History of the Puritans under Charles I
Encyclopedia
Under Charles I of England
, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative
became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England
moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Roman Catholic influence both at Court and (as they saw it) within the Church.
After the First English Civil War
political power was held by various factions of Puritans. The trials and executions of William Laud
and then King Charles himself were decisive moves shaping British history. While in the short term Puritan power was consolidated by the Parliamentary armed forces and Oliver Cromwell
, in the same years, the argument for theocracy
failed to convince enough of the various groupings, and there was no Puritan religious settlement to match Cromwell's gradual assumption of dictatorial powers. The distinctive formulation of Reformed theology in the Westminster Assembly
would prove to be its lasting legacy.
In New England
, immigration of what were Puritan family groups and congregations was at its peak for the period in the middle years of King Charles's reign.
in the Church of England became the movement directly opposed by Puritans (clergy and laymen), there was a growing confrontation between Puritanism and "Arminians", a term less easy to define in an English context. Arminians in this sense were moderates on, or even opposed to, some key tenets of Calvinism
. In the same period the Twelve Years' Truce
ended, and the Thirty Years' War
broke out, changing the international situation in Western Europe drastically.
James I of England
generally supported the Counter-Remonstrant position against the Dutch Arminians (see History of Calvinist–Arminian debate). In fact James had contributed to the hounding of Conrad Vorstius
, and sent a strong delegation to the Synod of Dort
, making it an important international Protestant council and underlining the condemnation of Vorstius (successor to Jacobus Arminius
) as a heretic. It was only in the period of the proposed Spanish match
that James tried to adopt a less anti-Catholic approach, offending many Puritan figures in so doing. "Arminian
" in English usage was not such a precise theological term, in fact, and James's views allowed for some diversity.
Charles, Prince of Wales, became king on the death of his father James I in 1625. Charles was distrustful of Puritans, who began defining themselves against "Arminian" moderates on church and foreigh policy, simply as an opposition group, believing as he did in the Divine Right of Kings
and lacking his father's deftness in these matters. Charles had no particular interest in theological questions, but preferred the emphasis on order, decorum, uniformity, and spectacle in Christian worship. Whereas James had supported the Canons of the Synod of Dort, Charles forbade preaching on the subject of predestination
altogether. Where James had been lenient towards clergy who omitted parts of the Book of Common Prayer
, Charles urged the bishops to enforce compliance with the Prayer Book, and to suspend ministers who refused.
Besides George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
, Charles's closest political advisor was William Laud
, the Bishop of St David's
, whom Charles translated
to the better position of Bishop of Bath and Wells
in 1626. Under Laud's influence, Charles shifted the royal ecclesiastical policy markedly.
, the Catholic daughter of Henry IV of France
. In diplomatic terms this implied alliance with France in preparation for war against Spain, but Puritan MPs openly claimed that Charles was preparing to restrict the recusancy
laws. The king had indeed agreed to do so in the secret marriage treaty he negotiated with Louis XIII of France
.
George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury
from 1611, was in the mainstream of the English church, sympathetic with Scottish Protestants, anti-Catholic in a conventional Calvinist way, and theologically opposed to Arminianism. Under Elizabeth I he had associated with Puritan figures. The controversy over Richard Montagu
's anti-Calvinist New Gagg was still open when Parliament met in May 1625. Puritan MP John Pym
launched an attack on Richard Montagu in the House of Commons. As a response, Montagu wrote a pamphlet entitled Appello Caesarem (Latin
"I Appeal to Caesar") (a reference to Acts 25:10–12), in which he appealed to Charles to protect him against the Puritans. Charles responded by making Montagu a royal chaplain, signaling that he was willing to defend Montagu against Puritan opposition.
The Parliament was reluctant to grant Charles revenue, since they feared that it might be used to support an army that would re-impose Catholicism on England. The 1625 Parliament broke the precedent of centuries and voted to allow Charles to collect Tonnage and Poundage
only for one year. When Charles wanted to intervene in the Thirty Years' War by declaring war on Spain (the Anglo-Spanish War (1625)), Parliament granted him an insufficient sum of £140,000. The war with Spain went ahead (partially funded by tonnage and poundage collected by Charles after he was no longer authorized to do so). Buckingham was put in charge of the war effort, but failed.
The York House conference of 1626 saw battle lines start to be drawn up. Opponents cast doubt on the political loyalties of the Puritans, equating their beliefs with resistance theory. In their preaching, Arminians began to take a royalist line. Abbot was deprived of effective power in 1627, in a quarrel with the king over Robert Sibthorpe
, one such royalist cleric. Richard Montagu was made Bishop of Chichester
in 1628.
The Anglo-French War (1627–1629) was also a military failure. Parliament called for Buckingham's replacement, but Charles stuck by him. Parliament went on to pass the Petition of Right
, a declaration of Parliament's rights. Charles accepted the Petition, though this did not lead to a change in his behaviour.
, the Speaker of the House of Commons
, was held down in the Speaker's Chair in order to allow the House to pass a resolution condemning the king.
Charles determined to rule without calling a parliament, thus initiating the period known as his Personal Rule
(1629–1640). This period saw the ascendancy of Laudianism in England.
. Many of the churches in England had fallen into disrepair in the wake of the English Reformation, especially in Puritan areas, since Puritans believed it was superstitious to attempt to beautify church buildings. Laudianism, however, called for making churches beautiful. Churches were ordered to make repairs and to enforce greater respect for the church building. A policy particularly odious to the Puritans was the installation of altar rails
in churches, which Puritans associated with the Catholic position on transubstantiation
(the idea that Christ becomes physically present in the consecrated host): in Catholic practice, altar rails served to physically demarcate the space where Christ became incarnate in the host and only priests
, acolytes, and altar boys
were allowed inside the altar rail. Since the Puritans rejected the idea of transubstantiation, and professed the priesthood of all believers
, they objected to creating a physical space in the church where only priests could go. Further, they argued that the practice of receiving communion while kneeling at the rail too much resembled Catholic Eucharistic adoration
, which they felt was a form of idolatry
(since it involved offering the honour due to God to a piece of bread). The Laudians insisted on enforcing kneeling at communion and receiving at the rail, though they denied that this involved accepting the Catholic position on these points.
Puritans also objected to the Laudian insistence on calling members of the clergy
"priests". In their minds, the word "priest" meant "someone who offers a sacrifice
", and was therefore highly related in their minds to the Roman Catholic teaching that during the celebration of the Eucharist
, a priest offers Christ (in the form of the communion wafer following transubstantiation) as a sacrifice. After the Reformation, the term "minister" (meaning "one who serves") was generally adopted by Protestants to describe their clergy. When the Laudians insisted on being called "priests", the Puritans were therefore highly critical, and therefore argued in favor of using the word "minister", or else simply transliterating the Koine Greek
word presbyter
used in the New Testament
without translating it at all.
The Puritans were also dismayed when the Laudians insisted on the importance of keeping Lent
, a practice which had been enforced by the government during Catholic times (it was, for example, a crime to eat meat during Lent), but which had fallen into disfavor in England after the Reformation. Although the Laudians did not advocate legislation to enforce Lent, they themselves engaged in fasting
during Lent and encouraged others to do likewise. Many Puritans therefore argued that the Laudians were thereby re-introducing a superstitious Catholic practice into the Church of England. Rather than observing seasonal fasts, Puritans favored fast days specifically called by the church or the government in response to the problems of the day, rather than fast days dictated by the ecclesiastical calendar.
Some Puritans began considering founding their own colony where they could worship in a fully reformed church, far from King Charles and the bishops. This was a quite distinct view of the church from that held by the Separatists of Plymouth Colony
. John Winthrop
, a lawyer who had practiced in the Court of Wards, began to explore the idea of creating a Puritan colony in New England
. The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony had proved that such a colony was viable.
In 1627, the existing Dorchester Company for New England
colonial expansion went bankrupt, but was succeeded by the New England Company (the membership of the Dorchester and New England Companies overlapped). Throughout 1628 and 1629, Puritans in Winthrop's social circle discussed the possibility of moving to New England. The New England Company sought clearer title to the New England land of the proposed settlement than was provided by the Sheffield Patent
, and in March 1629 succeeded in obtaining from King Charles a royal charter
changing the name of the company to the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England and granting them the land to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony
. The royal charter establishing the Massachusetts Bay Company had not specified where the company's annual meeting should be held; this raised the possibility that the governor of the company could move to the new colony and serve as governor of the colony, while the general court of the company could be transformed into the colony's legislative assembly. John Winthrop participated in these discussions and in March 1629, signed the Cambridge Agreement, by which the non-emigrating shareholders of the company agreed to turn over control of the company to the emigrating shareholders. As Winthrop was the wealthiest of the emigrating shareholders, the company decided to make him governor, and entrusted him with the company charter.
Winthrop sailed for New England in 1630 along with 700 colonists on board eleven ships known collectively as the Winthrop Fleet
. Winthrop himself sailed on board the Arbella
. During the crossing, he preached a sermon entitled "A Model of Christian Charity", in which he called on his fellow settlers to make their new colony a City upon a Hill
, meaning that they would be a model to all the nations of Europe as to what a properly reformed Christian commonwealth should look like. The context in 1630 was that the Thirty Years' War
was going badly for the Protestants, and Catholicism was being restored in lands previously reformed – e.g. by the 1629 Edict of Restitution
.
Emigration was officially restricted to conforming churchmen in December 1634 by the Privy Council.
to root out Puritan clergy. The 1630s saw a renewed concern by bishops of the Church of England to enforce uniformity in the church, by ensuring strict compliance with the style of worship set out in the Book of Common Prayer. The Court of High Commission
came to be the primary means for disciplining Puritan clergy who refused to conform. Unlike regular courts, in the Court of High Commission, there was no right against self-incrimination
, and the Court could compel testimony.
Some bishops went further than the Book of Common Prayer, and required their clergy to conform to levels of extra ceremonialism. As noted above, the introduction of altar rails
to churches was the most controversial such requirement. Puritans were also dismayed by the re-introduction of images (e.g. stained glass windows
) to churches which had been without religious images since the iconoclasm
of the Reformation.
The ejection of non-conforming Puritan ministers from the Church of England in the 1630s provoked a reaction. controversy. Puritan laymen spoke out against Charles's policies, with the bishops the main focus of Puritan ire. The first, and most famous, critic of the Caroline regime was William Prynne
. In the late 1620s and early 1630s, Prynne had authored a number of works denouncing the spread of Arminianism in the Church of England, and was also opposed to Charles's marrying a Catholic. Prynne became a critic of morals at court.
Prynne was also a critic of societal morals more generally. Echoing John Chrysostom
's criticism of the stage, Prynne penned a book, Histriomastix
, in which he denounced the stage in vehement terms for its promotion of lascivious
ness. The book, which represents the highest point of the Puritans' attack on the English Renaissance theatre
, attacked the stage as promoting lewdness. Unfortunately for Prynne, his book appeared at about the same time that Henrietta Maria became the first royal to ever perform in a masque
, Walter Montagu
's The Shepherd's Paradise
, in January 1633. Histriomastix was widely read as a Puritan attack on the queen's morality. Shortly after becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud prosecuted Prynne in the Court of Star Chamber
on a charge of seditious libel
. Unlike the common law
courts, Star Chamber was allowed to order any punishment short of the death penalty, including torture
, for crimes which were founded on equity, not on law. Seditious libel was one of the "equitable crimes" which were prosecuted in the Star Chamber. Prynne was flound guilty and sentenced to imprisonment, a £5000 fine, and the removal of part of his ears.
Prynne continued to publish from prison, and in 1637, he was tried before Star Chamber a second time. This time, Star Chamber ordered that the rest of Prynne's ears be cut off, and that he should be branded
with the letters S L for "seditious libeller". (Prynne would maintain that the letters really stood for stigmata Laudis (the marks of Laud).) At the same trial, Star Chamber also ordered that two other critics of the regime should have their ears cut off for writing against Laudianism: John Bastwick
, a physician who wrote anti-episcopal pamphlets; and Henry Burton
.
A year later, the trio of "martyrs" were joined by a fourth, John Lilburne
, who had studied under John Bastwick. Since 1632, it had been illegal to publish or import works of literature not licensed by the Stationers' Company
, and this allowed the government to view and censor any work prior to publication). Over the course of the 1630s, it became common for Puritans to have their works published in Amsterdam
and then smuggled into England. In 1638, Lilburne was prosecuted in Star Chamber for importing religious works critical of Laudianism from Amsterdam. Lilburne thus began a course which would see him later hailed as "Freeborn John" and as the pre-eminent champion of "English liberties". In Star Chamber, he refused to plead to the charges against him on the grounds that the charges had been presented to him only in Latin
. The court then threw him in prison and again brought him back to court and demanded a plea. Again, Lilburne demanded to hear in English
the charges brought against him. The authorities then resorted to flogging him with a three-thonged whip on his bare back, as he was dragged by his hands tied to the rear of an oxcart
from Fleet Prison
to the pillory
at Westminster
. He was then forced to stoop in the pillory where he still managed to distributing unlicensed literature to the crowds. He was then gagged. Finally he was thrown in prison. He was taken back to the court and again imprisoned.
Beginning in 1625, a group of Puritan lawyers, merchants, and clergymen (including Richard Sibbes
and John Davenport) organized an organization known as the Feoffees for the Purchase of Impropriations. The feoffees would raise funds to purchase lay impropriations and advowsons, which would mean that the feoffees would then have the legal right to appoint their chosen candidates to benefices and lectureships. Thus, this provided a mechanism both for increasing the number of preaching ministers in the country, and a way to ensure that Puritans could receive ecclesiastical appointments.
In 1630, Peter Heylin
, a Magdalen
don
, preached a sermon in St Mary's
denouncing the Feoffees for Impropriations for sowing tares among the wheat. As a result of the publicity, William Noy
began to prosecute feoffees in the Exchequer court
. The feoffees' defense was that all of the men they had had appointed to office conformed to the Church of England. Nevertheless in 1632, the Feoffees for Impropriations were dissolved and the group's assets forfeited to the crown: Charles ordered that the money should be used to augment the salary of incumbents
and used for other pious uses not controlled by the Puritans.
, John Spottiswoode
, was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland
. Presbyterian opposition to Charles reached a new height of intensity in 1637, when Charles attempted to impose a version of the Book of Common Prayer on the Church of Scotland. Although this book was drawn up by a panel of Scottish bishops, it was widely seen as an English import and denounced as Laud's Liturgy. What was worse, where the Scottish prayer book differed from the English, it seemed to be re-introducing old errors which had not yet been re-introduced in England. As a result, when the newly appointed Bishop of Edinburgh
, David Lindsay
, rose to read the new liturgy in St. Giles' Cathedral
, Jenny Geddes
, a member of the congregation, threw her stool at Lindsay, thus setting off the Prayer Book Riot.
The Scottish prayer book was deeply unpopular with Scottish noblemen and gentry, not only on religious grounds, but also for nationalist reasons: Knox's Book of Common Order had been adopted as the liturgy of the national church by the Parliament of Scotland
, whereas the Scottish parliament was not consulted in 1637 and the new prayer book imposed solely on the basis of Charles' alleged royal supremacy in the church, a doctrine which had never been accepted by either the Church or Parliament of Scotland. A number of leading noblemen drew up a document known as the National Covenant in February 1638. Those who subscribed to the National Covenant are known as Covenanters. Later that year, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
ejected the bishops from the church.
In response to this challenge to his authority, Charles raised an army and marched on Scotland in the "First Bishops' War" (1639). The English Puritans – who had a longstanding opposition to the bishops (which had reached new heights in the wake of the Prynne, Burton, Bastwick, and Lilburne cases) – were deeply dismayed that the king was now waging a war to maintain the office of bishop. The First Bishops' War ended in a stalemate, since both sides lacked sufficient resources to defeat their opponents (in Charles' case, this was because he did not have enough revenues to wage a war since he had not called a Parliament since 1629), which led to the signing of the Treaty of Berwick (1639)
.
Charles intended to break the Treaty of Berwick at the next opportunity, and upon returning to London, began preparations for calling a Parliament that could pass new taxes to fund a war against the Scots and to re-establish episcopacy in Scotland. This Parliament – known as the Short Parliament
because it only lasted three weeks – met in 1640. Unfortunately for Charles, many Puritan members were elected to the Parliament, and two critics of royal policies, John Pym
and John Hampden
, emerged as loud critics of the king in the Parliament. These members insisted that Parliament had an ancient right to demand the redress of grievances and insisted that the nation's grievances with the past ten years of royal policies should be dealt with before Parliament granted Charles the taxes that he wanted. Frustrated, Charles dissolved Parliament three weeks after it opened.
In Scotland, the rebellious spirit continued to grow in strength. Following the signing of the Treaty of Berwick, the General Assembly of Scotland met in Edinburgh and confirmed the abolition of episcopacy in Scotland, and then went even further and declared that all episcopacy was contrary to the Word of God
. When the Scottish Parliament met later in the year, it confirmed the Church of Scotland's position. The Scottish Covenanters now determined that Presbyterianism could never be confidently re-established in Scotland so long as episcopacy remained the order of the day in England. They therefore determined to invade England to help bring about the abolition of episcopacy. At the same time, the Scots (who had many contacts among the English Puritans) learned that the king was intending to break the Treaty of Berwick and make a second attempt at invading Scotland. When the Short Parliament was dissolved without having granted Charles the money he requested, the Covenanters determined that the time was ripe to launch a preemptive strike
against English invasion. As such, in August 1640, the Scottish troops marched into northern England, beginning the "Second Bishops' War". Catching the king unawares, the Scots gained a major victory at the Battle of Newburn
. The Scottish Covenanters thus occupied the northern counties of England and imposed a large fine of £850 a day on the king until a treaty could be signed. Believing that the king was not trustworthy, the Scottish insisted that the Parliament of England be a part of any peace negotiations. Bankrupted by the Second Bishops' War, Charles had little choice but to call a Parliament to grant new taxes to pay off the Scots. He therefore reluctantly called a Parliament which would not be finally dissolved until 1660, the Long Parliament
.
The Convocation of the English Clergy
traditionally met whenever Parliament met, and was then dissolved whenever Parliament was dissolved. In 1640, however, Charles ordered Convocation to continue sitting even after he dissolved the Short Parliament because the Convocation had not yet passed the canons
which Charles had had Archbishop Laud draw up and which confirmed the Laudian church policies as the official policies of the Church of England. Convocation dutifully passed these canons in late May 1640.
The preamble to the canons claims that the canons are not innovating in the church, but are rather restoring ceremonies from the time of Edward VI and Elizabeth I which had fallen into disuse. The first canon asserted that the king ruled by divine right
; that the doctrine of Royal Supremacy was required by divine law
; and that taxes were due to the king "by the law of God, nature, and nations." This canon led many MPs to conclude that Charles and the Laudian clergy were attempting to use the Church of England as a way to establish an absolute monarchy
in England, and felt that this represented unwarranted clerical interference in the recent dispute between Parliament and the king over ship money
.
Canons against popery and Socinianism
were uncontroversial, but the canon against the sectaries was quite controversial because it was clearly aimed squarely at the Puritans. This canon condemned anyone who did not regularly attend service in their parish church
or who attended only the sermon
, not the full Prayer Book service. It went on to condemn anyone who wrote books critical of the discipline and government of the Church of England.
Finally, and most controversially, the Canons imposed an oath, known to history as the Et Cetera Oath, to be taken by every clergyman, every Master of Arts
not the son of a nobleman, all who had taken a degree in divinity
, law
, or physic
, all registrars of the Consistory Court
and Chancery Court
, all actuaries, proctor
s and schoolmasters, all persons incorporated from foreign universities, and all candidates for ordination
. The oath read
The Puritans were furious. They attacked the Canons of 1640 as unconstitutional, claiming that Convocation was no longer legally in session after Parliament was dissolved. The campaign to enforce the Et Cetera Oath met with firm Puritan resistance, organized in London by Cornelius Burges
, Edmund Calamy the Elder
, and John Goodwin
. The imposition of the Et Cetera Oath also resulted in the Puritans' pro-Scottish sympathies becoming even more widespread, and there were rumours – possible but never proven – that Puritan leaders were in treasonable communication with the Scottish during this period. Many Puritans refused to read the prayer for victory against the Scottish which they had been ordered to read.
The elections to the Long Parliament in November 1640 produced a Parliament which was even more dominated by Puritans than the Short Parliament had been. Parliament's first order of business was therefore to move against Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
, who had served as Charles' Lord Deputy of Ireland
since 1632. In the wake of the Second Bishops' War, Strafford had been raising an Irish
Catholic army in Ireland
which could be deployed against the Scottish Covenanters. Puritans were appalled that an army of Irish Catholics (whom they hated) would be deployed by the crown against the Scottish Presbyterians (whom they loved), and many English Protestants who were not particularly puritanical shared the sentiment. Having learned that Parliament intended to impeach him, Strafford presented the king with evidence of treasonable communications between Puritans in Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. Nevertheless, through deft political manoeuvering, John Pym
, along with Oliver St John
and Lord Saye
, managed to quickly have Parliament impeach Strafford on charges of high treason
and Strafford was arrested. At his trial before the House of Lords
, begun in January 1641, prosecutors argued that Strafford intended to use the Irish Catholic army against English Protestants. Strafford responded that the army was intended to be used against the rebellious Scots. Strafford was ultimately acquitted in April 1641 on the grounds that his actions did not amount to high treason. As a result, Puritan opponents of Strafford launched a bill of attainder
against Strafford in the House of Commons; in the wake of a revolt by the army, which had not been paid in months, the House of Lords also passed the bill of attainder, and Charles, worried that the army would revolt further if they were not paid, and that the army would never be paid until Parliament granted funds, and that Parliament would not grant funds without Strafford's death, signed the bill of attainder in May 1641. Strafford was executed before a crowd of 200,000 on 12 May 1641.
The Puritans took advantage of the mood of the Parliament and of the public and organized the Root and Branch Petition, so called because it called for the abolition of episcopacy "root and branch". The Root and Branch Petition was signed by 15,000 Londoners and presented to Parliament by a crowd of 1,500 on 11 December 1640. The Root and Branch Petition detailed many of the Puritans' grievances with Charles and the bishops. It complained that the bishops had silenced many godly ministers and made ministers afraid to instruct the people about "the doctrine of predestination
, of free grace, of perseverance
, of original sin
remaining after baptism
, of the sabbath, the doctrine against universal grace, election for faith foreseen
, freewill against Antichrist
, non-residents (ministers who did not live in their parishes), human inventions in God's worship". The Petition condemned the practice of bestowing temporal power on bishops and the encouraging of ministers to disregard the temporal authority. The Petition condemned the regime for suppressing godly books while allowing the publication of popish, Arminian, and lewd books (such as Ovid
's Ars Amatoria
and the ballads of Martin Parker
). The Petition also hit on several of the Puritans' routine complaints: the Book of Sports, the placing of communion tables altar-wise, the church beautification scheme, the imposing of oaths, the influence of Catholics and Arminians at court, and the abuse of excommunication
by the bishops.
In December 1640, the month after it impeached Strafford, Parliament had also impeached Archbishop Laud on charges of high treason. He was accused of subverting true religion, assuming pope
-like powers, attempting to reconcile the Church of England with the Roman Catholic Church, of persecuting godly preachers, of ruining the Church of England's relations with the Reformed churches
on the Continent, of promoting the war with Scotland, and with a variety of other offenses. During this debate, Harbottle Grimston famously called Laud "the roote and ground of all our miseries and calamities … the sty of all pestilential filth that hath infected the State and Government." Unlike Strafford, however, Laud's enemies did not move quickly to secure his execution, and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London
in February 1641.
In March 1641, the House of Commons passed the Bishops Exclusion Bill
, which would have prevented the bishops from taking their seats in the House of Lords
. The House of Lords, however, rejected this bill.
In May 1641, Henry Vane the Younger
and Oliver Cromwell
introduced the Root and Branch Bill, which had been drafted by Oliver St John
and which was designed to root out episcopacy in England "root and branch" along the lines advocated in the Root and Branch Petition. Many moderate MPs, such as Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland
and Edward Hyde
, were dismayed: although they believed that Charles and Laud had gone too far in the 1630s, they were not prepared to abolish episcopacy. The debate over the Root and Branch Bill was intense – the Bill was finally rejected in August 1641. The division of MPs over this bill would form the basic division of MPs in the subsequent war, with those who favoured the Root and Branch Bill becoming Roundheads and those who defended the bishops becoming Cavaliers.
Unsurprisingly the debate surrounding the Root and Branch Bill occasioned a lively pamphlet controversy. Joseph Hall, the Bishop of Exeter
, wrote a spirited defense of episcopacy entitled An Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament. This drew forth a response from five Puritan authors, who wrote under the name Smectymnuus
, an acronym based on the their names (Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy
, Thomas Young
, Matthew Newcomen
, and William Spurstow
). Smectymnuus's first pamphlet, An Answer to a booke entituled, An Humble Remonstrance. In Which, the Original of Liturgy and Episcopacy is Discussed, was published in March 1641. It is believed that one of Thomas Young's former students, John Milton
, wrote the postscript to the reply. (Milton published several anti-episcopal pamphlets in 1640–41). A prolonged series of answers and counter-answers followed.
Worried that the king would again quickly dissolve Parliament without redressing the nation's grievances, John Pym
pushed through an Act against Dissolving Parliament without its own Consent; desperately in need of money, Charles had little choice but to consent to the Act. The Long Parliament then sought to undo the more unpopular aspects of the past eleven years. Star Chamber, which had been used to silence Puritan laymen, was abolished in July 1641. The Court of High Commission was also abolished at this time. Parliament ordered Prynne, Burton, Bastwick, and Lilburne released from prison, and they returned to London in triumph.
In October 1641, Irish Catholic gentry launched the Irish Rebellion of 1641
, throwing off English domination and creating Confederate Ireland
. English parliamentarians were terrified that an Irish army might rise to massacre English Protestants. In this atmosphere, in November 1641, Parliament passed the Grand Remonstrance
, detailing over 200 points which Parliament felt that the king had acted illegally in the course of the Personal Rule. The Grand Remonstrance marked a second moment at which a number of the more moderate, non-Puritan members of Parliament (e.g. Viscount Falkland
and Edward Hyde
) felt that Parliament had gone too far in its denunciations of the king and was showing too much sympathy for the rebellious Scots.
When the bishops attempted to take their seats in the House of Lords in late 1641, a pro-Puritan, anti-episcopal mob, probably organized by John Pym
, prevented them from doing so. The Bishops Exclusion Bill
was re-introduced in December 1641, and this time, the mood of the country was such that neither the House of Lords nor Charles felt strong enough to reject the bill. The Bishops Exclusion Act prevented those in holy orders
from exercising any temporal
jurisdiction or authority after 5 February 1642; this extended to taking a seat in Parliament or membership of the Privy Council
. Any acts carried out with such authority after that date by a member of the clergy were to be considered void.
In this period, Charles became increasingly convinced that a number of Puritan-influenced members of Parliament had treasonously encouraged the Scottish Covenanters to invade England in 1640, leading to the Second Bishops' War. As such, when he heard that they were planning to impeach the Queen
for participation in Catholic plots, he determined to arrest Lord Mandeville
as well as five MPs, known to history as the Five Members: John Pym
, John Hampden
, Denzil Holles
, Sir Arthur Haselrig
, and William Strode
. Charles famously entered the House of Commons personally on 4 January 1642, but the members had already fled.
Following his failed attempt to arrest the Five Members, Charles realized that he was not only immensely unpopular among parliamentarians, he was also in danger of London's pro-Puritan, anti-episcopal, and increasingly anti-royal mob
. As such, he and his family retreated to Oxford
and invited all loyal parliamentarians to join him. He began raising an army under George Goring, Lord Goring
.
Puritans in Parliament were now in a sticky situation: on the one hand, they wanted to raise an army to defend England against the Irish Catholics who were rebelling; on the other hand, they were worried that the king could not be trusted and that if he were given control of the army, he would use it against the Scots, not the Irish. To avoid this problem, Parliament began appointing Lord Lieutenants, a function traditionally done only by the king. Then, Parliament passed a Militia Ordinance
which raised a militia, but provided that the militia should be controlled by Parliament. The king, of course, refused to sign this bill. A major split between Parliament and the king occurred on 15 March 1642, when Parliament declared that "the People are bound by the Ordinance for the Militia, though it has not received the Royal Assent
", the first time a Parliament had declared its acts to operate without receiving royal assent. Under these circumstances, the political nation began to divide itself into Roundheads and Cavaliers. The first clash between the royalists and the parliamentarians came in the April 1642 Siege of Hull
, which began when the military governor appointed by Parliament, Sir John Hotham refused to allow Charles' forces access to military material in Kingston upon Hull
. In August, the king officially raised his standard at Nottingham
and the First English Civil War
was underway.
In 1642, the most ardent defenders of episcopacy in the Long Parliament
left to join King Charles on the battlefield. However, although Civil War was beginning, Parliament was initially reluctant to pass legislation without it receiving royal assent
. Thus, between June 1642 and May 1643, Parliament passed legislation providing for a religious assembly five times, but these bills did not receive royal assent and thus died. By June 1643, however, Parliament was willing to defy the king and call a religious assembly without the king's assent. This assembly, the Westminster Assembly
, had its first meeting in the Henry VII Lady Chapel
of Westminster Abbey
on 1 July 1643. (In later sessions, the Assembly would meet in the Jerusalem Chamber.)
The Assembly was charged with drawing up a new liturgy
to replace the Book of Common Prayer
and with determining what manner of church polity was appropriate for the Church of England. In both cases, it was assumed that the Westminster Assembly would only make recommendations and that Parliament would have the final word.
The Long Parliament appointed 121 divines to the Westminster Assembly (at the time "divine", i.e. theologian, was used as a synonym for "clergyman"). Of these, approximately 25 never showed up – mainly because King Charles ordered all loyal subjects not to participate in the Assembly. To replace the divines who had failed to show up, Parliament later added 21 additional divines, known as the "Superadded Divines". The Assembly also included 30 lay assessors (10 nobles and 20 commoners). Although the Westminster Divines were mainly Puritan, they were broadly representative of all positions (except Laudianism) then on offer in the Church of England.
For its first ten weeks, the Westminster Assembly's only task was to revise the Thirty-Nine Articles
. However, in summer 1643, shortly after the calling of the Westminster Assembly, the Parliamentary forces, under the leadership of John Pym
and Henry Vane the Younger
concluded an agreement with the Scots known as the Solemn League and Covenant
. As noted above, one of the main reasons why the Scots had launched the Second Bishops War in 1640 was because they hoped to bring about an end to episcopacy in England. They therefore insisted as a term of the agreement that the English agree to fight to extirpate "popery and prelacy". Since the Puritans were also interested in fighting these things, they readily agreed, and the Long Parliament agreed to swear to the Scottish National Covenant. Six Commissioners representing the Church of Scotland
were now sent to attend the Westminster Assembly and on 12 October 1643, the Long Parliament ordered the Assembly to "confer and treat among themselves of such a discipline and government as may be most agreeable to God's holy word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland and other Reformed Churches abroad."
Many issues divided the groups from each other:
observed that "those that hated the bishops hated them worse than the devil
and those that loved them loved them not so well as their dinner."
Upon their arrival, the Scottish Commissioners – Alexander Henderson
, George Gillespie
, Samuel Rutherford
, and Robert Baillie
– organized a campaign to have the Church of England adopt a presbyterian system similar to the Church of Scotland
. It initially appeared that the Scottish Commissioners might be able to push through their presbyterian scheme with only minimal resistance.
However, in February 1644, five members of the Assembly – known to history as the Five Dissenting Brethren – published a pamphlet entitled "An Apologetical Narration, humbly submitted to the Honorable Houses of Parliament, by Thomas Goodwin
, Philip Nye
, Sidrach Simpson
, Jeremiah Burroughs
, & William Bridge
." This publication laid out the case for the Independent
position forcefully, and made it impossible for the Scottish Commissioners to succeed in quickly creating an amicable consensus around the presbyterian position. Instead, in 1644, the Westminster Assembly became the sight of a series of heated debate between the Presbyterians and the Independents.
The Independents were the party most committed to experimental predestinariaism, the position that one can have assurance of election in this life. Experimental predestinarians tended to undergo dramatic conversion experiences. With the rise of experimental predestinarianism, there was a concomitant call among some of the godly for gathered churches. Unlike the Church of England – which theoretically encompassed everybody in England – a gathered church was made up only of those who had undergone a conversion experience. Following the suppression of Separatism in the late Elizabethan period, calls for gathered churches could only be whispered about. However, the social process of separating "the godly" from the rest of the congregation continued throughout the early seventeenth century. When the Puritans in New England set up their own congregations, in order to be admitted to the church, one had to be examined by the elders of the church, and then make a public profession of faith before the assembled congregation before being admitted to membership. The Independents supported the New England way and argued for its adoption in England. The result would be a situation where not all English people would be members of the church, but only those who had undergone a conversion experience and made a public confession of faith. Under these circumstances, one of the major reasons why the Independents favored congregational polity was that they argued that only other godly members of the congregation could identify who else was elect. The Independents condemned the suppression of the Separatists – why should the state be used to suppress the godly? They accused the Presbyterian party of wanting to continued the barbarous, "popish" persecutions of the Laudian bishops. For the first time, the Independents began to advocate a theory of religious liberty. Since they saw only a small minority of the community as actually "saved", they argued that it made no sense to have a uniform national church. Rather, each gathered church should be free to organize itself as it saw fit. They were therefore opposed not only to the Book of Common Prayer, but also to any attempt to reform the liturgy – they argued that in fact there shouldn't be any national liturgy at all, but that each minister and each congregation should be free to worship God in the way they saw fit.
The Presbyterians responded that the Independents were engaged in faction. The Presbyterians were Calvinists just like the Independents, but they spoke of predestination in a different way than the Independents. Some argued that England was an elect nation, that divine providence
had chosen England as a special called nation, just as he had chosen the Israelites to be a chosen people
in the Old Testament
. Others argued that, while it is true that God has chosen some as elect and some as reprobate, it is really impossible in this life for any individual to know whether he or she was among the elect, and that life should therefore simply be lived in as close of conformity to the will of God as possible. They certainly did not approve of the Independents who thought that they were the only members of the elect in England: true, many members of the Church of England may have engaged in many open and notorious sins, but for the Presbyterians, that was a sign that the state needed to step in to punish those sins, lest God visit punishments on the nation in the same way that He visited punishments on Old Testament Israel when He found them sinning.
The Independent position was clearly in the minority at the Westminster Assembly – there were, after all, only Five Dissenting Brethren in an Assembly of roughly 120 divines – making it impossible for the Independents in the Assembly to get their position passed.
During the Elizabethan Religious Settlement
, two great Acts of Parliament had established the place of the Church of England in English life (1) the Act of Supremacy
, which declared the monarch to be the Supreme Governor of the Church of England
and which imposed an oath on all subjects requiring them to swear that they recognized the royal supremacy in the church; and (2) the Act of Uniformity
, which established religious uniformity throughout the country by requiring all churches to conduct services according to the Book of Common Prayer
.
The events of the 1640s caused the English legal community to worry that the Westminster Assembly was preparing to illegally alter the church in a way that overrode the Act of Supremacy. As such, John Selden
, arguably the foremost jurist
in England since the death of Edward Coke
in 1634, led a campaign against altering the Church of England in a way that would undermine the Act of Supremacy. Thus, just as the Presbyterian party in the Assembly was dominated by non-members (the Scottish Commissioners), the Erastian party was dominated by Selden and the other lawyers. Selden argued that not only English law, but the Bible itself required that the church be subordinate to the state: he cited the relationship of Zadok
to King David
and Romans 13 in support of this view.
Beginning in April 1645, the Assembly shifted its attention from the Independents Controversy to the Erastian Controversy. Besides John Lightfoot
, the most zealous proponent of the Erastian position was Bulstrode Whitelocke
, one of the MPs serving as a lay assessor to the Assembly. Whitelock maintained that only the state – and not the church – could lawfully exercise the power of excommunication
.
In October 1645, the Scottish Commissioners got their way when the Long Parliament voted in favour of an ordinance erecting a presbyterian form of church government in England. However, they were appalled that the Parliament also adopted the Erastian argument and made any final decision of the church on the question of excommunication appealable from the General Assembly to the Parliament of England
.
This decision provoked protests from the Presbyterian party. The Parliament of Scotland
, worried that the Long Parliament was failing to live up to its commitments under the Solemn League and Covenant, protested the Erastian nature of the ordinance. The ministers of London organized a petition to the Parliament. The Westminster Assembly responded by sending a delegation, led by Stephen Marshall, a fiery preacher who had delivered several sermons to the Long Parliament, to protest the Erastian nature of the ordinance. (Some MPs argued that the Assembly by this action committed a praemunire
and should be punished.) Parliament responded by sending a delegation which included Nathaniel Fiennes
to the Westminster Assembly, along with a list of interrogatories related to the jure divino nature of church government. The Assembly responded by flatly rejecting the Erastian position – with John Lightfoot and Thomas Coleman being the lone members speaking in favour of Erastianism.
The Presbyterian party now initiated a massive public relations campaign and it was during 1646 that many of the major defenses of Presbyterianism were published, beginning with Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici ; or, The Divine Right of Church Government Asserted and Evidenced by the Holy Scriptures. By sundry Ministers of Christ within the City of London, published in December 1646. One of the Scottish Commissioners, Samuel Rutherford
, published a book entitled The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication. A second Scottish Commissioner, George Gillespie
engaged in a pamphlet debate with Coleman: in response to a sermon which Coleman published advocating the Erastian position, Gillespie published A Brotherly Examination of some Passages of Mr. Coleman’s late printed Sermon; Coleman responded with A Brotherly Examination Re-examined; Gillespie responded with Nihil Respondes; Coleman replied with Male Dicis Maledicis; and Gillespie responded with Male Audis. Gillespie also had words for William Prynne
, who had written in favour of the Parliament's ordinance; Prynne was a special target of attack when Gillespie produced his magnum opus, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming; or, The Divine Ordinance of Church Government Vindicated, a work which partially incorporated material from the controversy with Coleman.
The Presbyterian party also used their strength in London to petition the Parliament in favour of their position.
Although in August 1645, Parliament had passed an ordinance expressing its intent to set up elders throughout the country, it had not actually provided how this should be done. On 14 March 1646, Parliament passed the "Ordinance for keeping scandalous persons from the Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper
, for the choice of elders, and for supplying defects in former Ordinances concerning church government." This Ordinance provided mechanisms for selecting elders throughout the country, and generally established a Presbyterian system of church governance for the country. However, this Ordinance again contained an Erastian element. The Ordinance created a new office of "commissioners to judge of scandalous offenses": these commissioners were granted jurisdiction to determine if a "scandalous offense" warranted excommunication and sessions were forbidden from excommunicating any church member without a commissioner first having signed off on the excommunication. The Presbyterian party was furious at the inclusion of the office of commissioner in the act that created Presbyterian polity in England.
The Independent party was angry that Parliament remained in the business of enforcing religious conformity at all. The most famous expression of the Independents' despondency at the Long Parliament's actions was John Milton
's poem "On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament". Milton argued that the Long Parliament was imitating popish tyranny in the church; violating the biblical principle of Christian liberty; and engaging in a course of action that would punish godly men. He concluded the poem with the famous line, "New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large" (a play on words since in English, the word "Priest" emerged as a contraction of the Greek word "Presbyter", but also claiming that the Presbyters under the Long Parliament's plan would be even worse than the Catholic and Laudian priests whom all Puritans abhorred).
Tasked with reforming the English liturgy, the Assembly first considered simply adopting John Knox
's Book of Common Order
, but this possibility was rejected by the Assembly in 1644, and the work of drawing up a new liturgy entrusted to a committee. This committee drafted the Directory of Public Worship
, which was passed by the Westminster Assembly in 1645. Unlike the Book of Common Prayer
, which had contained detailed rubrics regulating in minute detail how clergymen were supposed to conduct service, the Directory of Public Worship is basically a loose agenda for worship, and expected the minister to fill in the details. Under the Directory, the focus of the service was on preaching. The service opened with a reading of a passage from the Bible
; followed by an opening prayer (selected or composed by the minister, or offered extemporaneously by the minister); followed by a sermon
; and then ended with a closing prayer. The Directory provides guidelines as to what the prayers and sermon ought to contain, but does not contain any set forms of prayers. The Directory encouraged the public singing of psalms
, but left it to the minister's discretion which psalms should be used in the service and where in the service (contrast this with the Book of Common Prayer, which set out the precise order for singing psalms for every day of the year in a way that ensured that the entire Book of Psalms is sung once a month). The sections dealing with baptism
, communion
, marriage
, funerals, days of public fasting
and days of public thanksgiving
all have a similar character.
In 1643, the Long Parliament had ordered the Westminster Assembly to draw up a new Confession of Faith
and a new national catechism
. The result was the production of the Westminster Confession of Faith
and two catechisms, the Westminster Larger Catechism
(designed to be comprehensive) and the Westminster Shorter Catechism
(designed to be easier for children to memorize).
The Long Parliament approved the Directory of Public Worship in 1645. The Westminster Confession was presented to Parliament in 1646, but the House of Commons returned the Confession to the Assembly with the instruction that proof texts from Scripture should be added to the Confession. This version was resubmitted to Parliament in 1648, and, after a long a rigorous debate (during the course of which some chapters and sections approved by the Assembly were deleted), the Confession was ratified by the Long Parliament. The Larger Catechism was completed in 1647, and the Shorter Catechism in 1648, and both received the approval of both the Westminster Assembly and the Long Parliament.
Since the Westminster Standards had been produced under the watchful eye of the Scottish Commissioners at the Westminster Assembly, the Scottish had no problem ratifying the Westminster Standards in order to keep Scotland's commitment to England under the Solemn League and Covenant
. Since the Directory set up a type of ecclesiology already practiced in the Church of Scotland
, it was quickly ratified by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
and then by the Parliament of Scotland
in 1646. The Larger and Shorter Catechisms were ratified by General Assembly in 1648 and the Westminster Confession in 1649. The Westminster Standards are the general standards of the Church of Scotland and of nearly all Presbyterian denominations to this day.
Its work being completed, the Westminster Assembly was dissolved in 1649.
.
Parliamentary forces had initially fared poorly against royalist forces: the first major battle of the war, the Battle of Edgehill
on 23 October 1642, was inconclusive, as was the First Battle of Newbury
of 20 September 1643. As noted above, as a result of their failure to defeat the king on the battlefield, in the wake of the First Battle of Newbury, the Long Parliament decided to enter into an alliance with the Scottish, which resulted in the Solemn League and Covenant
(by which the Long Parliament agreed to establish presbyterianism in England), and with the war being entrusted to a joint committee of Scottish and English known as the Committee of Both Kingdoms
. With the addition of the Scottish forces, the parliamentarians now won a decisive victory at the Battle of Marston Moor
on 2 July 1644.
The most successful parliamentary cavalry
commander had been Oliver Cromwell
, and Cromwell now approached the Committee of Both Kingdoms with a proposal. Cromwell had come to the conclusion that the current military system was untenable because it relied on local militias defending local areas. Cromwell proposed that Parliament create a new army that would be deployable anywhere in the kingdom and not tied to a particular locality. After the Second Battle of Newbury
of 27 October 1644, where parliamentary forces greatly outnumbered royalist forces and yet parliamentary forces were barely able to defeat the royalist forces, Cromwell redoubled his arguments in favor of creating a new army. At this point, most of the leaders in the parliamentary army were Presbyterians who supported the Presbyterians at the Westminster Assembly. Cromwell, however, had also been following the goings-on of the Westminster Assembly and he sided with the Independents. Cromwell thought that the Presbyterians in the army – notably his superior, Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester
– opposed his proposal to create a new and more effective army mainly because they wanted to make peace with the king. He also thought that the army's supreme commander, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex
, shared Manchester's views. Cromwell, however, felt that parliamentary forces should seek total victory over the royalists, and since he distrusted Charles immensely, he felt that Charles should have no role in any post-war government.
Cromwell, who was an MP as well as a military commander, now devised a brilliant way to out-maneuver his enemies in the army. In Parliament, Cromwell suddenly proposed a dramatic way to resolve his differences with Manchester and Essex. On 9 December 1644, Cromwell introduced a bill in Parliament saying that no member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords could retain his position as a military commander while serving as a member of Parliament. Members would have to choose: either resign from Parliament or resign from the army. Cromwell's bill was passed by the House of Commons but rejected by the House of Lords in January 1645, who were worried that this would mean that no nobleman could serve as a commander in the army. To assuage this worry, Cromwell re-introduced his bill with a provision saying that, if Parliament wished, it could re-appoint any parliamentarian who resigned from the army to the army if it so chose. The Lords were ultimately persuaded by Cromwell, and on 13 January 1645 passed this bill, known to history as the Self-denying Ordinance
. At roughly the same time, on 6 January 1645, the Committee of Both Kingdoms finally approved Cromwell's request and authorized the creation of the New Model Army
. In the wake of the Self-denying Ordinance, Essex and Manchester both resigned from the army in order to retain their positions in the House of Lords. Cromwell, instead, resigned from the House of Commons rather than forfeit his position in the army. Thus, when the New Model Army was organized under Sir Thomas Fairfax
, Cromwell was the most senior army commander left in the army. Fairfax therefore leaned on Cromwell as his number-two during the organization of the New Model Army. Cromwell did everything in his power to ensure that no Presbyterians were recruited to the New Model Army, and that Independents were encouraged to join the New Model Army. Cromwell had thus created a situation where the Presbyterians dominated the Long Parliament, but the Independents dominated the New Model Army.
At the Battle of Naseby
on 16 June 1645, the New Model Army achieved a decisive victory over royalist forces. A number of subsequent battles were needed to finally defeat the royalist forces. In May 1646, Charles surrendered himself over to Scottish forces at Southwell, Nottinghamshire
.
So, to summarize the situation as we move into 1647: On the one hand, you have the leaders of the Long Parliament and the Scottish favoring peace with Charles and a restoration of Charles to power as a constitutional monarch, while Oliver Cromwell, the Independent leader of the New Model Army, wants to get rid of Charles. On the other hand, you have the Scottish and the Presbyterian party at the Westminster Assembly pushing for a pure form of Presbyterian polity for the Church of England, while the Long Parliament has enacted a form of presbyterianism which contains Erastian elements which the Westminster Presbyterian party and the Scottish find deeply distasteful. Under these circumstances, the Scottish, and the Presbyterian party at the Westminster Assembly (a party which had been dominated by the Scottish Commissioners) decided to approach the king in order to seek his support against the Independents and the Erastians.
and John Lambert
negotiated with both houses of parliament and eventually the Army and Parliament reached agreement on a set of proposals, known as the Heads of Proposals
, which were presented to Charles in November 1647. The main propositions were
Charles, however, rejected the Heads of Proposals.
Instead, Charles negotiated with a faction of Scottish Covenanters and on 26 December 1647, signed The Engagement
, a secret treaty with the group of Scottish Covenanters who became known as the Engagers. Under the Engagement, Charles agreed that episcopacy should be suppressed in the Church of England, and he agreed to support presbyterianism for three years, after which a permanent solution to the question of the church's polity could be worked out. In exchange, the Engagers agreed to bring an army of 20,000 into England in order to suppress the New Model Army and restore Charles to his throne. This led to the Second English Civil War
. The royalist forces were defeated decisively at the Battle of Preston
on 17–19 August 1648.
The Independents in the Army now argued that the King was *Charles Stuart, that man of blood
" who deserved to be punished, and that the outcome of the First English Civil War had been proof of God's judgment against Charles. Taking up arms after that judgment had been rendered resulted in the shedding of innocent blood. The leaders of the army therefore drafted The Remonstrance of the Army in November 1648, calling on the Long Parliament to execute Charles and to replace hereditary monarchy
in England with an elective monarchy
. When the Long Parliament rejected the Army's Remonstrance, the Army Council decided that they would take decisive action.
On Wednesday 6 December Colonel Thomas Pride’s
Regiment of Foot took up position on the stairs leading to the House. Pride stood at the top of the stairs. As MPs arrived, he checked them against the list provided to him; Lord Grey of Groby
helped to identify those to be arrested and those to be prevented from entering. Pride's Purge
excluded all but about 200 members of the about the 500 member who had been entitled to sit before the purge.
After the Purge, the remaining members (who were sympathetic to the Independent party and the Army Council)—henceforth known as the Rump Parliament
—proceeded to do what the Long Parliament had refused to do: put Charles on trial for high treason
. The House of Commons passed an act on 3 January 1649 creating a High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I
. This Act was rejected by the House of Lords, but the Army insisted that the trial should go ahead anyway. It began on 20 January 1649 in Westminster Hall and ended on 27 January 1649 with a guilty verdict. 59 Commissioners signed Charles' death warrant, and he was subsequently beheaded on 30 January 1649.
The execution of Charles I would be the lens through which the Puritan movement was viewed for generations. For its opponents, the outcome confirmed that Puritanism ultimately led to violent rebellion, and that there was a straight line from religious fanaticism
to regicide. The largest single group of Puritans, the Presbyterians, had in fact opposed the regicide, but to the supporters of the king and of episcopacy, this seemed like too fine a distinction. On the other hand, for many Independents, the regicide was entirely justified: Charles was a man who had been a tyrant
and who defied the will of God and therefore had to be punished.
Literary exchanges over the regicide occurred after royalists published Eikon Basilike
immediately upon Charles's execution. Eikon Basilike purported to be written by Charles during his time in captivity, but was almost certainly ghost-written, likely by John Gauden
. In this book, Charles is presented as a "devout son of the Church of England" who was unjustly hounded by Puritan persecutors and ultimately martyred for defending the Church of England against fanatics. John Milton
, now the most important Independent polemicist, responded later in 1649 in a book he entitled Eikonoklastes
, which was a point-by-point response to Eikon Basilikes flattering portrait of Charles and its unflattering portrait of the Parliamentarians and the Army.
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative
Royal Prerogative
The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy as belonging to the sovereign alone. It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and...
became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Roman Catholic influence both at Court and (as they saw it) within the Church.
After the First English Civil War
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...
political power was held by various factions of Puritans. The trials and executions of William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
and then King Charles himself were decisive moves shaping British history. While in the short term Puritan power was consolidated by the Parliamentary armed forces and Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, in the same years, the argument for theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
failed to convince enough of the various groupings, and there was no Puritan religious settlement to match Cromwell's gradual assumption of dictatorial powers. The distinctive formulation of Reformed theology in the Westminster Assembly
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...
would prove to be its lasting legacy.
In New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, immigration of what were Puritan family groups and congregations was at its peak for the period in the middle years of King Charles's reign.
From the Synod of Dort to the death of Archbishop Abbot (1618-1633)
For around a dozen years, before LaudianismLaudianism
Laudianism was an early seventeenth-century reform movement within the Church of England, promulgated by Archbishop William Laud and his supporters. It rejected the predestination upheld by the previously dominant Calvinism in favour of free will, and hence the possibility of salvation for all men...
in the Church of England became the movement directly opposed by Puritans (clergy and laymen), there was a growing confrontation between Puritanism and "Arminians", a term less easy to define in an English context. Arminians in this sense were moderates on, or even opposed to, some key tenets of Calvinism
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
. In the same period the Twelve Years' Truce
Twelve Years' Truce
The Twelve Years' Truce was the name given to the cessation of hostilities between the Habsburg rulers of Spain and the Southern Netherlands and the Dutch Republic as agreed in Antwerp on 9 April 1609. It was a watershed in the Eighty Years' War, marking the point from which the independence of the...
ended, and the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
broke out, changing the international situation in Western Europe drastically.
James I of England
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
generally supported the Counter-Remonstrant position against the Dutch Arminians (see History of Calvinist–Arminian debate). In fact James had contributed to the hounding of Conrad Vorstius
Conrad Vorstius
Conrad Vorstius was a German-Dutch Protestant Remonstrant theologian, and successor to Jacobus Arminius in the theology chair at Leiden.-Early life:...
, and sent a strong delegation to the Synod of Dort
Synod of Dort
The Synod of Dort was a National Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618-1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy initiated by the rise of Arminianism. The first meeting was on November 13, 1618, and the final meeting, the 154th, was on May 9, 1619...
, making it an important international Protestant council and underlining the condemnation of Vorstius (successor to Jacobus Arminius
Jacobus Arminius
Jacobus Arminius , the Latinized name of the Dutch theologian Jakob Hermanszoon from the Protestant Reformation period, served from 1603 as professor in theology at the University of Leiden...
) as a heretic. It was only in the period of the proposed Spanish match
Spanish Match
The Spanish Match was a proposed marriage between Prince Charles, the son of King James I of England, and Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, the daughter of Philip III of Spain...
that James tried to adopt a less anti-Catholic approach, offending many Puritan figures in so doing. "Arminian
Arminianism in the Church of England
Arminianism in the Church of England was a theological strand or tendency within the clergy of the Church of England particularly evident in the second quarter of the 17th century...
" in English usage was not such a precise theological term, in fact, and James's views allowed for some diversity.
Charles, Prince of Wales, became king on the death of his father James I in 1625. Charles was distrustful of Puritans, who began defining themselves against "Arminian" moderates on church and foreigh policy, simply as an opposition group, believing as he did in the Divine Right of Kings
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
and lacking his father's deftness in these matters. Charles had no particular interest in theological questions, but preferred the emphasis on order, decorum, uniformity, and spectacle in Christian worship. Whereas James had supported the Canons of the Synod of Dort, Charles forbade preaching on the subject of predestination
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
altogether. Where James had been lenient towards clergy who omitted parts of the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
, Charles urged the bishops to enforce compliance with the Prayer Book, and to suspend ministers who refused.
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham KG was the favourite, claimed by some to be the lover, of King James I of England. Despite a very patchy political and military record, he remained at the height of royal favour for the first two years of the reign of Charles I, until he was assassinated...
, Charles's closest political advisor was William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
, the Bishop of St David's
Bishop of St David's
The Bishop of St David's is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of St David's.The succession of bishops stretches back to Saint David who in the 6th century established his seat in what is today the city of St David's in Pembrokeshire, founding St David's Cathedral. The current Bishop of St...
, whom Charles translated
Translation (ecclesiastical)
Translation is the technical term when a Bishop is transferred from one diocese to another.This can be* From Suffragan Bishop status to Diocesan Bishop*From Coadjutor bishop to Diocesan Bishop*From one country's Episcopate to another...
to the better position of Bishop of Bath and Wells
Bishop of Bath and Wells
The Bishop of Bath and Wells heads the Church of England Diocese of Bath and Wells in the Province of Canterbury in England.The present diocese covers the vast majority of the county of Somerset and a small area of Dorset. The Episcopal seat is located in the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew in...
in 1626. Under Laud's influence, Charles shifted the royal ecclesiastical policy markedly.
Conflict between Charles I and Puritans, 1625–1629
In 1625, shortly before the opening of the new parliament, Charles was married by proxy to Henrietta Maria of FranceHenrietta Maria of France
Henrietta Maria of France ; was the Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I...
, the Catholic daughter of Henry IV of France
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
. In diplomatic terms this implied alliance with France in preparation for war against Spain, but Puritan MPs openly claimed that Charles was preparing to restrict the recusancy
Recusancy
In the history of England and Wales, the recusancy was the state of those who refused to attend Anglican services. The individuals were known as "recusants"...
laws. The king had indeed agreed to do so in the secret marriage treaty he negotiated with Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...
.
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
from 1611, was in the mainstream of the English church, sympathetic with Scottish Protestants, anti-Catholic in a conventional Calvinist way, and theologically opposed to Arminianism. Under Elizabeth I he had associated with Puritan figures. The controversy over Richard Montagu
Richard Montagu
Richard Montagu was an English cleric and prelate.-Early life:He was born during Christmastide 1577 at Dorney, Buckinghamshire, where his father Laurence Mountague was vicar, and was educated at Eton. He was elected from Eton to a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, and admitted on 24...
's anti-Calvinist New Gagg was still open when Parliament met in May 1625. Puritan MP John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
launched an attack on Richard Montagu in the House of Commons. As a response, Montagu wrote a pamphlet entitled Appello Caesarem (Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
"I Appeal to Caesar") (a reference to Acts 25:10–12), in which he appealed to Charles to protect him against the Puritans. Charles responded by making Montagu a royal chaplain, signaling that he was willing to defend Montagu against Puritan opposition.
The Parliament was reluctant to grant Charles revenue, since they feared that it might be used to support an army that would re-impose Catholicism on England. The 1625 Parliament broke the precedent of centuries and voted to allow Charles to collect Tonnage and Poundage
Tonnage and Poundage
Tonnage and Poundage were certain duties and taxes first levied in Edward II's reign on every tun of imported wine, which came mostly from Spain and Portugal, and on every pound weight of merchandise exported or imported. Traditionally tonnage and poundage was granted by Parliament to the king...
only for one year. When Charles wanted to intervene in the Thirty Years' War by declaring war on Spain (the Anglo-Spanish War (1625)), Parliament granted him an insufficient sum of £140,000. The war with Spain went ahead (partially funded by tonnage and poundage collected by Charles after he was no longer authorized to do so). Buckingham was put in charge of the war effort, but failed.
The York House conference of 1626 saw battle lines start to be drawn up. Opponents cast doubt on the political loyalties of the Puritans, equating their beliefs with resistance theory. In their preaching, Arminians began to take a royalist line. Abbot was deprived of effective power in 1627, in a quarrel with the king over Robert Sibthorpe
Robert Sibthorpe
Robert Sibthorpe or Sibthorp was an English clergyman who gained notoriety during the reign of King Charles I of England for his outspoken defense of the divine right of kings.-Biography:...
, one such royalist cleric. Richard Montagu was made Bishop of Chichester
Bishop of Chichester
The Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the Counties of East and West Sussex. The see is in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...
in 1628.
The Anglo-French War (1627–1629) was also a military failure. Parliament called for Buckingham's replacement, but Charles stuck by him. Parliament went on to pass the Petition of Right
Petition of right
In English law, a petition of right was a remedy available to subjects to recover property from the Crown.Before the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, the British Crown could not be sued in contract...
, a declaration of Parliament's rights. Charles accepted the Petition, though this did not lead to a change in his behaviour.
The King's personal rule
In August 1628, Buckingham was assassinated by a disillusioned soldier, John Felton. Public reaction angered Charles. When Parliament resumed sitting in January 1629, Charles was met with outrage over the case of John Rolle, an MP who had been prosecuted for failing to pay Tonnage and Poundage. John FinchJohn Finch
John Finch, 1st Baron Finch was an English judge, and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1614 and 1629. He was Speaker of the House of Commons.-Early life:...
, the Speaker of the House of Commons
Speaker of the British House of Commons
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdom's lower chamber of Parliament. The current Speaker is John Bercow, who was elected on 22 June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin...
, was held down in the Speaker's Chair in order to allow the House to pass a resolution condemning the king.
Charles determined to rule without calling a parliament, thus initiating the period known as his Personal Rule
Personal Rule
The Personal Rule was the period from 1629 to 1640, when King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland ruled without recourse to Parliament...
(1629–1640). This period saw the ascendancy of Laudianism in England.
Laudianism
The central ideal of Laudianism (the common name for the ecclesiastical policies pursued by Charles and Laud) was the "beauty of holiness" (a reference to Psalm 29:2). This emphasized a love of ceremony and harmonious liturgyChristian liturgy
A liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship. Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis....
. Many of the churches in England had fallen into disrepair in the wake of the English Reformation, especially in Puritan areas, since Puritans believed it was superstitious to attempt to beautify church buildings. Laudianism, however, called for making churches beautiful. Churches were ordered to make repairs and to enforce greater respect for the church building. A policy particularly odious to the Puritans was the installation of altar rails
Altar rails
Altar rails are a set of railings, sometimes ornate and frequently of marble or wood, delimiting the chancel in a church, the part of the sanctuary that contains the altar. A gate at the centre divides the line into two parts. The sanctuary is a figure of heaven, into which entry is not guaranteed...
in churches, which Puritans associated with the Catholic position on transubstantiation
Transubstantiation
In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation means the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and Blood, respectively, of Jesus, while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.The Eastern Orthodox...
(the idea that Christ becomes physically present in the consecrated host): in Catholic practice, altar rails served to physically demarcate the space where Christ became incarnate in the host and only priests
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
, acolytes, and altar boys
Altar server
An altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Christian religious service. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell and so on....
were allowed inside the altar rail. Since the Puritans rejected the idea of transubstantiation, and professed the priesthood of all believers
Priesthood of all believers
The universal priesthood or the priesthood of all believers, as it would come to be known in the present day, is a Christian doctrine believed to be derived from several passages of the New Testament...
, they objected to creating a physical space in the church where only priests could go. Further, they argued that the practice of receiving communion while kneeling at the rail too much resembled Catholic Eucharistic adoration
Eucharistic adoration
Eucharistic adoration is a practice in the Roman Catholic Church, and in a few Anglican and Lutheran churches, in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to and adored by the faithful....
, which they felt was a form of idolatry
Idolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
(since it involved offering the honour due to God to a piece of bread). The Laudians insisted on enforcing kneeling at communion and receiving at the rail, though they denied that this involved accepting the Catholic position on these points.
Puritans also objected to the Laudian insistence on calling members of the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
"priests". In their minds, the word "priest" meant "someone who offers a sacrifice
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
", and was therefore highly related in their minds to the Roman Catholic teaching that during the celebration of the Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
, a priest offers Christ (in the form of the communion wafer following transubstantiation) as a sacrifice. After the Reformation, the term "minister" (meaning "one who serves") was generally adopted by Protestants to describe their clergy. When the Laudians insisted on being called "priests", the Puritans were therefore highly critical, and therefore argued in favor of using the word "minister", or else simply transliterating the Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
word presbyter
Presbyter
Presbyter in the New Testament refers to a leader in local Christian congregations, then a synonym of episkopos...
used in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
without translating it at all.
The Puritans were also dismayed when the Laudians insisted on the importance of keeping Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...
, a practice which had been enforced by the government during Catholic times (it was, for example, a crime to eat meat during Lent), but which had fallen into disfavor in England after the Reformation. Although the Laudians did not advocate legislation to enforce Lent, they themselves engaged in fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
during Lent and encouraged others to do likewise. Many Puritans therefore argued that the Laudians were thereby re-introducing a superstitious Catholic practice into the Church of England. Rather than observing seasonal fasts, Puritans favored fast days specifically called by the church or the government in response to the problems of the day, rather than fast days dictated by the ecclesiastical calendar.
The foundation of Puritan New England, 1630–1642
- For more information, see History of the Puritans in North AmericaHistory of the Puritans in North AmericaIn the early 17th century, thousands of English Puritans settled in North America, mainly in New England. Puritans were generally members of the Church of England who believed the Church of England was insufficiently Reformed and who therefore opposed royal ecclesiastical policy under Elizabeth I...
.
Some Puritans began considering founding their own colony where they could worship in a fully reformed church, far from King Charles and the bishops. This was a quite distinct view of the church from that held by the Separatists of Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
. John Winthrop
John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
, a lawyer who had practiced in the Court of Wards, began to explore the idea of creating a Puritan colony in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
. The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony had proved that such a colony was viable.
In 1627, the existing Dorchester Company for New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
colonial expansion went bankrupt, but was succeeded by the New England Company (the membership of the Dorchester and New England Companies overlapped). Throughout 1628 and 1629, Puritans in Winthrop's social circle discussed the possibility of moving to New England. The New England Company sought clearer title to the New England land of the proposed settlement than was provided by the Sheffield Patent
Sheffield Patent
The Sheffield Patent, dated January 1, 1623 is a land grant from Edmund Sheffield, 1st Earl of Mulgrave of England to Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow and their associates...
, and in March 1629 succeeded in obtaining from King Charles a royal charter
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
changing the name of the company to the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England and granting them the land to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
. The royal charter establishing the Massachusetts Bay Company had not specified where the company's annual meeting should be held; this raised the possibility that the governor of the company could move to the new colony and serve as governor of the colony, while the general court of the company could be transformed into the colony's legislative assembly. John Winthrop participated in these discussions and in March 1629, signed the Cambridge Agreement, by which the non-emigrating shareholders of the company agreed to turn over control of the company to the emigrating shareholders. As Winthrop was the wealthiest of the emigrating shareholders, the company decided to make him governor, and entrusted him with the company charter.
Winthrop Fleet
The Winthrop Fleet was a group of eleven sailing ships under the leadership of John Winthrop that carried approximately 700 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over the summer of 1630.-Motivation:...
. Winthrop himself sailed on board the Arbella
Arbella
The Arbella or Arabella was the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet on which, between April 8 and June 12, 1630, Governor John Winthrop, other members of the Company and Puritan emigrants transported themselves and the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company from England to Salem, thereby giving legal...
. During the crossing, he preached a sermon entitled "A Model of Christian Charity", in which he called on his fellow settlers to make their new colony a City upon a Hill
City upon a Hill
A City Upon A Hill is a phrase from the parable of Salt and Light in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:14, he tells his listeners, "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden."-American usage:...
, meaning that they would be a model to all the nations of Europe as to what a properly reformed Christian commonwealth should look like. The context in 1630 was that the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
was going badly for the Protestants, and Catholicism was being restored in lands previously reformed – e.g. by the 1629 Edict of Restitution
Edict of Restitution
The Edict of Restitution, passed eleven years into the Thirty Years' Wars on March 6, 1629 following Catholic successes at arms, was a belated attempt by Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor to impose and restore the religious and territorial situations reached in the Peace of Augsburg...
.
Emigration was officially restricted to conforming churchmen in December 1634 by the Privy Council.
William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1633–1643
In 1633 there died the moderate George Abbot, and Charles I chose William Laud as his successor as Archbishop of Canterbury. Abbot had been in practical terms suspended from his functions in 1617 after he refused to order his clergy to read the Book of Sports. Charles now re-issued the Book of Sports, in a symbolic gesture of October 1633 against sabbatarianism. Laud further ordered his clergy to read it to their congregations, and acted to suspend ministers who refused to do that, an effective shibbolethShibboleth
A shibboleth is a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important...
to root out Puritan clergy. The 1630s saw a renewed concern by bishops of the Church of England to enforce uniformity in the church, by ensuring strict compliance with the style of worship set out in the Book of Common Prayer. The Court of High Commission
Court of High Commission
The Court of High Commission was the supreme ecclesiastic court in England. It was instituted by the crown during the Reformation and finally dissolved by parliament in 1641...
came to be the primary means for disciplining Puritan clergy who refused to conform. Unlike regular courts, in the Court of High Commission, there was no right against self-incrimination
Self-incrimination
Self-incrimination is the act of accusing oneself of a crime for which a person can then be prosecuted. Self-incrimination can occur either directly or indirectly: directly, by means of interrogation where information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed; indirectly, when information of a...
, and the Court could compel testimony.
Some bishops went further than the Book of Common Prayer, and required their clergy to conform to levels of extra ceremonialism. As noted above, the introduction of altar rails
Altar rails
Altar rails are a set of railings, sometimes ornate and frequently of marble or wood, delimiting the chancel in a church, the part of the sanctuary that contains the altar. A gate at the centre divides the line into two parts. The sanctuary is a figure of heaven, into which entry is not guaranteed...
to churches was the most controversial such requirement. Puritans were also dismayed by the re-introduction of images (e.g. stained glass windows
Stained Glass Windows
Stained Glass Windows was an early broadcast television program, broadcast on early Sunday evenings on the ABC network. The program was a religious broadcast, hosted by the Reverend Everett Parker....
) to churches which had been without religious images since the iconoclasm
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
of the Reformation.
Silencing of Puritan laymen
William Prynne
William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...
. In the late 1620s and early 1630s, Prynne had authored a number of works denouncing the spread of Arminianism in the Church of England, and was also opposed to Charles's marrying a Catholic. Prynne became a critic of morals at court.
Prynne was also a critic of societal morals more generally. Echoing John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...
's criticism of the stage, Prynne penned a book, Histriomastix
Histriomastix
Histriomastix: The Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedy is a critique of professional theatre and actors, written by the Puritan author and controversialist William Prynne....
, in which he denounced the stage in vehement terms for its promotion of lascivious
Lascivious
"Lascivious" is a word synonymous with lustful or lewd or unruly .- Legal usage :In American legal jargon, lascivious is a semi-technical term indicating immoral sexual thoughts or actions. It is often used in the legal description of criminal acts in which some sort of sexual activity is...
ness. The book, which represents the highest point of the Puritans' attack on the English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
, attacked the stage as promoting lewdness. Unfortunately for Prynne, his book appeared at about the same time that Henrietta Maria became the first royal to ever perform in a masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
, Walter Montagu
Walter Montagu
Walter Montagu was an English courtier, secret agent and Benedictine abbot.-Life:He was the second son of Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester, by his first wife Catherine Spencer. He was born in the parish of St. Botolph Without, Aldersgate, London, and educated at Sidney Sussex College,...
's The Shepherd's Paradise
The Shepherd's Paradise
The Shepherd's Paradise was a Caroline era masque, written by Walter Montagu and designed by Inigo Jones. Acted in 1633 by Queen Henrietta Maria and her ladies in waiting, it was noteworthy as the first masque in which the Queen and her ladies filled speaking roles...
, in January 1633. Histriomastix was widely read as a Puritan attack on the queen's morality. Shortly after becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud prosecuted Prynne in the Court of Star Chamber
Star Chamber
The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters...
on a charge of seditious libel
Seditious libel
Seditious libel was a criminal offence under English common law. Sedition is the offence of speaking seditious words with seditious intent: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel...
. Unlike the common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
courts, Star Chamber was allowed to order any punishment short of the death penalty, including torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, for crimes which were founded on equity, not on law. Seditious libel was one of the "equitable crimes" which were prosecuted in the Star Chamber. Prynne was flound guilty and sentenced to imprisonment, a £5000 fine, and the removal of part of his ears.
Prynne continued to publish from prison, and in 1637, he was tried before Star Chamber a second time. This time, Star Chamber ordered that the rest of Prynne's ears be cut off, and that he should be branded
Human branding
Human branding or stigmatizing is the process in which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention that the resulting scar makes it permanent. This is performed using a hot or very cold branding iron...
with the letters S L for "seditious libeller". (Prynne would maintain that the letters really stood for stigmata Laudis (the marks of Laud).) At the same trial, Star Chamber also ordered that two other critics of the regime should have their ears cut off for writing against Laudianism: John Bastwick
John Bastwick
John Bastwick was an English Puritan physician and controversial writer.-Life:He was born at Writtle, Essex. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 19 May 1614, but remained there only a very short time, and left the university without a degree. He travelled and served for a time as a soldier,...
, a physician who wrote anti-episcopal pamphlets; and Henry Burton
Henry Burton (Puritan)
Henry Burton , was an English puritan. Along with John Bastwick and William Prynne, Burton's ears were cut off in 1637 for writing pamphlets attacking the views of Archbishop Laud.-Early life:...
.
John Lilburne
John Lilburne , also known as Freeborn John, was an English political Leveller before, during and after English Civil Wars 1642-1650. He coined the term "freeborn rights", defining them as rights with which every human being is born, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or human law...
, who had studied under John Bastwick. Since 1632, it had been illegal to publish or import works of literature not licensed by the Stationers' Company
Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was founded in 1403; it received a Royal Charter in 1557...
, and this allowed the government to view and censor any work prior to publication). Over the course of the 1630s, it became common for Puritans to have their works published in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and then smuggled into England. In 1638, Lilburne was prosecuted in Star Chamber for importing religious works critical of Laudianism from Amsterdam. Lilburne thus began a course which would see him later hailed as "Freeborn John" and as the pre-eminent champion of "English liberties". In Star Chamber, he refused to plead to the charges against him on the grounds that the charges had been presented to him only in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. The court then threw him in prison and again brought him back to court and demanded a plea. Again, Lilburne demanded to hear in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
the charges brought against him. The authorities then resorted to flogging him with a three-thonged whip on his bare back, as he was dragged by his hands tied to the rear of an oxcart
Bullock cart
A bullock cart or ox cart is a two-wheeled vehicle pulled by oxen . It is a means of transportation used since ancient times in many parts of the world. They are still used today where modern vehicles are too expensive or the infrastructure does not favor them.Used especially for carrying goods,...
from Fleet Prison
Fleet Prison
Fleet Prison was a notorious London prison by the side of the Fleet River in London. The prison was built in 1197 and was in use until 1844. It was demolished in 1846.- History :...
to the pillory
Pillory
The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
at Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
. He was then forced to stoop in the pillory where he still managed to distributing unlicensed literature to the crowds. He was then gagged. Finally he was thrown in prison. He was taken back to the court and again imprisoned.
Suppression of the Feoffees for Impropriations
Richard Sibbes
Richard Sibbes was an English theologian. He is known as a Biblical exegete, and as a representative, with William Perkins and John Preston, of what has been called "main-line" Puritanism.-Life:...
and John Davenport) organized an organization known as the Feoffees for the Purchase of Impropriations. The feoffees would raise funds to purchase lay impropriations and advowsons, which would mean that the feoffees would then have the legal right to appoint their chosen candidates to benefices and lectureships. Thus, this provided a mechanism both for increasing the number of preaching ministers in the country, and a way to ensure that Puritans could receive ecclesiastical appointments.
In 1630, Peter Heylin
Peter Heylin
Peter Heylin or Heylyn was an English ecclesiastic and author of many polemical, historical, political and theological tracts. He incorporated his political concepts into his geographical books Microcosmus in 1621 and Cosmographie .-Life:He was born in Burford, Oxfordshire, the son of Henry Heylyn...
, a Magdalen
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
don
University don
A don is a fellow or tutor of a college or university, especially traditional collegiate universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in England.The term — similar to the title still used for Catholic priests — is a historical remnant of Oxford and Cambridge having started as ecclesiastical...
, preached a sermon in St Mary's
University Church of St Mary the Virgin
The University Church of St Mary the Virgin is the largest of Oxford's parish churches and the centre from which the University of Oxford grew...
denouncing the Feoffees for Impropriations for sowing tares among the wheat. As a result of the publicity, William Noy
William Noy
William Noy was a noted British jurist.He was born on the family estate of Pendrea in St Buryan, Cornwall. He left Exeter College, Oxford without taking a degree, and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1594. From 1603 until his death he was elected, with one exception, to each parliament, sitting...
began to prosecute feoffees in the Exchequer court
Exchequer of pleas
The Exchequer of Pleas or Court of Exchequer was a court that followed equity, a set of legal principles based on natural law, and common law, in England and Wales. Originally part of the curia regis, or King's Council, the Exchequer of Pleas split from the curia during the 1190s, to sit as an...
. The feoffees' defense was that all of the men they had had appointed to office conformed to the Church of England. Nevertheless in 1632, the Feoffees for Impropriations were dissolved and the group's assets forfeited to the crown: Charles ordered that the money should be used to augment the salary of incumbents
Incumbent (ecclesiastical)
In Anglican canon law, the incumbent of a benefice, usually the parish priest, holds the temporalities or assets and income.Depending on the terms of governance of each parish an incumbent might be either:...
and used for other pious uses not controlled by the Puritans.
The Bishops' Wars, 1638–1640
As noted above, James had tried to bring the English and Scottish churches closer together. In the process, he had restored bishops to the Church of Scotland and forced the Five Articles of Perth on the Scottish church, moves which upset Scottish Presbyterians. Charles now further angered the Presbyterians by elevating the bishops' role in Scotland even higher than his father had, to the point where in 1635, the Archbishop of St AndrewsArchbishop of St Andrews
The Bishop of St. Andrews was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of St Andrews and then, as Archbishop of St Andrews , the Archdiocese of St Andrews.The name St Andrews is not the town or church's original name...
, John Spottiswoode
John Spottiswoode
John Spottiswoode was an Archbishop of St Andrews, Primate of All Scotland and historian of Scotland.-Life:...
, was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland
Lord Chancellor of Scotland
The Lord Chancellor of Scotland was a Great Officer of State in pre-Union Scotland.Holders of the office are known from 1123 onwards, but its duties were occasionally performed by an official of lower status with the title of Keeper of the Great Seal...
. Presbyterian opposition to Charles reached a new height of intensity in 1637, when Charles attempted to impose a version of the Book of Common Prayer on the Church of Scotland. Although this book was drawn up by a panel of Scottish bishops, it was widely seen as an English import and denounced as Laud's Liturgy. What was worse, where the Scottish prayer book differed from the English, it seemed to be re-introducing old errors which had not yet been re-introduced in England. As a result, when the newly appointed Bishop of Edinburgh
Bishop of Edinburgh
The Bishop of Edinburgh is the Ordinary of the Scottish Episcopal Diocese of Edinburgh.The see was founded in 1633 by King Charles I. William Forbes was consecrated in St. Giles' Cathedral as its first bishop on 23 January 1634 though he died later that year...
, David Lindsay
David Lindsay (d. 1641)
David Lindsay was a Church of Scotland minister and prelate active in the seventeenth-century.-Early life and career:Born around 1575, he was a son of Colonel John Lindsay, laird of Edzell in Angus, and graduated with a Master of Arts from the University of St Andrews in 1593...
, rose to read the new liturgy in St. Giles' Cathedral
St. Giles' Cathedral
St Giles' Cathedral, more properly termed the High Kirk of Edinburgh, is the principal place of worship of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. Its distinctive crown steeple is a prominent feature of the city skyline, at about a third of the way down the Royal Mile which runs from the Castle to...
, Jenny Geddes
Jenny Geddes
Jenny Geddes was a Scottish market-trader in Edinburgh, who is alleged to have thrown her stool at the head of the minister in St Giles' Cathedral in objection to the first public use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in Scotland.The act is reputed to have sparked the riot which led to the...
, a member of the congregation, threw her stool at Lindsay, thus setting off the Prayer Book Riot.
Parliament of Scotland
The Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The unicameral parliament of Scotland is first found on record during the early 13th century, with the first meeting for which a primary source survives at...
, whereas the Scottish parliament was not consulted in 1637 and the new prayer book imposed solely on the basis of Charles' alleged royal supremacy in the church, a doctrine which had never been accepted by either the Church or Parliament of Scotland. A number of leading noblemen drew up a document known as the National Covenant in February 1638. Those who subscribed to the National Covenant are known as Covenanters. Later that year, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the sovereign and highest court of the Church of Scotland, and is thus the Church's governing body[1] An Introduction to Practice and Procedure in the Church of Scotland, A Gordon McGillivray, 2nd Edition .-Church courts:As a Presbyterian church,...
ejected the bishops from the church.
In response to this challenge to his authority, Charles raised an army and marched on Scotland in the "First Bishops' War" (1639). The English Puritans – who had a longstanding opposition to the bishops (which had reached new heights in the wake of the Prynne, Burton, Bastwick, and Lilburne cases) – were deeply dismayed that the king was now waging a war to maintain the office of bishop. The First Bishops' War ended in a stalemate, since both sides lacked sufficient resources to defeat their opponents (in Charles' case, this was because he did not have enough revenues to wage a war since he had not called a Parliament since 1629), which led to the signing of the Treaty of Berwick (1639)
Treaty of Berwick (1639)
The Treaty of Berwick was signed on 18 June 1639 between England and Scotland. Archibald Johnston was involved in the negotiations before King Charles was forced to sign the treaty. The agreement, overall, officially ended the First Bishops' War even though both sides saw it only as a temporary...
.
Short Parliament
The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks....
because it only lasted three weeks – met in 1640. Unfortunately for Charles, many Puritan members were elected to the Parliament, and two critics of royal policies, John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
and John Hampden
John Hampden
John Hampden was an English politician, the eldest son of William Hampden, of Hampden House, Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire, John Hampden (ca. 15951643) was an English politician, the eldest son of William Hampden, of Hampden House, Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire, John Hampden (ca. 15951643)...
, emerged as loud critics of the king in the Parliament. These members insisted that Parliament had an ancient right to demand the redress of grievances and insisted that the nation's grievances with the past ten years of royal policies should be dealt with before Parliament granted Charles the taxes that he wanted. Frustrated, Charles dissolved Parliament three weeks after it opened.
In Scotland, the rebellious spirit continued to grow in strength. Following the signing of the Treaty of Berwick, the General Assembly of Scotland met in Edinburgh and confirmed the abolition of episcopacy in Scotland, and then went even further and declared that all episcopacy was contrary to the Word of God
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
. When the Scottish Parliament met later in the year, it confirmed the Church of Scotland's position. The Scottish Covenanters now determined that Presbyterianism could never be confidently re-established in Scotland so long as episcopacy remained the order of the day in England. They therefore determined to invade England to help bring about the abolition of episcopacy. At the same time, the Scots (who had many contacts among the English Puritans) learned that the king was intending to break the Treaty of Berwick and make a second attempt at invading Scotland. When the Short Parliament was dissolved without having granted Charles the money he requested, the Covenanters determined that the time was ripe to launch a preemptive strike
Preemptive strike
A preemptive strike refers to a surprise attack launched with the stated intention of countering an anticipated enemy offensive. Preemptive strike may also refer to:...
against English invasion. As such, in August 1640, the Scottish troops marched into northern England, beginning the "Second Bishops' War". Catching the king unawares, the Scots gained a major victory at the Battle of Newburn
Battle of Newburn
The Battle of Newburn was fought on 28 August 1640 during the Second Bishops' War between a Scottish Covenanter army led by General Alexander Leslie and English royalist forces commanded by Edward, Lord Conway. Conway, heavily outnumbered, was defeated, and the Scots went on to occupy the town of...
. The Scottish Covenanters thus occupied the northern counties of England and imposed a large fine of £850 a day on the king until a treaty could be signed. Believing that the king was not trustworthy, the Scottish insisted that the Parliament of England be a part of any peace negotiations. Bankrupted by the Second Bishops' War, Charles had little choice but to call a Parliament to grant new taxes to pay off the Scots. He therefore reluctantly called a Parliament which would not be finally dissolved until 1660, the Long Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
.
The Canons of 1640 and the Et Cetera Oath
Convocation of the English Clergy
The Convocation of the English Clergy is a synodical assembly of the Church of England consisting of bishops and clergy.- Background and introduction :...
traditionally met whenever Parliament met, and was then dissolved whenever Parliament was dissolved. In 1640, however, Charles ordered Convocation to continue sitting even after he dissolved the Short Parliament because the Convocation had not yet passed the canons
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
which Charles had had Archbishop Laud draw up and which confirmed the Laudian church policies as the official policies of the Church of England. Convocation dutifully passed these canons in late May 1640.
The preamble to the canons claims that the canons are not innovating in the church, but are rather restoring ceremonies from the time of Edward VI and Elizabeth I which had fallen into disuse. The first canon asserted that the king ruled by divine right
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
; that the doctrine of Royal Supremacy was required by divine law
Divine law
Divine law is any law that in the opinion of believers, comes directly from the will of God . Like natural law it is independent of the will of man, who cannot change it. However it may be revealed or not, so it may change in human perception in time through new revelation...
; and that taxes were due to the king "by the law of God, nature, and nations." This canon led many MPs to conclude that Charles and the Laudian clergy were attempting to use the Church of England as a way to establish an absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his or her power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the...
in England, and felt that this represented unwarranted clerical interference in the recent dispute between Parliament and the king over ship money
Ship money
Ship money refers to a tax that Charles I of England tried to levy without the consent of Parliament. This tax, which was only applied to coastal towns during a time of war, was intended to offset the cost of defending that part of the coast, and could be paid in actual ships or the equivalent value...
.
Canons against popery and Socinianism
Socinianism
Socinianism is a system of Christian doctrine named for Fausto Sozzini , which was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Minor Reformed Church of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries and embraced also by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period...
were uncontroversial, but the canon against the sectaries was quite controversial because it was clearly aimed squarely at the Puritans. This canon condemned anyone who did not regularly attend service in their parish church
Church of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...
or who attended only the sermon
Sermon
A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...
, not the full Prayer Book service. It went on to condemn anyone who wrote books critical of the discipline and government of the Church of England.
Finally, and most controversially, the Canons imposed an oath, known to history as the Et Cetera Oath, to be taken by every clergyman, every Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
not the son of a nobleman, all who had taken a degree in divinity
Divinity (academic discipline)
Divinity is the study of Christian and other theology and ministry at a school, divinity school, university, or seminary. The term is sometimes a synonym for theology as an academic, speculative pursuit, and sometimes is used for the study of applied theology and ministry to make a distinction...
, law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, or physic
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, all registrars of the Consistory Court
Consistory court
The consistory court is a type of ecclesiastical court, especially within the Church of England. They were established by a charter of King William I of England, and still exist today, although since about the middle of the 19th century consistory courts have lost much of their subject-matter...
and Chancery Court
Chancery Court
The Chancery Court of York is an ecclesiastical court for the Province of York of the Church of England.The presiding officer, the Official Principal and Auditor, has been the same person as the Dean of the Arches since the nineteenth century . The Court comprises the Auditor, two clergy and two...
, all actuaries, proctor
Proctor
Proctor, a variant of the word procurator, is a person who takes charge of, or acts for, another. The word proctor is frequently used to describe someone who oversees an exam or dormitory.The title is used in England in three principal senses:...
s and schoolmasters, all persons incorporated from foreign universities, and all candidates for ordination
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
. The oath read
The Puritans were furious. They attacked the Canons of 1640 as unconstitutional, claiming that Convocation was no longer legally in session after Parliament was dissolved. The campaign to enforce the Et Cetera Oath met with firm Puritan resistance, organized in London by Cornelius Burges
Cornelius Burges
Cornelius Burges or Burgess, D.D. , was an English minister. He was active in religious controversy prior to and around the time of the Commonwealth of England and The Protectorate, following the English Civil War...
, Edmund Calamy the Elder
Edmund Calamy the Elder
Edmund Calamy was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.-Early life:...
, and John Goodwin
John Goodwin (preacher)
John Goodwin was an English preacher, theologian and prolific author of significant books.-Early life:Goodwin was born in Norfolk and educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. and obtained a fellowship on 10 November 1617. He left the university and married, took orders and...
. The imposition of the Et Cetera Oath also resulted in the Puritans' pro-Scottish sympathies becoming even more widespread, and there were rumours – possible but never proven – that Puritan leaders were in treasonable communication with the Scottish during this period. Many Puritans refused to read the prayer for victory against the Scottish which they had been ordered to read.
The Long Parliament attacks Laudianism and considers the Root and Branch Petition, 1640–42
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1639 he instituted a harsh rule as Lord Deputy of Ireland...
, who had served as Charles' Lord Deputy of Ireland
Lord Deputy of Ireland
The Lord Deputy was the King's representative and head of the Irish executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and later the Kingdom of Ireland...
since 1632. In the wake of the Second Bishops' War, Strafford had been raising an Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
Catholic army in Ireland
Kingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...
which could be deployed against the Scottish Covenanters. Puritans were appalled that an army of Irish Catholics (whom they hated) would be deployed by the crown against the Scottish Presbyterians (whom they loved), and many English Protestants who were not particularly puritanical shared the sentiment. Having learned that Parliament intended to impeach him, Strafford presented the king with evidence of treasonable communications between Puritans in Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. Nevertheless, through deft political manoeuvering, John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
, along with Oliver St John
Oliver St John
Sir Oliver St John , was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.- Early life :...
and Lord Saye
William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele
William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele was born at the family home of Broughton Castle near Banbury, in Oxfordshire. He was the only son of Richard Fiennes, seventh Baron Saye and Sele...
, managed to quickly have Parliament impeach Strafford on charges of high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
and Strafford was arrested. At his trial before the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, begun in January 1641, prosecutors argued that Strafford intended to use the Irish Catholic army against English Protestants. Strafford responded that the army was intended to be used against the rebellious Scots. Strafford was ultimately acquitted in April 1641 on the grounds that his actions did not amount to high treason. As a result, Puritan opponents of Strafford launched a bill of attainder
Bill of attainder
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a judicial trial.-English law:...
against Strafford in the House of Commons; in the wake of a revolt by the army, which had not been paid in months, the House of Lords also passed the bill of attainder, and Charles, worried that the army would revolt further if they were not paid, and that the army would never be paid until Parliament granted funds, and that Parliament would not grant funds without Strafford's death, signed the bill of attainder in May 1641. Strafford was executed before a crowd of 200,000 on 12 May 1641.
The Puritans took advantage of the mood of the Parliament and of the public and organized the Root and Branch Petition, so called because it called for the abolition of episcopacy "root and branch". The Root and Branch Petition was signed by 15,000 Londoners and presented to Parliament by a crowd of 1,500 on 11 December 1640. The Root and Branch Petition detailed many of the Puritans' grievances with Charles and the bishops. It complained that the bishops had silenced many godly ministers and made ministers afraid to instruct the people about "the doctrine of predestination
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
, of free grace, of perseverance
Perseverance of the saints
Perseverance of the saints, as well as the corollary—though distinct—doctrine known as "Once Saved, Always Saved", is a Calvinist teaching that once persons are truly saved they can never lose their salvation....
, of original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
remaining after baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
, of the sabbath, the doctrine against universal grace, election for faith foreseen
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
, freewill against Antichrist
Antichrist
The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...
, non-residents (ministers who did not live in their parishes), human inventions in God's worship". The Petition condemned the practice of bestowing temporal power on bishops and the encouraging of ministers to disregard the temporal authority. The Petition condemned the regime for suppressing godly books while allowing the publication of popish, Arminian, and lewd books (such as Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Ars Amatoria
Ars Amatoria
The Ars amatoria is an instructional love elegy in three books by the Roman poet Ovid, penned around 2 CE. It claims to provide teaching in three areas of general preoccupation: how and where to find women in Rome, how to seduce them, and how to prevent others from stealing them.-Background:After...
and the ballads of Martin Parker
Martin Parker
Martin Parker , was an English ballad writer, and probably a London tavern-keeper.-Life:About 1625 he seems to have begun publishing ballads, a large number of which bearing his signature or his initials, M.P., are preserved in the British Museum. John Dryden considered him the best ballad writer...
). The Petition also hit on several of the Puritans' routine complaints: the Book of Sports, the placing of communion tables altar-wise, the church beautification scheme, the imposing of oaths, the influence of Catholics and Arminians at court, and the abuse of excommunication
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
by the bishops.
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
-like powers, attempting to reconcile the Church of England with the Roman Catholic Church, of persecuting godly preachers, of ruining the Church of England's relations with the Reformed churches
Reformed churches
The Reformed churches are a group of Protestant denominations characterized by Calvinist doctrines. They are descended from the Swiss Reformation inaugurated by Huldrych Zwingli but developed more coherently by Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger and especially John Calvin...
on the Continent, of promoting the war with Scotland, and with a variety of other offenses. During this debate, Harbottle Grimston famously called Laud "the roote and ground of all our miseries and calamities … the sty of all pestilential filth that hath infected the State and Government." Unlike Strafford, however, Laud's enemies did not move quickly to secure his execution, and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
in February 1641.
In March 1641, the House of Commons passed the Bishops Exclusion Bill
Clergy Act 1640
The Clergy Act 1640 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England passed in 1642 by the Long Parliament.-Preamble:...
, which would have prevented the bishops from taking their seats in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. The House of Lords, however, rejected this bill.
In May 1641, Henry Vane the Younger
Henry Vane the Younger
Sir Henry Vane , son of Henry Vane the Elder , was an English politician, statesman, and colonial governor...
and Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
introduced the Root and Branch Bill, which had been drafted by Oliver St John
Oliver St John
Sir Oliver St John , was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.- Early life :...
and which was designed to root out episcopacy in England "root and branch" along the lines advocated in the Root and Branch Petition. Many moderate MPs, such as Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland
Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland
Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland was an English author and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642...
and Edward Hyde
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two English monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.-Early life:...
, were dismayed: although they believed that Charles and Laud had gone too far in the 1630s, they were not prepared to abolish episcopacy. The debate over the Root and Branch Bill was intense – the Bill was finally rejected in August 1641. The division of MPs over this bill would form the basic division of MPs in the subsequent war, with those who favoured the Root and Branch Bill becoming Roundheads and those who defended the bishops becoming Cavaliers.
Bishop of Exeter
The Bishop of Exeter is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. The incumbent usually signs his name as Exon or incorporates this in his signature....
, wrote a spirited defense of episcopacy entitled An Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament. This drew forth a response from five Puritan authors, who wrote under the name Smectymnuus
Smectymnuus
Smectymnuus was the nom de plume of a group of Puritan clergymen active in England in 1641. It comprised four leading English churchmen, and one Scottish minister...
, an acronym based on the their names (Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy
Edmund Calamy the Elder
Edmund Calamy was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.-Early life:...
, Thomas Young
Thomas Young (1587-1655)
Thomas Young was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and theologian, resident in England and a member of the Westminster Assembly. He was the major author of the Smectymnuus group of leading Puritan churchmen...
, Matthew Newcomen
Matthew Newcomen
Matthew Newcomen was an English nonconformist churchman.His exact date of birth is unknown. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge . In 1636 he became lecturer at Dedham in Essex, and led the church reform party in that county. He assisted Edmund Calamy the Elder in writing Smectymnuus ,...
, and William Spurstow
William Spurstowe
William Spurstowe was an English clergyman, theologian, and member of the Westminster Assembly. He was one of the Smectymnuus group of Presbyterian clergy, supplying the final WS of the acronym.-Life:...
). Smectymnuus's first pamphlet, An Answer to a booke entituled, An Humble Remonstrance. In Which, the Original of Liturgy and Episcopacy is Discussed, was published in March 1641. It is believed that one of Thomas Young's former students, John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, wrote the postscript to the reply. (Milton published several anti-episcopal pamphlets in 1640–41). A prolonged series of answers and counter-answers followed.
Worried that the king would again quickly dissolve Parliament without redressing the nation's grievances, John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
pushed through an Act against Dissolving Parliament without its own Consent; desperately in need of money, Charles had little choice but to consent to the Act. The Long Parliament then sought to undo the more unpopular aspects of the past eleven years. Star Chamber, which had been used to silence Puritan laymen, was abolished in July 1641. The Court of High Commission was also abolished at this time. Parliament ordered Prynne, Burton, Bastwick, and Lilburne released from prison, and they returned to London in triumph.
In October 1641, Irish Catholic gentry launched the Irish Rebellion of 1641
Irish Rebellion of 1641
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for the Catholics living under English rule...
, throwing off English domination and creating Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...
. English parliamentarians were terrified that an Irish army might rise to massacre English Protestants. In this atmosphere, in November 1641, Parliament passed the Grand Remonstrance
Grand Remonstrance
The Grand Remonstrance was a list of grievances presented to King Charles I of England by the English Parliament on 1 December 1641, but passed by the House of Commons on the 22nd of November 1641, during the Long Parliament; it was one of the chief events which were to precipitate the English...
, detailing over 200 points which Parliament felt that the king had acted illegally in the course of the Personal Rule. The Grand Remonstrance marked a second moment at which a number of the more moderate, non-Puritan members of Parliament (e.g. Viscount Falkland
Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland
Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland was an English author and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642...
and Edward Hyde
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two English monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.-Early life:...
) felt that Parliament had gone too far in its denunciations of the king and was showing too much sympathy for the rebellious Scots.
When the bishops attempted to take their seats in the House of Lords in late 1641, a pro-Puritan, anti-episcopal mob, probably organized by John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
, prevented them from doing so. The Bishops Exclusion Bill
Clergy Act 1640
The Clergy Act 1640 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England passed in 1642 by the Long Parliament.-Preamble:...
was re-introduced in December 1641, and this time, the mood of the country was such that neither the House of Lords nor Charles felt strong enough to reject the bill. The Bishops Exclusion Act prevented those in holy orders
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....
from exercising any temporal
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
jurisdiction or authority after 5 February 1642; this extended to taking a seat in Parliament or membership of the Privy Council
Privy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
. Any acts carried out with such authority after that date by a member of the clergy were to be considered void.
In this period, Charles became increasingly convinced that a number of Puritan-influenced members of Parliament had treasonously encouraged the Scottish Covenanters to invade England in 1640, leading to the Second Bishops' War. As such, when he heard that they were planning to impeach the Queen
Henrietta Maria of France
Henrietta Maria of France ; was the Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I...
for participation in Catholic plots, he determined to arrest Lord Mandeville
Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester
Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester KG, KB, FRS was an important commander of Parliamentary forces in the First English Civil War, and for a time Oliver Cromwell's superior.-Life:...
as well as five MPs, known to history as the Five Members: John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
, John Hampden
John Hampden
John Hampden was an English politician, the eldest son of William Hampden, of Hampden House, Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire, John Hampden (ca. 15951643) was an English politician, the eldest son of William Hampden, of Hampden House, Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire, John Hampden (ca. 15951643)...
, Denzil Holles
Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles
Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles PC was an English statesman and writer, best known as one of the five members of parliament whom King Charles I of England attempted to arrest in 1642.-Early life:...
, Sir Arthur Haselrig
Arthur Haselrig
Sir Arthur Haselrig, 2nd Baronet was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1640 and 1659. He was one of the five members of Parliament whom King Charles I tried to arrest in 1642, an event which led to the start of the English Civil War...
, and William Strode
William Strode
William Strode was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England variously between 1624 and 1645. He was one of the five members impeached by King Charles and fought on the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War.-Life:...
. Charles famously entered the House of Commons personally on 4 January 1642, but the members had already fled.
Following his failed attempt to arrest the Five Members, Charles realized that he was not only immensely unpopular among parliamentarians, he was also in danger of London's pro-Puritan, anti-episcopal, and increasingly anti-royal mob
Crowd
A crowd is a large and definable group of people, while "the crowd" is referred to as the so-called lower orders of people in general...
. As such, he and his family retreated to Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
and invited all loyal parliamentarians to join him. He began raising an army under George Goring, Lord Goring
George Goring, Lord Goring
George Goring, Lord Goring was an English Royalist soldier. He was known by the courtesy title Lord Goring as the eldest son of the 1st Earl of Norwich.- The Goring family :...
.
Puritans in Parliament were now in a sticky situation: on the one hand, they wanted to raise an army to defend England against the Irish Catholics who were rebelling; on the other hand, they were worried that the king could not be trusted and that if he were given control of the army, he would use it against the Scots, not the Irish. To avoid this problem, Parliament began appointing Lord Lieutenants, a function traditionally done only by the king. Then, Parliament passed a Militia Ordinance
Militia Ordinance
The Militia Ordinance was a piece of legislation passed by the Long Parliament of England in March 1642, which was a major step towards the Civil War between the King and Parliament of England. Previously the King had the sole right to appoint the Lord Lieutenants, who were in charge of the county...
which raised a militia, but provided that the militia should be controlled by Parliament. The king, of course, refused to sign this bill. A major split between Parliament and the king occurred on 15 March 1642, when Parliament declared that "the People are bound by the Ordinance for the Militia, though it has not received the Royal Assent
Royal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
", the first time a Parliament had declared its acts to operate without receiving royal assent. Under these circumstances, the political nation began to divide itself into Roundheads and Cavaliers. The first clash between the royalists and the parliamentarians came in the April 1642 Siege of Hull
Siege of Hull (1642)
The Siege of Hull in 1642 was the first major action of the English Civil War.As both sides moved towards war, Parliament had access to more military materiel, due to its possession of all major cities including the large arsenal in London...
, which began when the military governor appointed by Parliament, Sir John Hotham refused to allow Charles' forces access to military material in Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
. In August, the king officially raised his standard at Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
and the First English Civil War
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...
was underway.
The Westminster Assembly, 1643–49
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
left to join King Charles on the battlefield. However, although Civil War was beginning, Parliament was initially reluctant to pass legislation without it receiving royal assent
Royal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
. Thus, between June 1642 and May 1643, Parliament passed legislation providing for a religious assembly five times, but these bills did not receive royal assent and thus died. By June 1643, however, Parliament was willing to defy the king and call a religious assembly without the king's assent. This assembly, the Westminster Assembly
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...
, had its first meeting in the Henry VII Lady Chapel
Henry VII Lady Chapel
The Henry VII Lady Chapel, now more often known just as the Henry VII Chapel, is a large Lady chapel at the far eastern end of Westminster Abbey, paid for by the will of Henry VII. It is separated from the rest of the abbey by brass gates and a flight of stairs.The structure of the chapel is a...
of Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
on 1 July 1643. (In later sessions, the Assembly would meet in the Jerusalem Chamber.)
The Assembly was charged with drawing up a new liturgy
Christian liturgy
A liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship. Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis....
to replace the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
and with determining what manner of church polity was appropriate for the Church of England. In both cases, it was assumed that the Westminster Assembly would only make recommendations and that Parliament would have the final word.
The Long Parliament appointed 121 divines to the Westminster Assembly (at the time "divine", i.e. theologian, was used as a synonym for "clergyman"). Of these, approximately 25 never showed up – mainly because King Charles ordered all loyal subjects not to participate in the Assembly. To replace the divines who had failed to show up, Parliament later added 21 additional divines, known as the "Superadded Divines". The Assembly also included 30 lay assessors (10 nobles and 20 commoners). Although the Westminster Divines were mainly Puritan, they were broadly representative of all positions (except Laudianism) then on offer in the Church of England.
Thirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...
. However, in summer 1643, shortly after the calling of the Westminster Assembly, the Parliamentary forces, under the leadership of John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
and Henry Vane the Younger
Henry Vane the Younger
Sir Henry Vane , son of Henry Vane the Elder , was an English politician, statesman, and colonial governor...
concluded an agreement with the Scots known as the Solemn League and Covenant
Solemn League and Covenant
The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians. It was agreed to in 1643, during the First English Civil War....
. As noted above, one of the main reasons why the Scots had launched the Second Bishops War in 1640 was because they hoped to bring about an end to episcopacy in England. They therefore insisted as a term of the agreement that the English agree to fight to extirpate "popery and prelacy". Since the Puritans were also interested in fighting these things, they readily agreed, and the Long Parliament agreed to swear to the Scottish National Covenant. Six Commissioners representing the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
were now sent to attend the Westminster Assembly and on 12 October 1643, the Long Parliament ordered the Assembly to "confer and treat among themselves of such a discipline and government as may be most agreeable to God's holy word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland and other Reformed Churches abroad."
Parties at the Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly's discussions on church polity mark a definitive turning point in Puritan history. Whereas Puritans had hitherto been united in their opposition to royal and episcopal ecclesiastical policies, they now became divided over the form that reforms to the Church of England should take. The Westminster Divines divided into four groups:- The Episcopalians, who supported a moderate form of episcopal polityEpiscopal polityEpiscopal polity is a form of church governance that is hierarchical in structure with the chief authority over a local Christian church resting in a bishop...
and who were led by James UssherJames UssherJames Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...
, Archbishop of ArmaghArchbishop of ArmaghThe Archbishop of Armagh is the title of the presiding ecclesiastical figure of each of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland in the region around Armagh in Northern Ireland...
; - The Presbyterians, who favoured presbyterian polityPresbyterian polityPresbyterian polity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session or consistory, though other terms, such as church board, may apply...
– this position was pushed hard by the Scottish Commissioners, especially George GillespieGeorge GillespieGeorge Gillespie was a Scottish theologian.-Life:He was born at Kirkcaldy, where his father, John Gillespie, was parish minister, and studied at St. Andrews University as a "presbytery bursar". On graduating he became domestic chaplain to John Gordon, 1st Viscount Kenmure , and afterwards to John...
and Samuel RutherfordSamuel RutherfordSamuel Rutherford was a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and author, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.-Life:...
, while the most influential Englishman taking this position was probably Edward ReynoldsEdward ReynoldsEdward Reynolds was a bishop of Norwich in the Church of England and an author.He was born in Holyrood parish Southampton, the son of Augustine Reynolds, one of the customers of the city, and his wife, Bridget....
; - The IndependentsIndependent (religion)In English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political...
, who favoured congregationalist polityCongregationalist polityCongregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of church governance in which every local church congregation is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous"...
and who were led by Thomas GoodwinThomas GoodwinThomas Goodwin , known as 'the Elder', was an English Puritan theologian and preacher, and an important leader of religious Independents. He served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and was imposed by Parliament as President of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1650...
; and - The Erastians, who believed that ecclesiastical polity was adiaphoraAdiaphoraAdiaphoron is a concept of Stoic philosophy that indicates things outside of moral law—that is, actions that morality neither mandates nor forbids....
, a matter indifferent, which ought to be determined by the stateSovereign stateA sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
, and who were led by John LightfootJohn LightfootJohn Lightfoot was an English churchman, rabbinical scholar, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and Master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge.-Life:...
.
Many issues divided the groups from each other:
- Was the matter of ecclesiastical polity jure divino (established by divine law) or adiaphora (a matter indifferent, with each national church free to establish its own polity)? The Erastians were the most vocal party in arguing that polity was not fixed by divine law, while the other groups were more likely to believe that their positions were dictated by the Scriptures.
- What amount of hierarchy was proper in the church? The Episcopalians believed that the church should be hierarchically organized, with the bishops providing a supervisory role over other clergy. The Presbyterians believed that the church should be organized hierarchically only in the sense that the church should be governed by a series of hierarchically ordered assemblies (Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and at the top the General Assembly). While the Presbyterian scheme involved hierarchical ordering in the church, its proponents stressed that it did not involve a hierarchical ordering among individuals in the church, since at each level, the governing body represented the church as a whole. The Independents opposed all forms of hierarchy in the church and argued that ministers should be accountable only to their own local congregations.
- What was the proper relationship of church and stateSeparation of church and stateThe concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
? All parties at the Westminster Assembly rejected what was held to be the "papist" position, that church and state should be unified, but with the state subordinate to the church. The Erastians and many of the Episcopalian party maintained that church and state should be unified, but with the church subordinate to the state, a position traditionally known as caesaropapismCaesaropapismCaesaropapism is the idea of combining the power of secular government with, or making it superior to, the spiritual authority of the Church; especially concerning the connection of the Church with government. The term caesaropapism was coined by Max Weber, who defined it as follows: “a secular,...
(and expressed, for example, in the doctrine of the royal supremacy). The Presbyterians argued for complete separation of church and stateSeparation of church and stateThe concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
, but nevertheless felt that the state should enforce religious uniformity in the country. The Independents went furthest of all, arguing that there should be not only separation of church and state, but also religious liberty. - How uniform should the church's liturgyChristian liturgyA liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship. Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis....
be? Those inclined to episcopalianism were most inclined to favour a liturgy similar to the Book of Common PrayerBook of Common PrayerThe Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
, just revised to make it doctrinally acceptable to Calvinists, but still containing set forms of prayers that would be used uniformly throughout the country. Those inclined to presbyterianism were more likely to favour something akin to Knox's Book of DisciplineBook of DisciplineA Book of Discipline or Book of Order is a book detailing the beliefs, practices, doctrines, laws, organisational structure and government of many Christian denominations...
, which set out the general form of worship, but which left individual ministers free to compose their own prayers, and even to offer extemporaneous prayer. The Independents were more likely to oppose all set forms of worship, were okay with local variation in the form of worship, and felt that almost all prayer should be extemporaneous, offered spontaneously by the minister as he was moved by the Holy SpiritHoly SpiritHoly Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
at the time of service.
The Independents Controversy, 1644
Even after the Royalists failed to turn up for the Westminster Assembly, the Episcopalians were probably in the majority or at least the plurality. However, the Episcopalian members of the Assembly proved less than zealous in their defense of episcopacy: when the Assembly scheduled debates and votes for the late afternoon and early evening, the Episcopalian members failed to attend, allowing the Presbyterians and Independents to dominate the Assembly's debates. In a famous bon mot, Lord FalklandLucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland
Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland was an English author and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642...
observed that "those that hated the bishops hated them worse than the devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
and those that loved them loved them not so well as their dinner."
Upon their arrival, the Scottish Commissioners – Alexander Henderson
Alexander Henderson (theologian)
Alexander Henderson was a Scottish theologian, and an important ecclesiastical statesman of his period. He is considered the second founder of the Reformed Church in Scotland, and its Presbyterian churches are largely indebted to him for the forms of their dogmas and organization.-Life:He was born...
, George Gillespie
George Gillespie
George Gillespie was a Scottish theologian.-Life:He was born at Kirkcaldy, where his father, John Gillespie, was parish minister, and studied at St. Andrews University as a "presbytery bursar". On graduating he became domestic chaplain to John Gordon, 1st Viscount Kenmure , and afterwards to John...
, Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and author, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.-Life:...
, and Robert Baillie
Robert Baillie
Robert Baillie was a Scottish divine and historical writer.-Life:Baillie was born at Glasgow, the son of Baillie of Jerviston...
– organized a campaign to have the Church of England adopt a presbyterian system similar to the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
. It initially appeared that the Scottish Commissioners might be able to push through their presbyterian scheme with only minimal resistance.
Thomas Goodwin
Thomas Goodwin , known as 'the Elder', was an English Puritan theologian and preacher, and an important leader of religious Independents. He served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and was imposed by Parliament as President of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1650...
, Philip Nye
Philip Nye
Philip Nye was a leading English Independent theologian.-Life:He graduated with an M.A. from Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1622. He spent the years 1633 to 1640 in exile, in Holland.....
, Sidrach Simpson
Sidrach Simpson
Sidrach Simpson was an English Independent minister, one of the leaders of the Independent faction in the Westminster Assembly.-Life:Sidrach Simpson came from Lincolnshire. He was educated as a sizar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge....
, Jeremiah Burroughs
Jeremiah Burroughs
Jeremiah Burroughs was an English Congregationalist and a well-known Puritan preacher.-Biography:...
, & William Bridge
William Bridge
William Bridge was a leading English Independent minister, preacher, and religious and political writer.-Life:A native of Cambridgeshire, the Rev. William Bridge was probably born in or around the year 1600. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, receiving an M.A...
." This publication laid out the case for the Independent
Independent (religion)
In English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political...
position forcefully, and made it impossible for the Scottish Commissioners to succeed in quickly creating an amicable consensus around the presbyterian position. Instead, in 1644, the Westminster Assembly became the sight of a series of heated debate between the Presbyterians and the Independents.
The Independents were the party most committed to experimental predestinariaism, the position that one can have assurance of election in this life. Experimental predestinarians tended to undergo dramatic conversion experiences. With the rise of experimental predestinarianism, there was a concomitant call among some of the godly for gathered churches. Unlike the Church of England – which theoretically encompassed everybody in England – a gathered church was made up only of those who had undergone a conversion experience. Following the suppression of Separatism in the late Elizabethan period, calls for gathered churches could only be whispered about. However, the social process of separating "the godly" from the rest of the congregation continued throughout the early seventeenth century. When the Puritans in New England set up their own congregations, in order to be admitted to the church, one had to be examined by the elders of the church, and then make a public profession of faith before the assembled congregation before being admitted to membership. The Independents supported the New England way and argued for its adoption in England. The result would be a situation where not all English people would be members of the church, but only those who had undergone a conversion experience and made a public confession of faith. Under these circumstances, one of the major reasons why the Independents favored congregational polity was that they argued that only other godly members of the congregation could identify who else was elect. The Independents condemned the suppression of the Separatists – why should the state be used to suppress the godly? They accused the Presbyterian party of wanting to continued the barbarous, "popish" persecutions of the Laudian bishops. For the first time, the Independents began to advocate a theory of religious liberty. Since they saw only a small minority of the community as actually "saved", they argued that it made no sense to have a uniform national church. Rather, each gathered church should be free to organize itself as it saw fit. They were therefore opposed not only to the Book of Common Prayer, but also to any attempt to reform the liturgy – they argued that in fact there shouldn't be any national liturgy at all, but that each minister and each congregation should be free to worship God in the way they saw fit.
Divine providence
In Christian theology, divine providence, or simply providence, is God's activity in the world. " Providence" is also used as a title of God exercising His providence, and then the word are usually capitalized...
had chosen England as a special called nation, just as he had chosen the Israelites to be a chosen people
Chosen people
Throughout history and even today various groups of people have considered themselves as chosen by a deity for some purpose such as to act as the deity's agent on earth. In monotheistic faiths, like Abrahamic religions, references to God are used in constructs such as "God's Chosen People"...
in the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
. Others argued that, while it is true that God has chosen some as elect and some as reprobate, it is really impossible in this life for any individual to know whether he or she was among the elect, and that life should therefore simply be lived in as close of conformity to the will of God as possible. They certainly did not approve of the Independents who thought that they were the only members of the elect in England: true, many members of the Church of England may have engaged in many open and notorious sins, but for the Presbyterians, that was a sign that the state needed to step in to punish those sins, lest God visit punishments on the nation in the same way that He visited punishments on Old Testament Israel when He found them sinning.
The Independent position was clearly in the minority at the Westminster Assembly – there were, after all, only Five Dissenting Brethren in an Assembly of roughly 120 divines – making it impossible for the Independents in the Assembly to get their position passed.
The Erastian Controversy, 1645–46
During the next two years, a second controversy occupied a great deal of time and attention of the Westminster Assembly: the controversy over Erastianism. The issue of the proper relationship of church and state – which was a part of the Independents Controversy – was at the heart of the Erastian Controversy.During the Elizabethan Religious Settlement
Elizabethan Religious Settlement
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was Elizabeth I’s response to the religious divisions created over the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. This response, described as "The Revolution of 1559", was set out in two Acts of the Parliament of England...
, two great Acts of Parliament had established the place of the Church of England in English life (1) the Act of Supremacy
Act of Supremacy 1559
The Act of Supremacy 1558 was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It replaced the original Act of Supremacy 1534 issued by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, which arrogated ecclesiastical authority to the monarchy, and which had been...
, which declared the monarch to be the Supreme Governor of the Church of England
Supreme Governor of the Church of England
The Supreme Governor of the Church of England is a title held by the British monarchs which signifies their titular leadership over the Church of England. Although the monarch's authority over the Church of England is not strong, the position is still very relevant to the church and is mostly...
and which imposed an oath on all subjects requiring them to swear that they recognized the royal supremacy in the church; and (2) the Act of Uniformity
Act of Uniformity 1559
The Act of Uniformity set the order of prayer to be used in the English Book of Common Prayer. Every man had to go to church once a week or be fined 12 pence , a considerable sum for the poor. By this Act Elizabeth I made it a legal obligation to go to church every Sunday...
, which established religious uniformity throughout the country by requiring all churches to conduct services according to the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
.
The events of the 1640s caused the English legal community to worry that the Westminster Assembly was preparing to illegally alter the church in a way that overrode the Act of Supremacy. As such, John Selden
John Selden
John Selden was an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law...
, arguably the foremost jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
in England since the death of Edward Coke
Edward Coke
Sir Edward Coke SL PC was an English barrister, judge and politician considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the...
in 1634, led a campaign against altering the Church of England in a way that would undermine the Act of Supremacy. Thus, just as the Presbyterian party in the Assembly was dominated by non-members (the Scottish Commissioners), the Erastian party was dominated by Selden and the other lawyers. Selden argued that not only English law, but the Bible itself required that the church be subordinate to the state: he cited the relationship of Zadok
Zadok (High Priest)
Zadok , was a priest descended from Eleazar the son of Aaron, who aided King David during the revolt of his son Absalom, and was consequently instrumental in bringing King Solomon to throne...
to King David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
and Romans 13 in support of this view.
John Lightfoot
John Lightfoot was an English churchman, rabbinical scholar, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and Master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge.-Life:...
, the most zealous proponent of the Erastian position was Bulstrode Whitelocke
Bulstrode Whitelocke
Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke was an English lawyer, writer, parliamentarian and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.- Biography :...
, one of the MPs serving as a lay assessor to the Assembly. Whitelock maintained that only the state – and not the church – could lawfully exercise the power of excommunication
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
.
In October 1645, the Scottish Commissioners got their way when the Long Parliament voted in favour of an ordinance erecting a presbyterian form of church government in England. However, they were appalled that the Parliament also adopted the Erastian argument and made any final decision of the church on the question of excommunication appealable from the General Assembly to the Parliament of England
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...
.
This decision provoked protests from the Presbyterian party. The Parliament of Scotland
Parliament of Scotland
The Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The unicameral parliament of Scotland is first found on record during the early 13th century, with the first meeting for which a primary source survives at...
, worried that the Long Parliament was failing to live up to its commitments under the Solemn League and Covenant, protested the Erastian nature of the ordinance. The ministers of London organized a petition to the Parliament. The Westminster Assembly responded by sending a delegation, led by Stephen Marshall, a fiery preacher who had delivered several sermons to the Long Parliament, to protest the Erastian nature of the ordinance. (Some MPs argued that the Assembly by this action committed a praemunire
Praemunire
In English history, Praemunire or Praemunire facias was a law that prohibited the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction, imperial or foreign, or some other alien jurisdiction or claim of supremacy in England, against the supremacy of the Monarch...
and should be punished.) Parliament responded by sending a delegation which included Nathaniel Fiennes
Nathaniel Fiennes
Nathaniel Fiennes was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1640 and 1659...
to the Westminster Assembly, along with a list of interrogatories related to the jure divino nature of church government. The Assembly responded by flatly rejecting the Erastian position – with John Lightfoot and Thomas Coleman being the lone members speaking in favour of Erastianism.
Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and author, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.-Life:...
, published a book entitled The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication. A second Scottish Commissioner, George Gillespie
George Gillespie
George Gillespie was a Scottish theologian.-Life:He was born at Kirkcaldy, where his father, John Gillespie, was parish minister, and studied at St. Andrews University as a "presbytery bursar". On graduating he became domestic chaplain to John Gordon, 1st Viscount Kenmure , and afterwards to John...
engaged in a pamphlet debate with Coleman: in response to a sermon which Coleman published advocating the Erastian position, Gillespie published A Brotherly Examination of some Passages of Mr. Coleman’s late printed Sermon; Coleman responded with A Brotherly Examination Re-examined; Gillespie responded with Nihil Respondes; Coleman replied with Male Dicis Maledicis; and Gillespie responded with Male Audis. Gillespie also had words for William Prynne
William Prynne
William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...
, who had written in favour of the Parliament's ordinance; Prynne was a special target of attack when Gillespie produced his magnum opus, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming; or, The Divine Ordinance of Church Government Vindicated, a work which partially incorporated material from the controversy with Coleman.
The Presbyterian party also used their strength in London to petition the Parliament in favour of their position.
Sacrament
A sacrament is a sacred rite recognized as of particular importance and significance. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites.-General definitions and terms:...
of the Lord's Supper
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
, for the choice of elders, and for supplying defects in former Ordinances concerning church government." This Ordinance provided mechanisms for selecting elders throughout the country, and generally established a Presbyterian system of church governance for the country. However, this Ordinance again contained an Erastian element. The Ordinance created a new office of "commissioners to judge of scandalous offenses": these commissioners were granted jurisdiction to determine if a "scandalous offense" warranted excommunication and sessions were forbidden from excommunicating any church member without a commissioner first having signed off on the excommunication. The Presbyterian party was furious at the inclusion of the office of commissioner in the act that created Presbyterian polity in England.
The Independent party was angry that Parliament remained in the business of enforcing religious conformity at all. The most famous expression of the Independents' despondency at the Long Parliament's actions was John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's poem "On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament". Milton argued that the Long Parliament was imitating popish tyranny in the church; violating the biblical principle of Christian liberty; and engaging in a course of action that would punish godly men. He concluded the poem with the famous line, "New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large" (a play on words since in English, the word "Priest" emerged as a contraction of the Greek word "Presbyter", but also claiming that the Presbyters under the Long Parliament's plan would be even worse than the Catholic and Laudian priests whom all Puritans abhorred).
The creation of the Westminster Standards, 1641–1646
At the same time that the Westminster Assembly had been debating ecclesiology, they had also been reviewing worship and doctrine. These aspects generated less controversy amongst the divines.Tasked with reforming the English liturgy, the Assembly first considered simply adopting John Knox
John Knox
John Knox was a Scottish clergyman and a leader of the Protestant Reformation who brought reformation to the church in Scotland. He was educated at the University of St Andrews or possibly the University of Glasgow and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1536...
's Book of Common Order
Book of Common Order
-Genevan Book of Order:The Genevan Book of Order, sometimes called The Order of Geneva or Knox's Liturgy, is a directory for public worship in the Reformed Church of Scotland. In 1557 the Scottish Protestant lords in council enjoined the use of the English Common Prayer, i.e. the Second Book of...
, but this possibility was rejected by the Assembly in 1644, and the work of drawing up a new liturgy entrusted to a committee. This committee drafted the Directory of Public Worship
Directory of Public Worship
The Directory for Public Worship was a manual of directions for worship approved by an ordinance of Parliament early in 1645 to replace the Book of Common Prayer .-Origins:The movement against the Book of Common...
, which was passed by the Westminster Assembly in 1645. Unlike the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
, which had contained detailed rubrics regulating in minute detail how clergymen were supposed to conduct service, the Directory of Public Worship is basically a loose agenda for worship, and expected the minister to fill in the details. Under the Directory, the focus of the service was on preaching. The service opened with a reading of a passage from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
; followed by an opening prayer (selected or composed by the minister, or offered extemporaneously by the minister); followed by a sermon
Sermon
A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...
; and then ended with a closing prayer. The Directory provides guidelines as to what the prayers and sermon ought to contain, but does not contain any set forms of prayers. The Directory encouraged the public singing of psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
, but left it to the minister's discretion which psalms should be used in the service and where in the service (contrast this with the Book of Common Prayer, which set out the precise order for singing psalms for every day of the year in a way that ensured that the entire Book of Psalms is sung once a month). The sections dealing with baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
, communion
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
, marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, funerals, days of public fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
and days of public thanksgiving
Gratitude
Gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation is a feeling, emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive. The experience of gratitude has historically been a focus of several world religions, and has been considered extensively by moral...
all have a similar character.
In 1643, the Long Parliament had ordered the Westminster Assembly to draw up a new Confession of Faith
Confession of Faith
A Confession of Faith is a statement of doctrine very similar to a creed, but usually longer and polemical, as well as didactic.Confessions of Faith are in the main, though not exclusively, associated with Protestantism...
and a new national catechism
Catechism
A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...
. The result was the production of the Westminster Confession of Faith
Westminster Confession of Faith
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith, in the Calvinist theological tradition. Although drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly, largely of the Church of England, it became and remains the 'subordinate standard' of doctrine in the Church of Scotland, and has been...
and two catechisms, the Westminster Larger Catechism
Westminster Larger Catechism
The Westminster Larger Catechism, along with the Westminster Shorter Catechism, is a central catechism of Calvinists in the English tradition throughout the world.- History :...
(designed to be comprehensive) and the Westminster Shorter Catechism
Westminster Shorter Catechism
The Westminster Shorter Catechism was written in the 1640s by English and Scottish divines. The assembly also produced the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Larger Catechism...
(designed to be easier for children to memorize).
The Long Parliament approved the Directory of Public Worship in 1645. The Westminster Confession was presented to Parliament in 1646, but the House of Commons returned the Confession to the Assembly with the instruction that proof texts from Scripture should be added to the Confession. This version was resubmitted to Parliament in 1648, and, after a long a rigorous debate (during the course of which some chapters and sections approved by the Assembly were deleted), the Confession was ratified by the Long Parliament. The Larger Catechism was completed in 1647, and the Shorter Catechism in 1648, and both received the approval of both the Westminster Assembly and the Long Parliament.
Since the Westminster Standards had been produced under the watchful eye of the Scottish Commissioners at the Westminster Assembly, the Scottish had no problem ratifying the Westminster Standards in order to keep Scotland's commitment to England under the Solemn League and Covenant
Solemn League and Covenant
The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians. It was agreed to in 1643, during the First English Civil War....
. Since the Directory set up a type of ecclesiology already practiced in the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
, it was quickly ratified by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the sovereign and highest court of the Church of Scotland, and is thus the Church's governing body[1] An Introduction to Practice and Procedure in the Church of Scotland, A Gordon McGillivray, 2nd Edition .-Church courts:As a Presbyterian church,...
and then by the Parliament of Scotland
Parliament of Scotland
The Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The unicameral parliament of Scotland is first found on record during the early 13th century, with the first meeting for which a primary source survives at...
in 1646. The Larger and Shorter Catechisms were ratified by General Assembly in 1648 and the Westminster Confession in 1649. The Westminster Standards are the general standards of the Church of Scotland and of nearly all Presbyterian denominations to this day.
Its work being completed, the Westminster Assembly was dissolved in 1649.
Oliver Cromwell and the Independent ascendancy in the New Model Army
In 1646, the Presbyterian party committed themselves to a fateful course of action. As background, we need to briefly consider the course of the First English Civil WarFirst English Civil War
The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...
.
Parliamentary forces had initially fared poorly against royalist forces: the first major battle of the war, the Battle of Edgehill
Battle of Edgehill
The Battle of Edgehill was the first pitched battle of the First English Civil War. It was fought near Edge Hill and Kineton in southern Warwickshire on Sunday, 23 October 1642....
on 23 October 1642, was inconclusive, as was the First Battle of Newbury
First Battle of Newbury
The First Battle of Newbury was a battle of the First English Civil War that was fought on 20 September 1643 between a Royalist army, under the personal command of King Charles, and a Parliamentarian force led by the Earl of Essex...
of 20 September 1643. As noted above, as a result of their failure to defeat the king on the battlefield, in the wake of the First Battle of Newbury, the Long Parliament decided to enter into an alliance with the Scottish, which resulted in the Solemn League and Covenant
Solemn League and Covenant
The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians. It was agreed to in 1643, during the First English Civil War....
(by which the Long Parliament agreed to establish presbyterianism in England), and with the war being entrusted to a joint committee of Scottish and English known as the Committee of Both Kingdoms
Committee of Both Kingdoms
The Committee of Both Kingdoms, , was a committee set up during the English Civil War by the Parliamentarian faction in association with representatives from the Scottish Covenanters, to oversee the conduct of the War and Foreign Policy...
. With the addition of the Scottish forces, the parliamentarians now won a decisive victory at the Battle of Marston Moor
Battle of Marston Moor
The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on 2 July 1644, during the First English Civil War of 1642–1646. The combined forces of the Scottish Covenanters under the Earl of Leven and the English Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester defeated the Royalists commanded by Prince...
on 2 July 1644.
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
commander had been Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, and Cromwell now approached the Committee of Both Kingdoms with a proposal. Cromwell had come to the conclusion that the current military system was untenable because it relied on local militias defending local areas. Cromwell proposed that Parliament create a new army that would be deployable anywhere in the kingdom and not tied to a particular locality. After the Second Battle of Newbury
Second Battle of Newbury
The Second Battle of Newbury was a battle of the English Civil War fought on 27 October, 1644, in Speen, adjoining Newbury in Berkshire. The battle was fought close to the site of the First Battle of Newbury, which took place in late September the previous year.The combined armies of Parliament...
of 27 October 1644, where parliamentary forces greatly outnumbered royalist forces and yet parliamentary forces were barely able to defeat the royalist forces, Cromwell redoubled his arguments in favor of creating a new army. At this point, most of the leaders in the parliamentary army were Presbyterians who supported the Presbyterians at the Westminster Assembly. Cromwell, however, had also been following the goings-on of the Westminster Assembly and he sided with the Independents. Cromwell thought that the Presbyterians in the army – notably his superior, Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester
Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester
Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester KG, KB, FRS was an important commander of Parliamentary forces in the First English Civil War, and for a time Oliver Cromwell's superior.-Life:...
– opposed his proposal to create a new and more effective army mainly because they wanted to make peace with the king. He also thought that the army's supreme commander, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex was an English Parliamentarian and soldier during the first half of the seventeenth century. With the start of the English Civil War in 1642 he became the first Captain-General and Chief Commander of the Parliamentarian army, also known as the Roundheads...
, shared Manchester's views. Cromwell, however, felt that parliamentary forces should seek total victory over the royalists, and since he distrusted Charles immensely, he felt that Charles should have no role in any post-war government.
Cromwell, who was an MP as well as a military commander, now devised a brilliant way to out-maneuver his enemies in the army. In Parliament, Cromwell suddenly proposed a dramatic way to resolve his differences with Manchester and Essex. On 9 December 1644, Cromwell introduced a bill in Parliament saying that no member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords could retain his position as a military commander while serving as a member of Parliament. Members would have to choose: either resign from Parliament or resign from the army. Cromwell's bill was passed by the House of Commons but rejected by the House of Lords in January 1645, who were worried that this would mean that no nobleman could serve as a commander in the army. To assuage this worry, Cromwell re-introduced his bill with a provision saying that, if Parliament wished, it could re-appoint any parliamentarian who resigned from the army to the army if it so chose. The Lords were ultimately persuaded by Cromwell, and on 13 January 1645 passed this bill, known to history as the Self-denying Ordinance
Self-denying Ordinance
The first Self-denying Ordinance was a bill moved on 9 December 1644 to deprive members of the Parliament of England from holding command in the army or the navy during the English Civil War. It failed to pass the House of Lords. A second Self-denying Ordinance was agreed to on 3 April 1645,...
. At roughly the same time, on 6 January 1645, the Committee of Both Kingdoms finally approved Cromwell's request and authorized the creation of the New Model Army
New Model Army
The New Model Army of England was formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and was disbanded in 1660 after the Restoration...
. In the wake of the Self-denying Ordinance, Essex and Manchester both resigned from the army in order to retain their positions in the House of Lords. Cromwell, instead, resigned from the House of Commons rather than forfeit his position in the army. Thus, when the New Model Army was organized under Sir Thomas Fairfax
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron was a general and parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War...
, Cromwell was the most senior army commander left in the army. Fairfax therefore leaned on Cromwell as his number-two during the organization of the New Model Army. Cromwell did everything in his power to ensure that no Presbyterians were recruited to the New Model Army, and that Independents were encouraged to join the New Model Army. Cromwell had thus created a situation where the Presbyterians dominated the Long Parliament, but the Independents dominated the New Model Army.
Battle of Naseby
The Battle of Naseby was the key battle of the first English Civil War. On 14 June 1645, the main army of King Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.-The Campaign:...
on 16 June 1645, the New Model Army achieved a decisive victory over royalist forces. A number of subsequent battles were needed to finally defeat the royalist forces. In May 1646, Charles surrendered himself over to Scottish forces at Southwell, Nottinghamshire
Southwell, Nottinghamshire
Southwell is a town in Nottinghamshire, England, best known as the site of Southwell Minster, the seat of the Church of England diocese that covers Nottinghamshire...
.
So, to summarize the situation as we move into 1647: On the one hand, you have the leaders of the Long Parliament and the Scottish favoring peace with Charles and a restoration of Charles to power as a constitutional monarch, while Oliver Cromwell, the Independent leader of the New Model Army, wants to get rid of Charles. On the other hand, you have the Scottish and the Presbyterian party at the Westminster Assembly pushing for a pure form of Presbyterian polity for the Church of England, while the Long Parliament has enacted a form of presbyterianism which contains Erastian elements which the Westminster Presbyterian party and the Scottish find deeply distasteful. Under these circumstances, the Scottish, and the Presbyterian party at the Westminster Assembly (a party which had been dominated by the Scottish Commissioners) decided to approach the king in order to seek his support against the Independents and the Erastians.
The Second English Civil War (1648–49) and the Regicide (1649)
In summer and fall 1647, Henry IretonHenry Ireton
Henry Ireton was an English general in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War. He was the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell.-Early life:...
and John Lambert
John Lambert (general)
John Lambert was an English Parliamentary general and politician. He fought during the English Civil War and then in Oliver Cromwell's Scottish campaign , becoming thereafter active in civilian politics until his dismissal by Cromwell in 1657...
negotiated with both houses of parliament and eventually the Army and Parliament reached agreement on a set of proposals, known as the Heads of Proposals
Heads of Proposals
The Heads Of Proposals was a set of propositions intended to be a basis for a constitutional settlement after King Charles I was defeated in the first English Civil War...
, which were presented to Charles in November 1647. The main propositions were
- Royalists had to wait five years before running for or holding an office.
- The Book of Common PrayerBook of Common PrayerThe Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
was allowed to be read but not mandatory, and no penalties should be made for not going to church, or attending other acts of worship. - The sitting Parliament was to set a date for its own termination. Thereafter, biennial Parliaments were to be called (i.e. every two years), which would sit for a minimum of 120 days and maximum of 240 days. Constituencies were to be reorganized.
- Episcopacy would be retained in church government, but the power of the bishops would be substantially reduced.
- Parliament was to control the appointment of state officials and officers in the army and navy for 10 years.
Charles, however, rejected the Heads of Proposals.
Instead, Charles negotiated with a faction of Scottish Covenanters and on 26 December 1647, signed The Engagement
Engagers
The Engagers were a faction of the Scottish Covenanters, who made "The Engagement" with King Charles I in December 1647 while he was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle by the English Parliamenterians after his defeat in the First Civil War....
, a secret treaty with the group of Scottish Covenanters who became known as the Engagers. Under the Engagement, Charles agreed that episcopacy should be suppressed in the Church of England, and he agreed to support presbyterianism for three years, after which a permanent solution to the question of the church's polity could be worked out. In exchange, the Engagers agreed to bring an army of 20,000 into England in order to suppress the New Model Army and restore Charles to his throne. This led to the Second English Civil War
Second English Civil War
The Second English Civil War was the second of three wars known as the English Civil War which refers to the series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1652 and also include the First English Civil War and the...
. The royalist forces were defeated decisively at the Battle of Preston
Battle of Preston (1648)
The Battle of Preston , fought largely at Walton-le-Dale near Preston in Lancashire, resulted in a victory by the troops of Oliver Cromwell over the Royalists and Scots commanded by the Duke of Hamilton...
on 17–19 August 1648.
Charles Stuart, that man of blood
Charles Stuart, that man of blood was a phrase used by Independents, during the English Civil War to describe King Charles IThe phrase is derived from the Bible:and other verses were used to justify regicide:-Windsor Castle prayer meeting:...
" who deserved to be punished, and that the outcome of the First English Civil War had been proof of God's judgment against Charles. Taking up arms after that judgment had been rendered resulted in the shedding of innocent blood. The leaders of the army therefore drafted The Remonstrance of the Army in November 1648, calling on the Long Parliament to execute Charles and to replace hereditary monarchy
Hereditary monarchy
A hereditary monarchy is the most common type of monarchy and is the form that is used by almost all of the world's existing monarchies.Under a hereditary monarchy, all the monarchs come from the same family, and the crown is passed down from one member to another member of the family...
in England with an elective monarchy
Elective monarchy
An elective monarchy is a monarchy ruled by an elected rather than hereditary monarch. The manner of election, the nature of the candidacy and the electors vary from case to case...
. When the Long Parliament rejected the Army's Remonstrance, the Army Council decided that they would take decisive action.
On Wednesday 6 December Colonel Thomas Pride’s
Thomas Pride
Thomas Pride was a parliamentarian general in the English Civil War, and best known as the instigator of "Pride's Purge".-Early Life and Starting Career:...
Regiment of Foot took up position on the stairs leading to the House. Pride stood at the top of the stairs. As MPs arrived, he checked them against the list provided to him; Lord Grey of Groby
Thomas Grey, Lord Grey of Groby
Thomas Grey, Lord Grey of Groby , was an elected Member of Parliament for Leicester during the English Long Parliament, an active member of the Parliamentary party and a regicide...
helped to identify those to be arrested and those to be prevented from entering. Pride's Purge
Pride's Purge
Pride’s Purge is an event in December 1648, during the Second English Civil War, when troops under the command of Colonel Thomas Pride forcibly removed from the Long Parliament all those who were not supporters of the Grandees in the New Model Army and the Independents...
excluded all but about 200 members of the about the 500 member who had been entitled to sit before the purge.
After the Purge, the remaining members (who were sympathetic to the Independent party and the Army Council)—henceforth known as the Rump Parliament
Rump Parliament
The Rump Parliament is the name of the English Parliament after Colonel Pride purged the Long Parliament on 6 December 1648 of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason....
—proceeded to do what the Long Parliament had refused to do: put Charles on trial for high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
. The House of Commons passed an act on 3 January 1649 creating a High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I
High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I
The High Court of Justice is the name given to the court established by the Rump Parliament to try King Charles I of England. This was an ad hoc tribunal created specifically for the purpose of trying the king, although the same name was used again for subsequent courts.Neither the involvement of...
. This Act was rejected by the House of Lords, but the Army insisted that the trial should go ahead anyway. It began on 20 January 1649 in Westminster Hall and ended on 27 January 1649 with a guilty verdict. 59 Commissioners signed Charles' death warrant, and he was subsequently beheaded on 30 January 1649.
Religious fanaticism
Religious fanaticism is fanaticism related to a person's, or a group's, devotion to a religion. However, religious fanaticism is a subjective evaluation defined by the culture context that is performing the evaluation. What constitutes fanaticism in another's behavior or belief is determined by the...
to regicide. The largest single group of Puritans, the Presbyterians, had in fact opposed the regicide, but to the supporters of the king and of episcopacy, this seemed like too fine a distinction. On the other hand, for many Independents, the regicide was entirely justified: Charles was a man who had been a tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
and who defied the will of God and therefore had to be punished.
Literary exchanges over the regicide occurred after royalists published Eikon Basilike
Eikon Basilike
The Eikon Basilike , The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, was a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England...
immediately upon Charles's execution. Eikon Basilike purported to be written by Charles during his time in captivity, but was almost certainly ghost-written, likely by John Gauden
John Gauden
John Gauden was an English bishop of Exeter then bishop of Worcester and writer, and the reputed author of the important Royalist work Eikon Basilike.-Life:...
. In this book, Charles is presented as a "devout son of the Church of England" who was unjustly hounded by Puritan persecutors and ultimately martyred for defending the Church of England against fanatics. John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, now the most important Independent polemicist, responded later in 1649 in a book he entitled Eikonoklastes
Eikonoklastes
Eikonoklastes is a book by John Milton, published October 1649. In it he provides a justification for the execution of Charles I, which had taken place on 30 January 1649. The book's title is taken from the Greek, and means "iconoclast" or "breaker of the icon", and refers to Eikon Basilike, a...
, which was a point-by-point response to Eikon Basilikes flattering portrait of Charles and its unflattering portrait of the Parliamentarians and the Army.