DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
MODULE HANDBOOK
2009--2010
HERESY, TOLERATION AND DISSENT IN EARLY
MODERN ENGLAND
Convenor: Professor Bernard Capp
Table of Contents
Context of Module
3
Module Aims
3
Intended Learning Outcomes
3
Syllabus:
Seminar 1: Introduction and Overview
4
Seminar 2: Royal Policies under Mary and Elizabeth
6
Seminar 3: The ‘Long Reformation’: Protestantism and the People
8
Seminar 4: Puritans, Church and Crown, under Elizabeth and James
11
Seminar 5: Catholic Responses 1559-1640:
assimilation, recusancy, church papism
13
Seminar 6: Laudianism/Arminianism and Anti-Catholicism
15
Seminar 7: Toleration and the English Revolution 1640-60
17
Seminar 8: The Quakers
Seminar 9: Popery, Nonconformity and the Revolution of 1688
19
21
2
Context of Module
This module may be taken by students on the MA in Social and Religious History,
the MA in History, or any taught Master's student outside the History Department.
Module Aims
Focusing on religion in England in the period 1553-1689, from Mary to the
Glorious Revolution, the module aims to familiarise students with government
responses to heretical and dissenting groups; the balance between connivance
and persecution; the position and strategies of minority groups; theories of
toleration and repression; and changes in policy and attitudes over the period.
The module will consider a range of current approaches and debates among
historians.
Intended Learning Outcomes

The development of seminar participation skills, including presentations;

A greater familiarity with the recent historiography of the period, and an
ability to engage critically with it in the light of familiarity with relevant
primary source materials.

The ability to develop, research and write a 5000 word assessed essay, in
an area related to the module, demonstrating critical engagement with
recent scholarship and effective use of primary sources where appropriate,
and providing an extensive and specialist bibliography, and a scholarly
apparatus;

The ability to build on themes related to this module to develop a
Dissertation later in the course.
3
Seminar 1: Introduction and Overview
For discussion:
Why did most contemporaries view religious toleration with deep suspicion in this
period? On what grounds, and to what extent, did some defend it?
General surveys:

J. Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689
(2000)

G. Elton, ‘Persecution and Toleration in the English Reformation’,
Persecution and Toleration, ed. W Sheils (1984), Studies in Church
History, 21.

C. Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England (1998), esp. chs
4 and 5 (on dissent and compliance)

P.Marshall, Reformation England 1480-1642 (2003) Excellent historical
and historiographical overview.

C. Russell, ‘Arguments for Religious Unity in England, 1530-1650’, Journ.
of Ecclesiastical History, 18 (1967).

Walsham, Charitable Hatred. Tolerance and Intolerance in England 15001700 (2006)

R. Tittler, The Reign of Mary Tudor (1983)

E. Duffy, Fires of Faith. Catholic England under Mary Tudor (2009)

A.G Dickens, The English Reformation (1989)- chap. on Mary

Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor (1991)

J Loach, ‘Mary Tudor and the Re-Catholicisation of England’, History
Today, Nov.

1994 (a more optimistic assessment than Dickens/Loades)

D. MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England 1547-1603 (1990)

Haigh, English Reformations (1989)

C. Haigh, ed. The Reign of Elizabeth I (chaps. By Haigh and Collinson)

P Collinson, The Religion of Protestants (1982)

Dures, English Catholicism 1558-1642 (1983)

J Bossy, ‘The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism’, Past & Present (1962)

J Bossy, The English Catholic Community (1975)

Durston and J Eales, eds., The Culture of English Puritanism (1996) (good
essays, covering the whole period)
4

P. McGrath, Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I (1967)

Walsham, Church Papists (1993)

B Reay, The Quakers and the English Revolution (1985)

Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (1972)

Marsh, The Family of Love (1994)

Michael Watts, The Dissenters, vol. 1 (1978) provides a good overall
survey of the views and position of Protestant nonconformists throughout
the period.
For some contemporary 17th century views, reflecting opposite ends of the
spectrum, see T. Edwards, Gangraena (1646, facsimile reprint 1977; long, but
worth sampling); John Milton, Of Reformation or his Of True Religion; William
Walwyn, in Writings (1996) (e.g. his Compassionate Samaritan); John Locke, An
Essay on Toleration.
5
Seminar 2: Royal Policies under Mary and Elizabeth
For discussion:
What were the aims of the Marian persecution? Who drove it? Could it have
succeeded?
Was there any consistency in Elizabethan policy towards the Catholic community?
Why were Mary’s and Elizabeth’s approaches so different?
MARY AND THE PROTESTANTS

C. Haigh, English Reformations (1993), chs.12-13

R Tittler, The Reign of Mary Tudor (1983)- ‘seminar study’ series

A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (1964), ch.14 (argues Mary was
bound to fail).

J. Guy, Tudor England (1990), ch.8

D Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor (1991)- a pessimistic view

D Loades, ‘The Enforcement of Reaction’, in his Politics, Censorship and
the English Reformation (1991)

J Loach, ‘Mary Tudor and the Re-Catholicisation of England’, History Today
(Nov. 1994)- critique of the Loades/Dickens line.

G Alexander, ‘Bonner and the Marian Persecutions’ in Haigh, ed., English
Reformation Revised; also in History (1975)

E. Duffy, Fires of Faith. Catholic England under Mary Tudor (2009) Argues
that Mary could have succeeded.

E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (1992), ch. 16; reprinted in P.
Marshall, ed., Impact of the English Reformation.

P. Marshall, Reformation England 1480-1642 (2003)

S. Brigden, London and the Reformation (1989), ch. 14.

J.J. Scarisbrick, The English People and the English Reformation (1984),
ch. 7.

W. Monter, ‘Heresy executions in Reformation Europe 1520-1565’ in OP
Grell & B Scribner, eds., Tolerance and Intolerance in the European
Reformation (1996): the wider context
6
ELIZABETH AND THE CATHOLICS
General:

D.MacCulloch, The Later Reformation (1990)

C. Haigh, Elizabeth I (1988), ch. 2 (‘The Queen and the Church)

N.Jones, The Birth of the Elizabethan Age (1993), chs.2-5.

W.Haugaard, Elizabeth and the English Reformation (1968)

C. Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England (1998), esp. chs.
4-5.

P. Marshall, Reformation England 1480-1642 (2003)
Elizabeth & Catholics

J. Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689
(2000), ch. 4.

A.Dures, Elizabethan Catholicism (1983)

C. Haigh, English Reformations, chs. 14-15

P. McGrath Papists and Puritans (1967)

N.L. Jones, Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion
1559 (1982)

E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, ch. 17.

J Bossy, The English Catholic Community (1975)

J Bossy, ‘The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism’, Past & Present (1962)
and in T Aston, ed., Crisis in Europe (1975). Bossy’s work is more
germane to later seminar topics, but relevant here too for arguing the
near ‘extinction’ of the old Catholic church.
7
Seminar 3: The ‘Long Reformation’: Protestantism and the
People
For discussion:
In what sense can the mass of the English people be described as ‘Protestant’ by
the early seventeenth century?
What elements of continuity, change and ‘hybridisation’ can be detected in
popular religious mentalities in the period 1558-1640?
Which is the better label: ‘Protestant’ or ‘Post-Reformation’ England?
Reading:

D MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England (1990), ch. 10.

C Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth Century England (1998), esp. ch.45

P Marshall, Reformation England (2003), ch. 6

B Reay, Popular Cultures in England 1550-1750 (1998), ch. 3

K Wrightson, English Society 1580-1680 (1982), ch. 7

K Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), esp. ch. 6 on popular
‘superstitions’

C Haigh, ‘The Church of England, the Catholics, and the People’ in Haigh,
ed., The Reign of Elizabeth I (1984), and in P. Marshall, ed., The Impact of
the English Reformation (1997)- on ‘parish Anglicans’, and the failure of
the English to absorb The Protestant message. See Collinson, in Haigh,
Reign of Elizabeth, for a different view.

C Haigh, ‘The Taming of Reformation: Preachers, Pastors and Parishioners
in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England’, History, 85 (2000)

C Haigh, ‘Success and Failure in the English Reformation, Past and
Present, 173 (2001)

C Haigh, The Plain Man’s Pathways to Heaven. Kinds of Christianity in
Post-Reformation England, 1570-1640 (2007)

P Collinson, The Religion of Protestants (1982)- ch. 5 on ‘Popular and
unpopular religion’.

J Maltby, ‘Parishioners, the Prayer Book and the Established Church’, in K
Fincham, ed., The Early Stuart Church (1993) and in Marshall, Impact of
the English Reformation. A different view of ‘prayer book Protestants’,
8
elaborated in her Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart
England (1998)

D Cressy, Bonfires and Bells (1998)- development of a Protestant festival
calendar

R Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England (1993), esp. chaps. 3-5: on
related themes. See also his ‘The English Reformation and the Evidence of
Folklore’, Past and Present, 148 (1995), on long-term religio-cultural
change.

M Ingram, ‘From reformation to toleration: popular religious cultures in
England, 1540-1690’, in T. Harris, ed., Popular Culture in England, c15001850 (1995)

P Collinson, ‘William Shakespeare’s Religious Inheritance and Environment’
in idem, Elizabethan Essays (broader than the title suggests)

A Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500-1700 ((2000)

P Lake, ‘Deeds against Nature: Cheap Print, Protestantism and Murder in
Early 17th century England’, in K. Sharpe and P. Lake, eds. Culture and
Politics in Early Modern England (1994); cf his ‘Popular Form, Puritan
Content?...’ in A. Fletcher and P.Roberts, eds., Religion, Culture and
Society (1994); both reprinted in Lake, The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat (2002)

I Green, ‘The emergence of the English catechism under Elizabeth and the
early Stuarts’, in Journ. of Ecclesiastical History (1986)- on the volume of
Protestant catechising. See also his monograph, The Christian’s ABC
(1996)

T Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety: 1550-1640 (1991)- on cheap
literature & the formation of post-reformation religious culture. A shorter
version in M Spufford, ed., The World of Rural Dissenters (1995) and in
Marshall, Impact of the English Reformation

A Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (1999)- a key aspect of
popular religion; see also Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, ch.
4.

N Tyacke, ed., England’s Long Reformation 1500-1800 (1988)- esp.
essays by Duffy, Collinson, Hickman, Gregory

M Spufford, ‘Can we count the ‘godly’ and the ‘conformable’ in the
seventeenth century?’, Journ. of Ecclesiastical History (1985)- on the
problems in quantifying religious commitment

J Boulton, ‘The Limits of formal religion: the administration of holy
communion in late Elizabethan and early Stuart London’, London Journal
(1984)
9

B Capp, The World of John Taylor the Water-Poet (2004), ch.6 (the
religious mindset of a self-taught uneducated writer).
10
Seminar 4: Puritans, Church and Crown, under Elizabeth and
James
For discussion:
Are Puritans best understood as ‘the hotter sort’ of Protestants?
How far did Puritans wish to alter the Elizabethan Settlement and the Elizabethan
Church? Why did most choose to remain within the Church?
Can Puritans be seen as part of a ‘Calvinist consensus’ in this period? How far can
we identify a distinctive ‘Puritan culture?
Readings:

C Durston & J Eales, eds., The Culture of English Puritanism 1560-1700
(1996), esp. introd & chs 1-3.

John Spurr, English Puritanism 1603-1689 (1998) Good for the later
period; see esp. Part III, ‘The Puritan Experience’

John Coffey and Paul Lim, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism
(2008)

R J Acheson, Radical Puritans in England 1550-1660- brief ‘seminar study’

B Hall, ‘Puritanism: the Problem of Definition’ in Studies in Church History,
vol. ii, ed G J Cuming (1965)

C Hill, Society and Puritanism (1964)- ch. 1 on the definition of a Puritan,
stressing loose, non-religious usage (rest of book is a good discussion of
the affinity between puritan values and those of the industrious middling
sorts)

P McGrath, Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I (1967), very readable
narrative

P Collinson, English Puritanism, Historical Association pamphlet (1983)good introduction to Collinson’s approach

------, ‘A Comment: Concerning the Name Puritan’, Journ. of Ecclesiastical
History (1980)

-------, The Religion of Protestants (1982)- fine study of ‘Jacobethan’
church; esp. chs 4-6.

-------, Godly People (1983)- collection of important articles, esp. nos. 1, 6
(also in Studies in Church History 3), 9, 11, 13 (also in S T Bindoff, ed.,
Elizabethan Government & Society), 15 (also in P N Brooks ed,
11
Reformation Principle and Practice), 16 (also in SCH 1), 18 (also in Bulletin
of Institute of Historical Research, 1975), 20.

-------, The Birthpangs of Protestant England (1988)- Puritan interactions
with culture, urban and family life.

---------, ‘The Elizabethan Church and the New Religion’, in C Haigh, ed.
Reign of Elizabeth I.

---------, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (1967)- the classic (but
lengthy!) narrative.

P Lake, ‘Calvinism and the English Church 1570-1635’, Past & Present
(1987)- modifies Collinson’s model of a Calvinist consensus.

---------, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist
Thought (1985) -concept of puritanism in context of contemporary polemic

--------, ‘Defining Puritanism- again?’, in F J Bremer, ed., Puritanism:
Transatlantic Perspectives (1993)

David Como, Blown by the Spirit; Puritanism and the Emergence of an
Antinomian Underground in pre-civil war England (2004). See also Como,
‘The kingdom of Christ…’ in M. McClendon et al., eds., Protestant Identities
(1991)
-
R L Greaves, ‘The Puritan Non-Conformist Tradition in England, 15601700: Historiographical Reflections’, Albion (1985)

D Underdown, Fire from Heaven (1992)- fascinating case study of a
Puritan town (Dorchester)

P. Seaver, Wallington’s World. A Puritan artisan in 17th c London (1985)

Keith Wrightson & D. Levine, Poverty and Piety in an English Village (2nd
edn., 1999), ch. 6 and esp. Postscript. (relationship between puritanism
and social attitudes)

Margaret Spufford, ‘Puritanism and Social Control’ in A Fletcher & J.
Stevenson, eds, Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (1985)
(critique of Wrightson)

M. Spufford, Contrasting Communities. English Villagers in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries (1974), chap. 10, pp.249-71.

K Parker, The English Sabbath (1988)
Primary sources: dip into the published diaries/journals of Ralph Josselin, Richard
Baxter, Adam Martindale, John Angier. For more racy puritan writings, see ‘Martin
Mar-prelate’. For anti-puritan views: W Holden, Anti-Puritan Satire 1572-1642
(1954)
12
Seminar 5: Catholic Responses 1559-1640: assimilation,
recusancy, church papism
For discussion:
What factors influenced Catholics towards assimilation, accommodation, or
resistance? What forms might ‘resistance’ take?
How far did responses change over time, or reflect different social circumstances?
Reading:

A Dures English Catholicism 1558-1642 (1983)- good survey

P Marshall, Reformation England 1480-1642 (2003), ch. 7-excellent survey
of the issues.

M Mullett, Catholics in Britain and Ireland 1558-1629 (1983)- broad
survey

N Jones, The Birth of the Elizabethan Age (1983)- ch. 5 looks at Catholic
problems in the first decade.

C Haigh, English Reformations (1983), chs. 14-15, good on shifts over the
first 20 years.

P McGrath, Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I (1967) solid general
account

JCH Aveling, The Handle and the Axe (1976)- sees the Reformation as a
decisive break in the development of Catholicism

J Bossy, ‘The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism’, Past & Present (1962),
reprinted in T Aston (ed.), Crisis in Europe (1965). Argues for the central
role of gentry households.

J Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570-1850 (1985): a seminal
work, arguing that Catholicism largely disappeared and was reconstructed
by the missionaries. Now under attack from revisionists.

AD Wright, ‘Catholic History, North and South’, Northern History (1978)critical of Bossy

C Haigh, ‘The continuity of Catholicism in the English Reformation’, Past &
Present 1981), reprinted in Haigh, ed, English Reformation Revisedargues against Bossy and for survivalism.

C Haigh, ‘The Fall of a Church or the Rise of a Sect?’, Historical Journal
(1978)- critical review of Bossy.
13

C Haigh, ‘The Church of England, the Catholics and the People; in Haigh,
ed., Reign of Elizabeth I (1984), reprinted in P Marshall, ed., The Impact
of the English Reformation (1997). This and the next argue, against Bossy,
for the failure of the missionary campaign.

C Haigh ‘From Monopoly to Minority: Catholicism in Early Modern England’,
Trans. Royal Historical Soc. (1981). On the Catholics’ ‘lost opportunity’.
[Haigh’s thesis is criticised by McGrath, with reply by Haigh, in Journ. of
Ecclesiastical History, 1984-5; see also A D Wright, ‘Catholic History,
North and South Revisited’, Northern History (1989)- critical of Haigh]

J J Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (1984), ch. 7 on
Catholic survivalism

A Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional
Polemic (1993)- ‘church papism’ as a middle way: critique of Bossy.

A Walsham, ‘“Domme Preachers”? Post-Reformation English Catholicism
and the Culture of Print’, Past and Present, 168 (2000)

W J Sheils, ‘Catholics and their Neighbours in a Rural Community: Egton
Chapelry 1590-1780’, Northern History, 25 (1998). Case-study challenging
Bossy’s paradigms. See also his ‘Household, Age and Gender amongst
Jacobean Yorkshire Recusants’, in Marie Rowlands, ed., English Catholics
of Parish and Town (1999)

M Rowlands, ‘Recusant Women 1569-1640’, in Mary Prior, ed., Women in
English Society 1500-1800 (1985)

P Holmes, Resistance and Compromise: the political thought of the
Elizabethan Catholics (1982)

A Pritchard, Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England (1979)

P Lake & M Questier, ‘Agency, Appropriation and Rhetoric under the
Gallows...’, Past & Present, 153 (1996); cf their ‘Prisons, Priest and
People’, in N. Tyacke, ed., England’s Long Reformation 1500-1800
(1998); both reprinted in P Lake, The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat (2002)

Anne Dillon, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic
Community 1535-1603 (2002)

Caroline Hibbard, ‘Early Stuart Catholicism: Revisions and Re-revisions’,
Journal of Modern History (1980)
14
Seminar 6: Laudianism/Arminianism and Anti-Catholicism
For discussion:
Why did anti-Catholicism become the ‘nearest thing to a national ideology’ in this
period? What was the balance between religious, political and other factors?
How were many people able to be both anti-Catholic and willing to live peaceably
with their Catholic neighbours?
Why, and how fairly, were the Laudians smeared as ‘popish’?
Reading:

R Clifton, ‘Fear of Popery’ in C. Russell, ed., Origins of the English Civil
War

R Clifton, ‘The popular fear of Catholics during the English Revolution’,
Past & Present 51 (1971)

P Lake,
‘Anti-Popery: the structure of a prejudice’ in R Cust & A Hughes,
eds., Conflict in Early Stuart England (1989)

C Wiener, ‘The Beleaguered Isle. A Study of Elizabethan and early Stuart
Anti-Catholicism’, Past & Present 51 (1971)

T Cogswell, ‘England and the Spanish Match’, in R Cust & A Hughes, eds,
Conflicting Early Stuart England.

A Walsham, The Fatal Vesper: Providentialism and anti-popery in late
Jacobean London’, Past & Present, 144 (1994)

C Hibbard, ‘Early Stuart Catholicism: Revisions and Re-Revisions’, in
Journal of Modern History, 52 (1980)

B Capp ‘The political dimension of apocalyptical thought’, in C Patrides & J
Wittreich, eds., The Apocalypse (1984)

C Hill, Antichrist in the 17th Century (ch. 1, pope as Antichrist)

W Haller, Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ and the Elect Nation (last chapter)

D Cressy, Bonfires and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant
Calendar in Elizabethan and Stuart England (1989) (anti-Catholicism as
part of national/popular culture)

R Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse (1978) (theological dimension)

P Lake, ‘The Significance of the Elizabethan identification of the pope as
Antichrist’, Journ. of Ecclesiastical History, 31(1980)
15

M Ingram, ‘From Reformation to Toleration’ Popular religious cultures in
England, 1540-1690’, in Tim Harris, ed., Popular culture in England 15001850 (1995)

P Lake ‘Deeds against Nature: Cheap print, Protestantism and murder in
early seventeenth-century England’, in K Sharpe & P Lake, eds., Culture
and Politics in Early Stuart England (1994)
On Laud and the Arminians:

G Bernard, ‘The Church of England 1529-1642’, History, 75 (1990)

D Cressy, ‘Conflict, Consensus and the Willingness to Wink’, Huntington
Library Quarterly, 51 (1998)

Julian Davies, The Caroline Captivity of the Church (1992)

A Foster, ‘Church Policies of the 1630s’, in R Cust and A Hughes, eds.,
Conflict in Early Stuart England (1989)

P Lake, ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and a Shropshire Axe-Murder’, Midland
History 15 (1990)

C Marsh, ‘Sacred Space in England,1580-1640’, Journ. of Ecclesiastical
History, 53 (2002)

Kevin Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (1992)

N Tyacke, , ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-Revolution’, in C
Russell, ed, The Origins of the English Civil War (1975)

N Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: the Rise of English Arminianism 1590-1640
(1987)

N Tyacke, Aspects of English Protestantism 1530-1700 (2001)

A Walsham, ‘The Parochial Roots of Laudianism Revisited’, Journ. of
Ecclesiastical History, 49 (1998)

John Walter, Understanding Popular Violence in the English Revolution
(1999), chaps.5, 6 8 (anti-Laudianism, anti-popery)
16
Seminar 7: Toleration and the English Revolution 1640-60
For discussion:
What were the major arguments advanced for and against toleration in this
period?
How far did its supporters want toleration to extend?
What was the policy of the republic, and of Cromwell as Protector, towards
religious toleration? Does Cromwell’s position show any intellectual coherence and
consistency?
General surveys:

M Watts, The Dissenters (1978), Part II, esp. chaps. 1-8, 16

C Cross, ‘The Church in England 1646-1660’, in G. Aylmer, ed., The
Interregnum (1972)

J Morrill, ‘The Church in England 1642-1649’ in Morrill, ed., Reactions to
the English Civil War (1982), reprinted in Morrill, ed., The Nature of the
English Revolution (1993)

J Morrill, ‘The Impact of Puritanism’, in Morrill, ed., The Impact of the
English Civil War (1991)

Ann Hughes, ‘The Frustrations of the Godly’, in J Morrill, ed., Revolution
and Restoration. England in the1650s (1992)

J Coffey, ‘The toleration controversy during the English revolution’, in C
Durston and Judith Maltby, eds., Religion in Revolutionary England (2006)

A Hughes, Gangraena and the struggle for the English Revolution (2004)
(the debate on toleration at the end of the civil war)

B Worden, ‘Toleration and the Cromwellian Protectorate’ in Persecution
and Toleration, ed. W Sheils (1984), Studies in Church History, 21.

--, ‘Providence and politics in Cromwellian England’, in Past & Present 109
(1985)

--, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the sin of Achan’, in D Beales & G Best, eds.,
History, society and the churches (1985)

A Fletcher, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the godly nation’, in Oliver Cromwell and
the English Revolution, ed. Morrill (1990)

J C Davis, ‘Cromwell’s Religion’, also in Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell & the
English Revolution.
17

R Howell, ‘Cromwell and English Liberty’ in R C Richardson and G M
Ridden, eds. Freedom and the English Revolution (1986)

B. Capp, ‘Cromwell and Toleration’ in Jane Mills, ed., Cromwell’s Legacy
(forthcoming)

Hughes, ‘The Pulpit Guarded’, in John Bunyan and his England, ed A.
Laurence et al. (1990)

D Hirst, ‘The Failure of Godly Rule in the English revolution’, Past &
Present, 132 (1991)

C Durston, ‘Puritan Rule and the Failure of Cultural Revolution, 1645-60’,
in C Durston & J Eales, eds., The Culture of English Puritanism (1996)

J C Davis, Fear, Myth and History (1986) on parliamentary ‘panics’.

A L Morton, The World of the Ranters (1970)- ch. 6, on Walwyn, the
leading Leveller writer on toleration.

I Gentles, The New Model Army (1992) see pp285-94 on the Levellers, the
Grandees and the army debate on religious toleration.

L Damrosch, The Sorrows of the Quaker Jesus; James Nayler and the
Puritan Crackdown on the Holy Spirit (1996)

B Coward, Oliver Cromwell (1991), (see esp. index under Ireland, James
Nayler, Cromwell and religious liberty). On Nayler and the Quakers see
also B Reay, The Quakers in the English Revolution, and I Roots, The
Great Rebellion, ch. 22.
Primary sources:

T. Edwards, Gangraena (1646; facsimile edition 1977)- most important
attack on the radicals.

W. Walwyn, The Writings of William Walwyn, ed J R McMichael and B Taft
(1989)

W. Haller, ed., Tracts on Liberty in the Puritan Revolution (1936)

Cromwell, Letters and Speeches, ed Carlyle: see esp. letters from Ireland
1649, on the massacres after the sacking of Drogheda and Wexford; also
his speech to Parliament, Sept. 1654, on the Fifth Monarchists.

‘The Whitehall Debates’ in Puritanism and Liberty, ed A S P Woodhouse;
also in The Clarke Papers, Camden Society.
18
Seminar 8: The Quakers
For discussion:
How should we explain the Quakers’ appeal and dramatic success in the 1650s?
Was the spirit of their teaching and behaviour more important than their
doctrines in explaining the dynamism of the Quaker movement and the fears it
aroused?
Reading:
For general surveys of the radical sects, including the Quakers:

J.F. McGregor & B. Reay, eds., Radical Religion in the English Revolution
(1985)

C.Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (1972)
On the Quakers:

B Reay, The Quakers in the English Revolution (best short treatment, inc.
anti-Quakerism)

H Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan England (a more religious
interpretation)

A Cole, ‘Quakers and the English Revolution’, Past & Present, 9 (1956)

Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women (1992) (mainly on the Quakers)

C Trevett, Women and Quakerism in the 17th Century (1991)

G Nuttall, ‘Overcoming the World: the early Quaker programme’, in
Studies in Church History, vol. 10, ed D. Baker (n.b. a book series, not a
periodical; look under title or editor)

W C Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism (2nd edn 1955) (elderly, but
still the most full account)

A C Davies, The Quakers in English Society 1655-1725 (2000)

L Damrosch, The Sorrows of the Quaker Jesus: James Nayler and the
Puritan Crackdown on the Free Spirit (1996)

Kate Peters, Print Culture and the Early Quakers (2005)
19
For primary sources see:

The Journal of George Fox, ed J Nickalls (1952)

H Barbour and A Roberts, eds, Early Quaker WritingsThe Diary of Thomas
Burton, ed J T Rutt (1828), vol. 1 (contains the parliamentary debate on
James Nayler)
20
Seminar 9: Popery, Nonconformity and the Revolution of
1688
For discussion:
What shaped the Restoration monarchy’s policies towards nonconformists and
Catholics? How far was government policy matched by attitudes towards religious
minorities at local level?
What produced the panic over the ‘popish threat’ in the later years of Charles II?
How much did James II wish to do for the Catholics (and nonconformists)? Why
did he fail?
Reading: General:

Tim Harris, Politics under the later Stuarts (1993)

Barry Coward, Stuart England (reliable textbook)

M Watts, The Dissenters (1978), part III.
Restoration to 1685

M G Finlayson, Historians, Puritanism and the English Revolution. The
religious factor in English politics before and after the Interregnum (1983)

A J Fletcher, ‘The Enforcement of the Conventicle Acts 1664-1679, in W
Sheils, ed., Persecution and Toleration (Studies in Church History 21,
1984)

R Greaves, Deliver Us From Evil 1660-63 (1986); Enemies Under his Feet
1664-77 (1990); Secrets of the Kingdom 1678-89 (1992)- important
studies of nonconformist political militancy, and government fears.

T Harris et al, eds., The Politics of Religion in Restoration England (1990)

T Harris, Restoration. Charles II and his kingdoms 1660-1685 (2005)

J J Hurwich, ‘Dissent and Catholicism in English Society: a study of
Warwickshire 1660-1720’, Journ. of British Studies 16 (1976)

R Hutton, The Restoration. A political and religious history,1658-1667
(1985) (on Charles II and the Restoration religious settlement)

J P Kenyon, The Popish Plot

J Miller, Popery and Politics in England, 1660-1688 (1973)

M Spufford, Contrasting Communities (1974) (dissent at local level)
21

John Spurr, ‘From Puritanism to Dissent, 1660-1700’, in C Durston & J
Eales, eds., The Culture of English Puritanism (1996)

John Spurr, ‘Latitudinarianism and the Restoration Church’, Historical
Journal, 31 (1988)

Bill Stevenson, ‘The social integration of post-Restoration rural dissenters,
1660-1725’, in M Spufford, ed., The World of Rural Dissenters 1520-1725
(1995)

R Thomas, ‘Comprehension and Indulgence’, in G F Nuttall & O Chadwick,
eds., From Uniformity to Unity 1662-1962 (1962)
On the Catholics see also the works of Alan Dures and John Bossy (in full in
earlier reading lists)
James II, the Glorious Revolution and the 1689 settlement

Grell et al, eds., From Persecution to Toleration- the Glorious Revolution
and religion in England (1991)

J Miller, James II. A Study in Kingship (1978/89)

J Spurr, ‘The Church of England, comprehension and the Toleration Act’,
English Hist. Rev. 104 (1989)

J R Western, Monarchy and Revolution: the English state in the 1680s
(1972)- the Tory reaction and the reign of James II.
22