the parishes, preaching, and material culture; and assesses the Church of England's relationship with other Christian sects across the three kingdoms, including Catholics, Presbyterians, and Independents, and others. Specific issues discussed include the drive to enhance the 'beauty of holiness' during Charles I's personal rule; the abolition of bishops, ejection of clergymen and the replacement of the Book of Common Prayer with the Directory of Worship; the trial of the Seven Bishops on the eve of the Glorious Revolution of 1688; the increasingly loud calls for liberty of conscience among dissenters and Catholics; and much more. Overall, the book discusses how the Church responded to such challenges across the seventeenth century, and provides a broad and in-depth analysis at local and national level of this important period in its history.

Inhalt

List of Contributors List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Note on the Text Introduction Eilish Gregory 1. The Changing Lot of 'Court Bishops' in the Seventeenth Century, Andrew Foster 2. In Support of the Humble Curate: An Exploration of the Work of England's Early Modern Curates (1603-1642), Anne Le Baigue 3. Thomas Scott and Joseph Mede Confront the Crisis of the Early 1620s, Peter Lake 4. Archipelagic interactions: 'British' Protestant Texts and People under the Early Stuarts, Anthony Milton 5. 'Two Shillings, Nine Pence': The Politics of Clerical Maintenance in London, c. 1630-1660, Isaac Stephens 6. 'The Mountaines did serve for their Refuge': 1650s Wales as a Refuge for Episcopalian Clergy, Sarah Ward Clavier 7. 'The greatest Novelty and Schisme in the World is not to be Tolerated': Popery, Catholicism and the Restoration Church, Eilish Gregory 8. Whigs, Tories and the Murder of Richard Habin, 1682, Matthew Reynolds 9. Prelate as Pastor? Archbishop William Sancroft and the Later Stuart Episcopate, Grant Tapsell