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Providence, Protestant Union and Godly Reformation in the 1690s The Alexander Prize Essay, Proxime Accessit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Craig Rose
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Extract

This paper requires some justification. In what is otherwise an under-researched period, the campaign for reformation of manners in the 1690s has been a very well-ploughed furrow indeed. Since the publication in 1957 of Dudley Bahlman's The Moral Revolution of 1688, there have been half a dozen major essays on reformation of manners, as well as some outstanding unpublished research. The work has not only been copious, but also of a very high standard. Nevertheless, there is one aspect of reformation of manners that has only been dealt with tangentially in the existing literature: the relationship between godly reformation and the cause of Protestant union. Historians have noted that the societies for reformation of manners were composed of both churchmen and dissenters, and that this stimulated high church attacks upon the societies in Anne's reign. But there has been little analysis of the ways in which the ideal of Protestant union coloured some aspects of reformation of manners. The second half of this paper seeks to fill that gap. But first it will be necessary to explore the providentialist context of reformation of manners ideology. We shall begin by taking a brief excursion to the island of Jamaica.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 3 , December 1993 , pp. 151 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1993

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