Originally published in 1967, this book is a history of church puritanism as a movement and as a political and ecclesiastical organism; of its membership structure and internal contradictions; of the quest for ‘a further reformation’. It tells the fascinating story of the rise of a revolutionary moment and its ultimate destruction.

Originally published in 1967, this book is a history of church puritanism as a movement and as a political and ecclesiastical organism; of its membership structure and internal contradictions; of the quest for 'a further reformation'. It tells the fascinating story of the rise of a revolutionary moment and its ultimate destruction.

First published in 1967 and now available in paperback, this is an authoritative and revealing study of an important yet relatively unexamined force in English history. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement arose from discontent with the religious settlement of 1559 and the desire among many ofthe clergy and laity for a further reformation. The more radical wished to change the structure of the Church, substituting a presbyterian order for episcopacy. They became, in fact, a revolutionary movement whose clandestine organization and agitation through parliament constituted a seriousthreat to the state.

This major new study is an exploration of the Elizabethan Puritan movement through the eyes of its most determined and relentless opponent, Richard Bancroft, later Archbishop of Canterbury. It analyses his obsession with the perceived threat to the stability of the church and state presented by the advocates of radical presbyterian reform. The book forensically examines Bancroft's polemical tracts and archive of documents and letters, casting important new light on religious politics and culture. Focussing on the ways in which anti-Puritanism interacted with Puritanism, it also illuminates the process by which religious identities were forged in the early modern era. The final book of Patrick Collinson, the pre-eminent historian of sixteenth-century England, this is the culmination of a lifetime of seminal work on the English Reformation and its ramifications.

"Shedding critical new light on the diverse forms of Puritan belief and practice in England, Scotland, and New England, Hall provides a multifaceted account of a cultural movement that judged the Protestant reforms of Elizabeth's reign to be unfinished"--Provided by publisher.

In this wide-ranging study Stephen Foster explores Puritanism in England and America from its roots in the Elizabethan era to the end of the seventeenth century. Focusing on Puritanism as a cultural and political phenomenon as well as a religious movement, Foster addresses parallel developments on both sides of the Atlantic and firmly embeds New England Puritanism within its English context. He provides not only an elaborate critque of current interpretations of Puritan ideology but also an original and insightful portrayal of its dynamism. According to Foster, Puritanism represented a loose and incomplete alliance of progressive Protestants, lay and clerical, aristocratic and humble, who never decided whether they were the vanguard or the remnant. Indeed, in Foster's analysis, changes in New England Puritanism after the first decades of settlement did not indicate secularization and decline but instead were part of a pattern of change, conflict, and accomodation that had begun in England. He views the Puritans' own claims of declension as partisan propositions in an internal controversy as old as the Puritan movement itself. The result of these stresses and adaptations, he argues, was continued vitality in American Puritanism during the second half of the seventeenth century. Foster draws insights from a broad range of souces in England and America, including sermons, diaries, spiritual autobiographies, and colony, town, and court records. Moreover, his presentation of the history of the English and American Puritan movements in tandem brings out the fatal flaws of the former as well as the modest but essential strengths of the latter.

The age of Elizabeth I exercises a fascination unmatched by other periods of English history. Yet while the leading figures may seem familiar, many Elizabethan personalities, including the queen herself, remain enigmatic; their attitudes to life, politics and religion often difficult to comprehend. Patrick Collinson redraws the main features of the political and religious struggle of the reign. In engaging with the virgin queen herself he tackles the old conundrum: was she a religious woman? He also investigates the no less inscrutable religious position adopted by the by the notorious turncoat, Andrew Perne, the reliability as a historian of the martyrologist John Foxe (whose religion is in no doubt) and the religious environment which shaped William Shakespeare.