The Transformation of the Church of England, 1689-1714
Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History
First Advisor
Pincus, Steven
Abstract
This dissertation offers an account of the Church of England’s response to the Glorious Revolution and the Toleration Act of 1688-89. It asks two central questions. First, in the aftermath of the revolution, what kind of ecclesiastical reforms did the Church pursue? Second, how did the revolution change the Church’s relationship with other Protestant communions across England, Scotland, and Ireland? It suggests that the Church pursued a wide range of reforms in the financial, legal, and pastoral spheres. Closely examining the nature and course of these reforms, it shows that their causes and consequences were far more extensive than historians recognize. Likewise, it argues that the revolution fundamentally transformed the Church’s association with Protestant Dissenters in England, Episcopalians and Presbyterians in Scotland, and the Episcopalian Church of Ireland. The two and a half decades after the revolution, it concludes, were amongst the most formative in the history of British and Irish Protestantism. The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 asks why the Church was finally able to come up with a workable scheme in the form of Queen Anne’s Bounty to address clerical poverty when several such schemes had failed miserably over the last 150 years. It attributes this outcome to a combination of timing, lack of legal conflict, and broader intellectual changes in the debate about clerical finances. Chapter 2 looks at the question of legal reform and suggests that churchmen of various stripes who simply could not agree on much else came together to examine the state of religious law and punishment, recasting the machinery of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. They debated the nature of excommunication and asked if the 1603 canons, the main body of regulations that governed both lay and clerical conduct in religious matters, were in need of an update. However, constrained by partisan divisions and the complex legacy of 16th century changes, their efforts did not lead to legislative change. Chapter 3 moves to the realm of theology and contends that historians have underestimated the breadth of the vision of pastoral care put forth by the prominent divine Gilbert Burnet and his allies. Instead of largely being an effort to conciliate Protestant Dissenters, it represented the Church of England’s defiant answer to concerns about rising impiety in England and the weakened position of Protestantism across Europe. Chapter 4 explains how members of various Presbyterian families broke from the spiritual legacy of their ancestors and adhered to the Church of England. It focuses on two exemplary individuals, Edward Harley, brother of the Prime Minister Robert Harley, and Sir Humphrey Mackworth, a prominent Tory politician. Tracing their very different journeys from Protestant Dissent towards orthodox Anglicanism, the chapter provides a new interpretation of changing denominational boundaries and the meaning of these shifts for the Church of England. Chapters 5 and 6 take an explicitly “British” approach, arguing for including revolutionary developments in Scotland and Ireland into analyses of the Church of England. Chapter 5 considers how the trajectory of the revolution in Scotland affected the Church of England, its relationship with Episcopalians in Scotland, and how the Church acted as a point of contention in Anglo-Scottish relations. Likewise, chapter 6 assesses the Church of Ireland’s fraught connections with the Church of England and the English state during and after the revolution.
Recommended Citation
Jain, Pranav Kumar, "The Transformation of the Church of England, 1689-1714" (2024). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1459.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1459
