1. The Background
The English Reformation during the reign of Henry VIII saw the gospel preached in various parts of the kingdom. However, control of the Church remained ultimately in the hands of the King. Following Henry’s death in 1547, the Reformation continued to make progress under the young Edward VI, a godly lad who died at the age of 16. But his successor was his older half-sister Mary, who brought the nation back under the sway of Rome, and many of the leaders of the Reformation, such as Thomas Cranmer, Hugh
1This is the first section of a paper by the Editor, presented to the 2012 Theological Conference to mark the 350 years since the Great Ejection. It is printed now, though the anniversary has passed, to draw the attention of a wider audience to this significant occasion.
Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, endured a terrible death at the stake. Others, such as John Knox, fled to Reformed centres like Frankfurt and Geneva on the Continent, where many of them would have learned much from the European Reformers.
Deliverance came in 1558, with the death of “Bloody” Mary, when Elizabeth, Henry’s other daughter, became Queen in her place. Elizabeth’s policy was to re-establish the Church in the exact state where her father had left it and she was totally resistant to calls for further reformation. Assent to the Book of Common Prayer was required, yet this was not rigidly enforced in the earlier years of her reign. Many ministers laboured on in the confident hope that further reformation would yet take place within the Church, while men like the convinced Presbyterian, Thomas Cartwright, suffered much hardship as a result of forthrightly affirming their principles.
Elizabeth died in 1603 and was succeeded by James VI of Scotland, who became in addition James I of England. Many English Puritans, perhaps naively, expected great things from a monarch who had been brought up in Presbyterian Scotland. Scottish ministers, had they been in conversation with their English counterparts, could have told them otherwise. And they would have been right. Among the up and coming ministers in the latter part of James’ reign was William Laud, who was appointed Bishop of St David’s in 1621. In 1633, during the reign of Charles I, Laud was to become Archbishop of Canterbury. He was determined to impose his high church views throughout England, and even Scotland. Ministers with scriptural views were thrust out of their churches; some of them braved the dangers of the ocean to emigrate to New England and others took refuge in Holland. Among those who suffered most severely was Alexander Leighton, because he had published a book entitled Zion’s Plea Against Prelacy. He was severely whipped, he had an ear cut off, his nose was slit and he was branded on his cheek with a red-hot iron.
Worse was to befall Laud himself: after Parliament had got the upper hand in the Civil War, he was convicted of treason and beheaded, in 1645 – as was Charles himself in 1649. With Oliver Cromwell now at the head of the English Government, scriptural preaching and church order were possible as never before. Cromwell died in September 1658, and his son Richard took over the reins of government. But he lacked his father’s authority and before long he resigned, leaving the country leaderless; no one had the skill or authority to take control of a situation which was degenerating towards total chaos.
The Presbyterians2 had never been convinced of the propriety of the
2Many were so called who were not really committed to this form of Church government. It is in this wider sense that the word Presbyterians will be used in this paper.
execution of Charles I and they felt something of a sense of relief at the prospect of his son returning from exile to reign as Charles II. But even after all that the nation had endured under Charles I and all the sufferings of the Civil War, no conditions were placed on the new King when he returned to London. The eminent Puritan, Oliver Heywood, expressed his dilemma in his diary: “I must confess we are in a precarious state, being afraid lest the supreme governor should prove wicked, frown on the faithful of the land, obstruct the work of reformation, set up the abrogated ceremonies, subject us to the tyranny of an insulting hierarchy, corrupt God’s pure worship, and turn gospel discipline into courts of formality. . . . But shall our surmisings hinder our rejoicings? . . . Let us wait on God, keep His ways and trust Him with events.”3
Charles was proclaimed King on 8 May 1660 and made clear that the Church of England would be ruled by bishops and that public worship would be conducted according to the Prayer Book. But in his Declaration of Breda, issued exactly a month earlier, he had encouraged the expectation that matters would be so arranged that almost everyone could find a place within the established Church; he undertook “that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom; and that we shall be ready to consent to such an act of Parliament as, upon mature deliberation, shall be offered to us for the full granting that indulgence”.4
Many Presbyterians would have been glad to take advantage of such an arrangement; men such as Edmund Calamy, Edward Reynolds, Thomas Manton and Richard Baxter actively pursued the possibility. They would have been content to minister under a modified Episcopacy such as had been proposed previously by Archbishop Usher; under his scheme a bishop would rule in conjunction with his co-presbyters. The Independents, on the other hand, were not looking for a place within the Church of England; they were hoping to obtain freedom to worship according to their own forms in local congregations separate from the established Church.
For a time Presbyterians had been the leading men in the country, but control of affairs was slipping into the hands of Royalists, who were, after all, the King’s advisers. At their head was Edward Hyde (later and better known as Lord Clarendon); they aimed to placate the Puritans until they felt it safe to persecute them. For the longer term their policies were widely different from those which the King had announced. Indeed ominous reports
3Quoted in Gerald R Cragg, Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution 1660-1688, Cambridge University Press, 1957, p 3.
4Quoted in A H Drysdale, History of the Presbyterians in England, London, 1889, p 373.
soon came from various parts of the country that ministers were being subjected to abuse and even being driven from their charges.
Within the Church, the followers of Laud sought to take control and remould it to the form that their hero had desired for it. Gerald Cragg describes the pattern of these early days of Charles’ reign: “Promises were freely made; they were never implemented unless the development of a crisis showed that a timely concession must be offered. It was sometimes necessary to soothe the fears of a party which it was still inexpedient to alarm.”5 Negotiations continued for some time on a religious settlement, the King encouraging the Presbyterians to make concessions. After discussions had almost come to a complete stop, the Presbyterian members of Parliament realised that it was time to make a stand. The Government’s reaction was to announce a parliamentary recess; they also went ahead to fill the vacant bishoprics, which was to put the full Episcopalian machinery into action.
Meanwhile the King issued his Declaration of 25 October 1660. Its terms seemed remarkably generous, Richard Baxter – not the safest of guides in these matters – claimed that, if the declaration faithfully reflected the Government’s intentions, there was no reason why “any sober, honest minister” should not conform to the Church. The Declaration has been described as “a hypocritical and temporary expedient on the part of the Lord Chancellor [Hyde] to quiet the Presbyterians and to gain time”.6 But when a bill along the lines of the Declaration was introduced into the House of Commons, the King’s ministers ensured that it was defeated. The King and his ministers claimed afterwards that this parliamentary defeat absolved them from the promises made in the Declaration of Breda.
No doubt it was in an effort to get prominent Presbyterians committed to a Church of England now restored to an Episcopalian structure that bishoprics were offered to Baxter, Calamy, Reynolds and Richard Gilpin. All refused except Reynolds, who was appointed Bishop of Norwich, a post he accepted on the understanding that the terms of the King’s Declaration were to be put into law and faithfully adhered to.
The election of four Presbyterian members for London to the new parliament indicated that it was time for another “timely concession”. Within a week the Savoy Conference was announced, on 25 March 1661, to revise the Book of Common Prayer. It was to meet at the Savoy Palace, a residence of Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, and 12 bishops and 12 Presbyterians were summoned. The Presbyterians included Reynolds, Calamy and Baxter. Sheldon took the chair and demanded that the Presbyterians should submit
5Puritanism 1660-1688, p 5.
6A H Drysdale, History of the Presbyterians in England, p 377.
in writing their objections to the Prayer Book. James Sharp, the representative in London of the Scottish Church, reported back to Scotland with a degree of insight that his sympathy for the other side, the Episcopalians, perhaps gave him: “Episcopacy will be settled here to the height. The managing this business by papers will undo them [the Presbyterians]; those motions about putting in writing what they would desire in point of accommodation are but to gain time and prevent petitionings [to Parliament] and smooth over matters till the Episcopal men be more strengthened.”7
The Presbyterians argued that neither Lent or saints’ days should be observed, that the Apocrypha should not be read in church, that the word minister should be used instead of priest and Lord’s Day instead of Sunday, and that expressions which assumed that the congregation, or individuals in it, were regenerated should be revised. But their representations were futile. The response of the Bishops has been described as presenting “an angry defence of Church formulas”. In defending expressions in the Prayer Book, they affirmed baptismal regeneration, stating that “baptism is our spiritual regeneration”.8 There was no agreement, and the Conference ended without result. Meantime, the Prayer Book had been slightly revised in a direction which made things even more difficult for the Puritans, and those who had recovered power in the Church were glad that it should be so.