Religion and Politics, 1660-1690
The king had promised in the Declaration of Breda in 1660 that Parliament would be left to sort out the country’s religious institutions and deal with the Interregnum’s huge growth of informal religious groups or sects. After the Restoration, however, the Church of England, with its bishops, cathedrals and parish clergy, was recreated almost by default. To the dismay of Presbyterians, who had rejected what they regarded as remaining Roman Catholic traditions in the structure and worship of the pre-civil war Church, the Act of Uniformity of 1662 made few changes. Many of them left the Church altogether as a consequence and, like the sects, established separate centres of worship outside it. Seen as politically dangerous and sometimes fanatical, the sects were persecuted under a series of Acts passed by the Cavalier Parliament.
The religious turmoil of the mid-seventeenth century made some believe that religion itself was under threat from fanaticism on one side and scepticism on the other. Quakers on one side were one manifestation of the fanatical threat; the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and others was seen as an indication of the sceptical challenge.
Many people still believed that Roman Catholics were determined to undermine Protestantism in England. The Fire of London (1666) was blamed by some on Catholics. The belief grew stronger because of the favour shown to Catholics at Charles II’s court, and the revelation that his brother James, duke of York, had himself became a Catholic around 1668. It grew to fever pitch when Charles II tried to relax the laws against Protestant Dissenters in 1672 in his Declaration of Indulgence, widely seen as designed to pave the way for removing the restrictions on Catholic worship. Parliament rejected the Declaration and passed a Test Act to prevent Catholics from taking civil or military office.
Over the next few years a major political crisis developed, which reached fever pitch with the 1678 allegations of Titus Oates about a ‘Popish Plot’, and the Exclusion crisis. Whigs were sympathetic to Protestant dissent and tried to secure some relaxation of the penal laws, but without success. When Charles II gave free rein to the ‘Tory reaction’ from 1681 onwards, the level of persecution increased.
James II came to the throne in 1685 determined to remove the laws which prevented Roman Catholics from taking a full part in public life. He failed to persuade a Tory-dominated Parliament to do so that year. Instead, he tried to create an alliance with Protestant dissenters aimed at obtaining freedom to worship for all dissenters, Protestant and Catholic, outside the Church of England. In the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence he claimed to remove the restrictions through his own prerogative powers. Many dissenters rejected the approach, while many in the Church of England strongly opposed it. Seven Church of England bishops were prosecuted for their failure to promote the Declaration. Their acquittal, a severe check to James II’s regime, helped to precipitate the crisis which led to the invasion of Prince William of Orange in November 1688 and the flight and deposition of James in early 1689.
Religion was one of the key issues debated in the Convention Parliament in 1689-90. The Whigs, who dominated the Convention, called for toleration of Protestant dissenters, and a review of the Act of Uniformity to permit the ‘comprehension’ or inclusion of Presbyterians within the Church of England. The Church of England accepted toleration, but managed to prevent comprehension by ensuring the referral of the complex issue to its own Parliament, Convocation.
