23

Stuart Britain and the Crisis of Monarchy, 1603-1702

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SECTION FOUR The Establishment of Constitutional Monarchy, 1678-1702

Topic 23 Religious changes: Anglicanism, Protestantism, Catholicism and toleration

Key Question: To what extent did religion and the position of religious groups change during the reign of William and Mary?

Religious toleration under William III (1688-1702)

As had been the case during the Restoration in 1660, the nature of a religious settlement in 1688-89 was highly controversial. There was some support within the Political Nation for an inclusive national church. To this end, a scheme known as ‘Comprehension’ was championed in Parliament by Secretary of State, Sir Daniel Finch, the Earl of Nottingham. In a speech to the House of Lords in March 1689, William himself had indicated that he was willing to open public offices to all Protestants. However, the prospect of the loss of the Anglican monopoly on appointments provoked a storm of protest. Just as had happened been the case under Charles II, Tory-Anglican hostility ensured any proposal of greater religious toleration was doomed to fail.

The Toleration Act was passed in 1689. Aware of the need to maintain good relations with all sides of the religious spectrum, this was William’s attempt to pursue a middle path in religion. By its terms:

  • dissenters were exempted from penalties if they took The Oath of Allegiance and accepted the 1678 Test Act, so they could still not enter public employment without swearing loyalty to the Anglican Church (thus their status as ‘dissenters’ remained unchanged);

  • special dispensations were given to certain groups, e.g., Quakers were permitted to ‘declare’ their loyalty to the Crown, as they did not believe in swearing oaths;

  • dissenters were not expected to attend Anglican services, but their meetings were closely monitored, e.g., they had to officially register their meeting-houses with a local bishop or magistrate, and the doors of the chosen place of worship had to be left wide open during services;

  • dissenters were still expected to pay Church tithes, even if they did not attend their local parish services;

  • the act excluded Catholics, Unitarians (those who denied the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and saw God as a single entity), and Jews, and as The Test Act had not been repealed, only Anglicans could be MPs and hold public office.

Changes in the position of Anglicans, Protestant dissenters and Catholics

Despite the fairly limited nature of The Toleration Act, the end of the 17th century witnessed greater acceptance of a range of different Protestant doctrines and beliefs. In part, this was due to the growing significance of several religious groups, both within the Church and in secular society.

Latitudinarianism: Borne out of discussions among Cambridge University theologians, these moderate Anglicans believed that strict observance of very specific doctrines, liturgical practices, and church organisational forms was unnecessary, and could be harmful. Thus, the Latitudinarians supported a broad-based Protestantism.

Deism: A philosophical position that had roots in Ancient Greece, Deism had gradually gained popularity during the Italian Renaissance, and would play a key part in the Age of Enlightenment. Deists believed that God’s existence was the cause of all things. At the same time, however, divine revelation and direct intervention of God in the universe by miracles were rejected. They also asserted that reason and observation of the natural world were sufficient to determine the existence of a single creator.

Unitarianism: Originating from Poland during the mid-16th century, this was a Christian theological movement named for its belief that the Christian God was just one entity, as opposed to the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). Unitarians therefore believed that while Jesus was the saviour of mankind, he was a ‘normal human being (not a deity himself) whose moral teachings drew inspiration from God.

As these wider Protestant beliefs began to gain popularity, it could be argued that the practice of dissenting became more popular and gained more acceptance towards the end of the 17th century. The following evidence can be used to support this position:

  • the practice of dissenting increased – around 3,500 meeting-houses were licensed, and by the early-18th century, there were an estimated 400,000 dissenters, which equated to 8% of the population;

  • to get around the fact that The Test Acts of 1673 and 1678 remained in force, some dissenters began to practise ‘occasional conformity’, whereby they would take Anglican communion once a year to enable them to qualify for government office;

  • many dissenters grew wealthy during this period through investment and moneylending activities;

  • the expiry of The Licensing Act in 1695 facilitated the publication of a wider variety of religious pamphlets that promoted non-Anglican ideas;

  • in 1697, Anglicans introduced a Blasphemy Bill to suppress the open discussion of ideas, but it was defeated in Parliament;

  • William appointed a number of latitudinarians as leading clergymen, including John Tillotson as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1691, and Thomas Tenison as his successor in 1694;

  • as a result of his frustration with the growing debates over religion, William adjourned Convocation in 1689 – it did not meet again until 1701 (thus preventing the Anglican Church from passing any canon laws that would further strengthen its position);

  • a pamphlet written by John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), argued that reason, not divine revelation, was the principal foundation of the Christian faith;

  • another pamphlet, Christianity Not Mysterious, written by John Toland in 1696, rejected illogical beliefs and accused the Anglican Church of using unnecessary ‘specialist jargon’;

  • where possible, William used his royal prerogative to further limit Church interference in the lives of Catholics and any dissenters who had not been covered by The Act of Toleration – in particular, the power of the Church Courts was severely restricted;

  • William’s foreign policy, which saw him forge alliances with a number of minor Catholic powers in an attempt to marginalise French dominance across Europe, meant that in reality, English Catholics had little to fear from the King’s polices.

On the other hand, the evidence below could be used to suggest that the impact of William’s Toleration Act was to an extent beneficial to the High Anglican interest and actually quite damaging for dissenters:

  • at the insistence of Whig politicians, around 400 ministers were suspended from their duties and eventually deprived of their office for refusing to swear allegiance to William and Mary – these Non-Jurors (i.e., ‘those who did not swear’), who claimed they had already declared their loyalty to James II, amounted to 4% of the clergy and included ten peers, 61 current or former MPs, and William Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury until 1691;

  • as previous religious legislation passed by Charles II remained in force (most notably The Test Acts of 1673 and 1678), those who refused to swear allegiance to the Anglican Church could not attend university or work in the legal or medical professions;

  • there was a powerful Tory-Anglican backlash against the perceived threat of dissenters, e.g., influential MPs established a ‘Church in Danger’ campaign to combat the rise of non-Anglican ideas and practices;

  • the Bishop of Rochester, Francis Atterbury, wrote a pamphlet entitled A Letter to a Convocation Man in 1696, viciously attacking the ‘deluge’ of dissenters, and demanding that the King reassemble Convocation to deal with the growing religious crisis;

  • in the 1701 meeting of Convocation, leading members of the clergy fiercely criticised Archbishop Tenison’s stress on the importance of reason, and his rejection of ‘enthusiasm’ for the Anglican faith;

  • encouragement of the cult of ‘King Charles the Martyr’ was an attempt by Tories to associate dissent with the (now discredited) republican cause during the crisis decades of the 1640s and 50s;

  • additional Acts of Toleration that were passed in the Irish and Scottish parliaments ensured that dissenters could not participate in local or national government across any of the Three Kingdoms;

  • the Battle of the Boyne (1690) extinguished the hopes of Jacobites and Catholics that the Stuart monarchs might successfully use Ireland as a launch pad for future invasions of England;

  • the Treaty of Limerick (1691) ended serious Catholic resistance in Ireland and led to the establishment of a penal code that made Catholics a subservient under-class to the Anglo-Protestant interest;

  • the 1701 Act of Settlement disqualified 57 Catholic heirs from the natural line of succession, guaranteeing that the Crown could only pass to a member of the Church of England.