Developing And Questioning Of Morrill's Argument

Front 1

Developing 1

Back 1

• "the English Civil War as not the first European revolution: it was the last of the wars of religion"
• many MPs were driven towards religious radicalism through fear of Catholicism and God's judgement against episcopacy
• radicalism sparked a wave of Anglicanism, shown in the conformist petitions sent to Parliament 1640-42
• "created a sense of 'group identity' among conformists that had been lacking before (Maltby)"
• crystallised a defence of PB and non-Laudian episcopacy

Front 2

Developing 2

Back 2

• Radical opposition could be seen as a culmination of strands in English religious thought stretching back to the Elizabethan era
• experience of the 1630s reignited the Presbyterian movement, and the collapse of Laudianism in 1640 was seen as a moment of revolutionary possibility ('Fast Sermons' in 1641 talked of going beyond Elizabethan settlement)
• many of the godly pushed for vigorous moral reform: those who had been anti-Laudian moved to campaigning against episcopacy

Front 3

Developing 3

Back 3

• "above all else it was militant Protestantism that gave rebellion its cultural validation, and that resolved a host of conflicts into the encounter of Roundhead and Cavalier (William Hunt)"
• "The growing clamour for 'root and branch' reform split the parliamentary opposition of 1640 and created the conditions for civil war"

Front 4

Developing 4

Back 4

• strong fear of Catholicism was exacerbated by Irish Rebellion
  
• public profile of Catholics was high, thanks to Henrietta Maria and papal agent George Con
• Thirty Years' War threatened international Protestantism and caused English contemporaries to view Caroline religious policy as close to popery
• anti-Catholic rioting in 1642: xenophobia and Gunpowder Plot celebrations pushed into action by fears of foreign invasion and possibility of 'fifth column' of papists

Front 5

Questioning

Back 5

• misleading to imply a monocausal approach: Arminianism was contemporarily associated with arbitrary government, Puritanism with politically subversive active participation in local and national affairs
• wave of conformist petitions showed evidence of "long-standing tradition of Prayer Book Protestantism (Maltby)"
• should not take anti-Laudianism at face value, for many people would have been looking to disassociate themselves with Laud in the present political climate
• debates about Laudian innovations were sidelined in favour of those about nature and government of the Church (Sharpe)
• all countries were looking across the border for support and ideas as long as all three kingdoms had different ecclesiastical regimes (Sharpe)
• "more than anything the attempt to impose a Scottish Reformation of England that created a Royalist-Episcopalian party in England by 1642"
• financial pressures on Catholics had increased, i.e. recusancy fines