What did people in Restoration England think the correct relationship between church state should be? And how did this thinking evolve? Based on the author's published essays, revised and updated with a new overarching introduction, this book explores the debates in Restoration England about "godly rule". The book assesses some of the crucial transitions in English history: how the late Reformation gave way to the early Enlightenment; how Royalism became Toryism and Puritanism became Whiggism; how the power of churchmen was challenged by virulent anticlericalism; how the verities of "divine right" theory revived and collapsed. Providing a distinctive account of English thought in the era between the two revolutions of the Stuart century, "Contesting the English Polity, 1660-1688" discusses the ideological foundations of emerging party politics, and the deep intellectual roots of competing visions for the commonwealth, placing the power of religion, and the taming of religion, squarely alongside constitutional battles within secular politics.

Examines the evolving relationship between Church and State, the character of radical thought in Enlightenment England, and the nature of that Enlightenment itself. A tribute to the work of the late Justin Champion, this volume explores the radical religious and political ideas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England which were at the heart of Champion's intellectual contributions. Drawing on the debates and upheavals that dominated the period from the British Civil Wars to the mid-eighteenth century, the essays in this collection interrogate the challenging relationship between politics and religion which prompted what Champion called a 'Crisis of Christianity'. Diverse perspectives on that crisis are reconstructed, encompassing the experiences of republicans and radicals, philosophers and historians, atheists and clergymen. Through these individuals, a complex discourse which defies easy categorisation is recovered, but which speaks to central discussions concerning the evolving relationship between Church and State, the character of radical thought in Enlightenment England, and indeed the nature of that Enlightenment itself.

Civil Religion - a tradition of political thought that has argued for a close connection between religion and the state - made an important contribution to the development of religious and political thought at key moments of early modern British political and colonial history. As this volume shows, it was at work not just during the Enlightenment, but within a much wider periodical framework: the Reformation, the rise of the Puritan movement, the conflict over the Stuart state and church, the English Revolution, and the formation of key American colonies in the eighteenth century. Advocates of Civil Religion tried to reconcile a national church with religious toleration and design a constitution capable of preventing the church from interfering with affairs of state. The volume investigates the idea of Civil Religion in the works of canonical thinkers in the history of political thought (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau), in the works of those who have been recognized as shaping political ideas (Hooker, Prynne et al.) during this period, and in the advocacy of those perhaps not previously associated with Civil Religion (William Penn). Although Civil Religion was often posited as a pragmatic solution to constitutional and ecclesiological problems created by the Reformation and the English Revolution, they also reveal that such pragmatism was not at odds with religious conviction or ideals. Civil Religion certainly enhanced citizenship in this period, but it did so in ways which depended on the truth claims of Protestantism, not on their domestication to politics.

An analysis of later Stuart economic culture that contributes significantly to our understanding of early modern society. The English economy underwent profound changes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, yet the worldly affairs of ordinary people continued to be shaped as much by traditional ideals and moral codes as by material conditions.This book explores the economic implications of many of the era's key concepts, including Christian stewardship, divine providence, patriarchal power, paternal duty, local community, and collective identity. Brodie Waddell drawson a wide range of contemporary sources - from ballads and pamphlets to pauper petitions and guild regulations - to show that such ideas pervaded every aspect of social and economic relations during this crucial period. Previous discussions of English economic life have tended to ignore or dismiss the influence of cultural factors. By contrast, Waddell argues that popular beliefs about divine will, social duty and communal bonds remained the frame through which most people viewed vital 'earthly' concerns such as food marketing, labour relations, trade policy, poor relief, and many others. This innovative study, demonstrating both the vibrancy and the diversity of the 'moral economies' of the later Stuart period, represents a significant contribution to our understanding of early modern society. It will be essential reading for all early modern British economic and cultural historians. BrodieWaddell is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has published on preaching, local government, the landscape and other aspects of early modern society.

The reconstitution of the royal court in 1660 brought with it the restoration of fears that had been associated with earlier Stuart courts: disorder, sexual liberty, popery and arbitrary government. This volume illustrates the ways in which court culture was informed by the heady politics of Britain between 1660 and 1685.

Examines how the form and function of the Covenants were shorn of religious implications and repurposed, serving a pluralistic vision of the role of religion in politics and public life. Until now, scholarship on the Covenants has mainly focussed on their role in the conflicts of the 1640s, with discussion of the Covenants after 1660 mostly limited to the context of violent Scottish radicalism. This book moves beyond a rigid focus on Scotland to explore the legacy of the Covenants in England. It examines the discourse surrounding key events in the Restoration period and traces the influence of the Covenants in the context of radical Presbyterianism, and in mainstream debates around politics, church government, and the constitution of the British kingdoms. The Covenants continued to have relevance in two primary respects. Firstly, the Covenants were used as reference points for discussing the competing legacies of the English and Scottish Reformations and the confused issues of church and state that defined the Restoration period. Furthermore, the form of the Covenants as solemn individual subscriptions to a constitutional and religious model, and the political ideas that underpinned them, were emulated by those seeking to resist royal authority during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81, and during the events surrounding the Revolution of 1688. Thus, this book holds particular interest for students of constitutionalism, legal pluralism or civil religion in seventeenth-century Britain, and for those seeking to deepen their understanding of the intellectual origins of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Revolution of 1688-9.

Provides a new account of the emergence of Irish gothic fiction in mid-eighteenth century This book provides a robustly theorised and thoroughly historicised account of the 'beginnings' of Irish gothic fiction, maps the theoretical terrain covered by other critics, and puts forward a new history of the emergence of the genre in Ireland. The main argument the book makes is that the Irish gothic should be read in the context of the split in Irish Anglican public opinion that opened in the 1750s, and seen as a fictional instrument of liberal Anglican opinion in a changing political landscape. By providing a fully historicized account of the beginnings of the genre in Ireland, the book also addresses the theoretical controversies that have bedevilled discussion of the Irish gothic in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The book gives ample space to the critical debate, and rigorously defends a reading of the Irish gothic as an Anglican, Patriot tradition. This reading demonstrates the connections between little-known Irish gothic fictions of the mid-eighteenth century (The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley and Longsword), and the Irish gothic tradition more generally, and also the gothic as a genre of global significance.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Drawing upon the interdisciplinary field of social memory studies, this book opens up new vistas on the historical and political culture of early modern England. This book examines the conflicting ways in which the civil wars and Interregnum were remembered, constructed and represented in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. It argues that during the late Stuart period, public remembering of the English civil wars and Interregnum was not concerned with re-fighting the old struggle but rather with commending and justifying, or contesting and attacking, the Restoration settlements. After the return of King Charles II the political nation had to address the question of remembering and forgetting the recent conflict. The answer was to construct a polity grounded on remembering and scapegoating puritan politics and piety. The proscription of the puritan impulse enacted by the Restoration settlements was supported by a public memory of the 1640s and 1650s which was used to show that Dissenters could not, and should not, be trusted with power. Drawing upon the interdisciplinary field of social memory studies, this book offers a new perspective on the historical and political cultures of early modern England, and will be of significant interest to social, cultural and political historians aswell as scholars working in memory studies. Matthew Neufeld is Lecturer in early modern British history at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

New insights into the nature of the seventeenth-century English revolution - one of the most contested issues in early modern British history.