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Presidential Address: Collective Mentalities in mid Seventeenth-Century England: I. The Puritan Outlook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

G. E. Aylmer
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Extract

IT may seem unwise, if not downright foolish, and hubristic too, for someone who is not a historian of religion or the Church to choose such a topic as mine today. In mitigation of my offence, religion in the seventeenth century is in truth not only too important to be left to the theologians, but likewise too protean in its ramifications to re-main the exclusive preserve of ecclesiastical historians. Not that I wish in any way to slight the achievements of those scholars (some of them present this afternoon), without whose work I should not have had the temerity to attempt such a study as this at all. The problem which I wish to address is as follows: there are several interpretations of the different factions, parties and tendencies within the Church of England before 1640. There are disagreements con-cerning both the nature and extent of the differences between these groups, and the causes and significance of such divisions. There are many studies of the ecclesiastical parties and denominations which emerged on the anti-Catholic and then the anti-episcopalian side in 1641 and after, and of their part in the general history of the Civil War and Interregnum. Moving forward in time, there are studies of the restored Church and of the Dissenters or Nonconformists after 1660–2. In spite of all that has been written about Puritans from that day to this, especially about their theology, ecclesiology, liturgical practices, their moral, social and political tenets, less attention has been paid to the question of what constituted a Puritan in the first place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 36 , December 1986 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1986

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References

1 E.g. George, C. H., ‘Puritanism as history and historiography’, Past & Present, xli (1968), 77–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 [Count Lorenzo Magalotti] Travels of Cosmo the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, through England during the reign of Charles the Second (1669)… (1821), 426. I have not seen the original MS in Florence. The Introduction to Lorenzo Magalotti at the Court of Charles II His Relazione d'Inghilterra of 1668, ed. and trans. Middleton, W. E. K. (Waterloo, Ontario, 1980), 1–15Google Scholar, provides an account of the author, but this text does not include the 1669 section on the different religious sects and denominations.

3 The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1st edn., 1650), Pt III, chs. vii, viii.

4 Miller, Perry, The New England Mind. The Seventeenth Century (New York, 1939)Google Scholar.

5 Hutchinson, Lucy, The Life of Colonel John Hutchinson, ed. Sutherland, J. (Oxford, 1973), 43–4Google Scholar.

6 Reliquiae Baxterianae …, ed. Sylvester, M. (large qto, 1696), Bk I, pp. 2–3, 11, 31–4Google Scholar, and The Autobiography of Richard Baxter, abridged Thomas, J. M. and ed. Keeble, N. H. (1931 and 1974), chs. I–III, and on the divisions and labels of 1642 especially pp. 34–7Google Scholar.

7 Hutchinson, Life, 62–3Google Scholar.

8 Although she was a Quaker by the time that she wrote the account of her family and of her own life, Lady Mary Springett (née Proude), later Mrs. Isaac Pennington and William Penn's mother-in-law, comes nearer than most to this: see Gentleman's Magazine, new ser., xxxvi (1851), 365–74, 585–93Google Scholar.

9 The contemporary, handwritten ascription on the Bodleian copy (4. V. 9. Th. B.S.(2)) may be the only source for Ley's authorship. Parker's is assumed or accepted by such eminent authorities as Judson, Hill and Lamont, based partly on Thomason's ascription (see Politics, Religion and Literature in the Seventeenth Century ed. Lamont, W. and Oldfield, S. (1975), 100 and 246Google Scholar; Catalogue of the pamphlets … collected by George Thomason…, ed. Fortescue, G. K. (2 vols., 1908), i. 7Google Scholar. Jordan, W. K. (Men of Substance… (Chicago, 1942), 69 n. 1)Google Scholar expresses doubt, and the Dictionary of National Biography hedges its bets by ascribing it to both. The pseudonym, Philus Adelphus seems inconclusive. See also now Mendle, M., Dangerous Positions: Mixed Government, the Estates of the Realm and the Answer to the XIX Propositions (Alabama, 1985), 128–34Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., 53.

10 Discourse, 37.

12 See most recently, and notably, Fletcher, A., The Outbreak of the Civil War (1981)Google Scholar; Hibberd, C., Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, N. (Ca., 1983)Google Scholar; Morrill, J. S., arts, ante, 5th ser., xxxiv (1984)Google Scholar and in History, Society and the Churches: Essays in honour of Owen Chadwick, ed. Beales, D. and Best, G. (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar.

13 In the original ed., Bk I, p. 116; in that of 1854 (Oxford), pp. 115–17.

14 A Paradox… (1644), 2.

15 Contrast H., C. and George, K., The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation 1570–1640 (Princeton, 1961)Google Scholar with Hill, Christopher, Society and Puritanism in Pre-revolutionaty England (1964)Google Scholar. More recently, in his Religion and Society in Elizabethan England (Minneapolis, 1981)Google Scholar, R. L. Greaves has argued that there were marked differences in both personal and social morality between those whom he classifies as Anglican and as Puritan.

16 The Saints' Everlasting Rest, Pt III, chs. x, xi.

17 Beadle, John, The Journal or Diary of a Thankful Christian Presented in some Meditations upon Numbers. 33.2 (1656)Google Scholar.

18 The Revd Oliver Heywood, B.A. 1630–1702. His Autobiography, Diaries… (etc.), ed. Turner, J. Horsfall (4 vols., Brighouse and Bingley, Yorks., 1882–1885), i 151Google Scholar. Note also, however, Newcome in 1646 (The Autobiography of Henry Newcome, MA (Chetham Soc., xxvi, 1852), 2, 14–15)Google Scholar, Henry in 1657 (Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry, MA… 1631–1696, ed. Lee, M. H. (1882), 32–3)Google Scholar, and D'Ewes as far back as 1619/20 (The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Bt …, ed. Halliwell, J.O. (2 vols., 1845), i. 135–6)Google Scholar.

19 See, for example, Delany, P., British Autobiography in the 17th century (1969)Google Scholar and Watkins, O. C., The Puritan Experience (1972)Google Scholar. I am much indebted to both these works for bibliographical suggestions.

20 Bunny, Edmund, A Book of Christian Exercise pertaining to Resolution (1st edn. 1585)Google Scholar and compare (Robert Parsons or Persons), A Christian Directory.… (1582).

21 Collinson, P., The Religion of Protestants (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar, where Bayly is not discussed. The same author's English Puritanism (Historical Association, General ser., no. 106, 1983) has been an invaluable guide, although almost all its contemporary citations are pre-1640.

22 William Haller wrote of the Puritan ‘physicians of the soul’ that ‘Their method… was to make everyman see himself under the eternal images of the pilgrim and the warrior’ (The Rise of Puritanism (New York 1938), 25)Google Scholar. By far the most vivid portrayal known to me of Puritanism as a continuous process of self-examination is in Pritchett's, V. S. essay on Gosse, Edmund (The Living Novel (1946), 109):Google Scholar ‘Outwardly the extreme Puritan appears narrow, crabbed, fanatical, gloomy and dull, but from the inside what a series of dramatic climaxes his life is, what a fascinating casuistry beguiles him, how he is bemused by the comedies of duplicity, sharpened by the ingenious puzzles of the conscience and carried away by the eloquence of hypocrisy… however much he may bore others he never suffers from boredom himself (quoted by kind permission of Sir Victor Pritchett).

23 See Puritanism and Liberty Being the Army Debates (1647–9) from the Clarke MSS with Supplementary Documents, ed. Woodhouse, A. S. P. (1938, 1950, etc.), 474–8Google Scholar; Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. Abbott, W. C. (4 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1937–1947), ii. 283–8, 290–1, 302–3Google Scholar; The Stuart Constitution 1603–88, ed. Kenyon, J. P. (Cambridge, 1966), 325–7Google Scholar.

24 B. Worden, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the “Sin of Achan”’, in History, Society and the Churches, ed. Beales and Best.

25 It is impossible to give a bibliographical reference for New England Puritans which would not itself swell to the length of a whole article. I would not have ventured even upon this brief excursus if I had not for many years taught American colonial history to British undergraduates, an interest first sparked under the tuition of Professor W. F. Craven at Princeton many years ago, and sustained by Professor Richard Dunn and many other American friends since that time.

26 Protestant Mind, 275; see also 271–2.

27 See Thomas, K., ‘Women and the Civil War sects’, Past & Present, xiii (1958)Google Scholar; Hill, C., The World Turned Upside Down (1972)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 15; Cross, C., ‘The Goats before the Flocks’, Studies in Church History, viii (Cambridge, 1971)Google Scholar.

28 Contrast , W. and Haller, M., ‘The Puritan art of love’, Huntington Library Quarterly, v (1941–1942)Google Scholar and Johnson, J. T., ‘English Puritan thought on the ends of marriage’, Church History, xxxviii (1969)Google Scholar, with Davies, K. M., ‘The sacred condition of equality— how original were Puritan doctrines of marriage?’, Social History, v (1977)Google Scholar, and ‘Continuity and change in literary advice on marriage’, in Marriage and Society. Studies in the Social History of Marriage, ed. Outhwaite, R. B. (1981)Google Scholar.

29 Yorkshire Diaries (Surtees Soc., lxv, 1877), 43, 84Google Scholar.

30 McGee, M. J. S., The Godly Man in Stuart England. Anglicans, Puritans and the Two Tables, 1620–1670 (New Haven-London, 1976)Google Scholar.

31 Sommerville, C.J., Popular Religion in Restoration England (Gainesville, Florida, 1977)Google Scholar.

32 Of the authors cited by the Georges, (Protestant Mind, 255)Google Scholar as condemning the practice, only Fuller is not customarily thought of as a Puritan.

33 Bossy, J., The English Catholic Community 1570–1850 (1975Google Scholar; paperback 1979), see especially ch.6(i).

34 Trevor-Roper, H. R., ‘The Fast Sermons of the Long Parliament’, in Religion, The Reformation, and Social Change (1967)Google Scholar; Wilson, John F., Pulpit in Parliament: Puritanism during the English Civil Wars 1640–1648 (Princeton, 1969)Google Scholar; Jeffs, R. M., ‘Introduction’, Cornmarket Reprints, I, The Fast Sermons, i (1970)Google Scholar.

35 Thomas, K., ‘The Adultery Act of 1650 re-considered’, in Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays presented to Christopher Hill, ed. Pennington, D. H. and Thomas, K. (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

36 See also Geree, John on church, music (The Character of an old English Puritane, or Nonconformist (1646), 4)Google Scholar, or Henry, Philip on bell-ringing and flowers in church, (Diaries and Letters, 77, 53)Google Scholar.

37 Fisher, , Marrow (1646 edn.), 224, 225, 238Google Scholar.

38 Visitations of Essex (Harlcian Soc., xiii, 1878), 332Google Scholar; Lambeth Palace Libr. MSS Commonwealth, ser. IV and V; Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, ed. Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S. (3 vols., 1911)Google Scholar, various Essex committees and commissions in vol. ii, traceable from the Index in vol. iii.

39 The Drunkard's Character or, A True Drunkard with such sinnes as raign in him, viz. Pride, Enmity, Ignorance, Atheisme, Idlenesse, Adultery, Murther, with many the like (863 pp. plus Prelims and Contents. Dedicated to Joseph Hall, then bishop of Exeter, 1638); see Clark, Peter, The English Alehouse 1500–1800 (1983)Google Scholar.

40 The Victory of Patience, and benefit of Affliction… (1636), 153.

41 The Journal of Richard Norwood, ed. Craven, W. F. and Hayward, W. B. (New York, 1945). 3Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., 83.

43 Ibid., 85–6, 92, 104–5, 108–9.

44 Autobiography of Mary, Countess of Warwick, ed. Croker, T. C. (Percy Soc., xxii, 1848), 3Google Scholar. See also Lismore Papers, 1st ser. viz. Autobiographical Notes, Remembrances and Diaries of Sir Richard Boyle, first and great Earl of Cork, ed. Grosart, A. B. (5 vols., 1886), v, 101, 116, 139–40Google Scholar. Dr Sara Mendelson is engaged on a detailed study of the countess, based upon her unpublished diaries, but these do not begin until the mid 1660s.

45 Autobiography, 21.

46 Ibid., 15.

47 Ibid., 18, 29–31

48 Ibid., 31–3

49 Ibid., 22, 25.

50 Kem, Samuel, An Olive Branch Found after A Storme in the Northem-Seas, And Presented to his Majesty in a sermon at the Court in New-Castle (1647)Google Scholar.

51 Autobiography of the Revd. Devereux Spratt, who died at Michelstown, co. Cork, 1688, ed. Spratt, Vice-Admiral T. (1886), 9et seqGoogle Scholar.

52 Ibid., 15–23.

53 Ibid., 24–5.

54 Ibid., 33–4.

55 Tatton Park MS 104 (shelf-mark CR 4—7); I am grateful to the National Trust for making the MS available for me in the Bodleian Library and allowing me to quote from it, and in particular to Mr J. F. Fuggles for much help.

56 Most recently Seaver, P. S. in Wallington's World. A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London (1985)Google Scholar.

57 MS 24/50.

58 For all the criticisms that have been brought against it, Walzer's, M.The Revolution of the Saints (Cambridge, Mass., 1965Google Scholar; London, 1966) remains the best essay in historical sociology on this topic, and gets nearer to the root of the matter than much written by conventionally trained historians. With that work it does not seem too fanciful to bracketRiesman, D., The Lonely Crowd (New Haven, 1950Google Scholar; New York, 1953). On the theme of anxiety Macfarlane, A., The Family Life of Ralph Josselin A Seventeenth-Century Clergyman: An Essay in Historical Anthropology (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar, is particularly suggestive.