Charles II, the son of the Royal Martyr, was crowned King of England, Ireland and Wales at Westminster Abbey on April 23, 1661. The royal chronicler of the day’s events waxed enthusiastic in his description of the crowds lining the way of the King’s route to Westminster: “Infinite and innumerable were the acclamations and shouts of joy from each and every part of the city and each and every person thereof.”
Not everyone joined in the day’s merriment, though. For 15 years the Puritan Parliament and stern Lord Protector Cromwell imposed their vision on the Three Kingdoms. They banished Prayer Book religion, imprisoned its bishops, outlawed its words, and suppressed its feasts. They had forbidden most public sports, recreations and festivals, closed every theater in the country, and even a Sunday walk—except to or from church—could result in a fine. They saw their Redeemed City on a Hill swept away with the accession of the "Merrie Monarch." The nine surviving Anglican Bishops, in cloth-of-gold copes, processed before the King down the long nave of the Abbey, as the Te Deum from The Book of Common Prayer resounded through the church. For the Puritans, it was a grim day.
The first of many. Within two weeks, Charles’ Parliament, the so-called “Cavalier Parliament” was in session. The old supporters of Charles’ father, the Martyr King, and loyalists to the old Church of England held the seats—and the votes. The Prayer Book was restored, the exiled and imprisoned Bishops re-instated (Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, had been locked in the Tower of London for 18 years) and the Presbyterian and Puritan ministers who’d been placed in the parish churches of England were booted out the doors of their parsonages unless they swore submission to the Act of Uniformity. Among other injunctions the Act declared that “all and singular Ministers, in any Cathedral, Collegiate, or Parish-Church or Chappel, or other Place of Publick Worship within this Realm of England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick upon Tweed, shall be bound to say and use the Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Celebration and Administration of both the Sacraments, and all other the Publick, and Common Prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said Book...” Twenty-four hundred Puritans (give or take a baker’s dozen) refused the oath. In English Church History the result of their refusal is known as The Great Ejection.
The King was an Anglican. His staunchest supporters were Anglicans. He had restored the monarchy and re-established the Church. But no one who knew him was under the illusion the King was either pious or even much interested in religion except as a tool of State. Charles was a practical man: the Royal Martyr had not been. If he didn’t much care about religion himself, he understood many of his new subjects did. The Puritans, by walking away from the parishes, made plain they didn’t want anything to do with the restored Church. But many moderate Puritans did want to “conform.” Was there some way, they delicately inquired of the King, that the Prayer Book could be “modified” so as to allow them to keep their consciences intact? If the remnants of the First Prayer Book could be “stipp’d cleane,” they would be willing to consider taking the oath of Uniformity.
On the other side, the Anglican Bishops and clergy, who had suffered deprivation and imprisonment for their devotion to the Prayer Book, had made their wishes known to the King. Many of them looked back to the First Prayer Book as the ideal and wanted to restore as much of it as they could. During their banishments they hadn’t been idle. Many had studied the Prayer Book, written about it, and made plans for its revision when the day of Restoration came.
In response to these requests, the King issued a Royal Warrant, calling for a “conference of learned divines, of both persuasions” to meet and debate “sundry alterations and improvements” to The Book of Common Prayer. They were to meet at the Savoy Palace.
It was to be quite a debate.
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