England's Second Reformation reassesses the religious upheavals of mid-seventeenth-century England, situating them within the broader history of the Church of England and its earlier Reformations. Rather than seeing the Civil War years as a destructive aberration, Anthony Milton demonstrates how they were integral to (and indeed the climax of) the Church of England's early history. All religious groups – parliamentarian and royalist alike – envisaged changes to the pre-war church, and all were forced to adapt their religious ideas and practices in response to the tumultuous events. Similarly, all saw themselves and their preferred reforms as standing in continuity with the Church's earlier history. By viewing this as a revolutionary 'second Reformation', which necessarily involved everyone and forced them to reconsider what the established church was and how its past should be understood, Milton presents a compelling case for rethinking England's religious history.

England's Second Reformation reassesses the religious upheavals of mid-seventeenth-century England, situating them within the broader history of the Church of England and its earlier Reformations. Rather than seeing the Civil War years as a destructive aberration, Anthony Milton demonstrates how they were integral to (and indeed the climax of) the Church of England's early history. All religious groups - parliamentarian and royalist alike - envisaged changes to the pre-war church, and all were forced to adapt their religious ideas and practices in response to the tumultuous events. Similarly, all saw themselves and their preferred reforms as standing in continuity with the Church's earlier history. By viewing this as a revolutionary 'second Reformation', which necessarily involved everyone and forced them to reconsider what the established church was and how its past should be understood, Milton presents a compelling case for rethinking England's religious history.

Catholic and Reformed transcends the current boundaries of the historical debate concerning the role of religious conflict in the politics of the early Stuart period. While earlier studies have focused more narrowly on the doctrine of predestination, Dr Milton analyses the broader attitudes which underlay notions of religious orthodoxy in this period. He achieves this through the first comprehensive analysis of how contemporaries viewed the Roman and foreign Reformed Churches in the early Stuart period. Milton's account demonstrates the way in which an author's choice of a particular style of religious discourse could be used either to mediate or to provoke religious conflict. This study challenges many current historical orthodoxies. It identifies the theological novelty of Laudianism, but also exposes significant areas of ideological tension within the Jacobean Church. Its wide-ranging conclusions will be of vital concern to all students of early Stuart religion and the origins of the English civil war.

This is the first full-length study of one of the most prolific and controversial polemical authors of the seventeenth century. It provides for the first time a detailed analysis of the ways in which Laudian and royalist polemical literature was created, tracing continuities and changes in a single corpus of writings from 1621 through to 1662. In the process, the author presents important new perspectives on the origins and development of Laudianism and 'Anglicanism' and on the tensions within royalist thought. Milton's book is neither a conventional biography nor simply a study of printed works, but instead constructs an integrated account of Peter Heylyn's career and writings in order to provide the key to understanding a profoundly polemical author. Early chapters trace Heylyn's career in the 1620s when his Laudian credentials were far from evident, and his years as the main official spokesman for the religious policies of Charles I's personal rule. Further chapters trace his actions in the 1640s as the target of a vengeful parliament, editor of the main royalist newsbook and an increasingly disillusioned pamphleteer; his remarkable attempted rapprochement with Cromwell in the 1650s; and his attempts to shape the Restoration settlement and his posthumous celebrity as a spokesman of the Anglican royalist position. Throughout the book, Heylyn's shifting views and fortunes prompt an important reassessment of the relative coherence and stability of royalism and Laudianism. Historians of early modern English politics and religion and literary scholars will find this book essential reading.

Religious controversy was central to political conflict in the years leading up to the outbreak of the English Civil War. Historians have focused on one religious doctrine--predestination, but Catholic and Reformed analyzes the broader preconceptions that lay behind religious debate. It offers an analysis of the nature of the English Church, and how this related to the Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches of the Continent. The book's conclusions explain the nature of English religious culture and its role in provoking the Civil War.

Important texts in the Church's history collected together in one volume. This first miscellany volume to be published by the Church of England Record Society contains eight edited texts covering aspects of the history of the Church from the Reformation to the early twentieth century. The longest contribution is a scholarly edition of W.J. Conybeare's famous and influential article on nineteenth-century "Church Parties"; other documents included are the protests against Archbishop Cranmer's metropolitical powers of visitation, the petitions to the Long Parliament in support of the Prayer Book, and Randall Davidson's memoir on the role of the archbishop of Canterbury in the early twentieth century. Stephen Taylor is Professor in the History ofEarly Modern England, University of Durham. Contributors: PAUL AYRIS, MELANIE BARBER, ARTHUR BURNS, JUDITH MALTBY, ANTHONY MILTON, ANDREW ROBINSON, STEPHEN TAYLOR, BRETT USHER, ALEXANDRA WALSHAM

New scrutinies of the most important political and religious debates of the post-Reformation period. The consequences of the Reformation and the church/state polity it created have always been an area of important scholarly debate. The essays in this volume, by many of the leading scholars of the period, revisit many of the important issues during the period from the Henrician Reformation to the Glorious Revolution: theology, political structures, the relationship of theology and secular ideologies, and the Civil War. Topics include Puritan networks and nomenclature in England and in the New World; examinations of the changing theology of the Church in the century after the Reformation; the evolving relationship of art and protestantism; the providentialist thinking of Charles I;the operation of the penal laws against Catholics; and protestantism in the localities of Yorkshire and Norwich. KENNETH FINCHAM is Reader in History at the University of Kent; Professor PETER LAKE teaches in the Department of History at Princeton University. Contributors: THOMAS COGSWELL, RICHARD CUST, PATRICK COLLINSON, THOMAS FREEMAN, PETER LAKE, SUSAN HARDMAN MOORE, DIARMAID MACCULLOCH, ANTHONY MILTON, PAUL SEAVER, WILLIAM SHEILS

The Oxford History of Anglicanism is a major new and unprecedented international study of the identity and historical influence of one of the world's largest versions of Christianity. This global study of Anglicanism from the sixteenth century looks at how was Anglican identity constructed and contested at various periods since the sixteenth century; and what was its historical influence during the past six centuries. It explores not just the ecclesiastical and theological aspects of global Anglicanism, but also the political, social, economic, and cultural influences of this form of Christianity that has been historically significant in western culture, and a burgeoning force in non-western societies today. The chapters are written by international experts in their various historical fields which includes the most recent research in their areas, as well as original research. The series forms an invaluable reference for both scholars and interested non-specialists. Volume one of The Oxford History of Anglicanism examines a period when the nature of 'Anglicanism' was still heavily contested. Rather than merely tracing the emergence of trends that we associate with later Anglicanism, the contributors instead discuss the fluid and contested nature of the Church of England's religious identity in these years, and the different claims to what should count as 'Anglican' orthodoxy. After the introduction and narrative chapters explain the historical background, individual chapters then analyse different understandings of the early church and church history; variant readings of the meaning of the royal supremacy, the role of bishops and canon law, and cathedrals; the very diverse experiences of religion in parishes, styles of worship and piety, church decoration, and Bible usage; and the competing claims to 'Anglican' orthodoxy of puritanism, 'avant-garde conformity' and Laudianism. Also analysed are arguments over the Church of England's confessional identity and its links with the foreign Reformed Churches, and the alternative models provided by English Protestant activities in Ireland, Scotland and North America. The reforms of the 1640s and 1650s are included in their own right, and the volume concludes that the shape of the Restoration that emerged was far from inevitable, or expressive of a settled 'Anglican' identity.