In the winter of 1650, the Reverend Thomas Washbourne sent his servant from his parish at Dombleton in Gloucestershire to the deeper chill of Boothby Paynell, Lincoln, with a letter for the logician and theologian Dr Robert Sanderson. It sought advice on The Engagement. After the brisk execution of Charles I and the abolition of the House of Lords, England had been declared a Commonwealth and its Council of State promulgated something like an oath of allegiance to it. This Engagement required of ministers of state was extended by January 1650 to include all adult males. Subscription gave a voice at law, refusal risked loss of property without redress. So confronting Mr Washbourne had been an apparently simple document with apparently straightforward consequences upon his decision.

‘I, A. B. declare and promise, that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords.’ That was all. Except, of course, it was not. As Washbourne wrote to Sanderson, oaths were sacred, so in taking this, previous oaths were undone; but perhaps circumstances had undone them already, perhaps it was not an oath, and perhaps it was something to be taken in one's own sense.