The resurrection of English episcopacy in restoration England

The resurrection of English episcopacy in restoration England

Partisans of Charles I had proclaimed his martyrdom under the circumstances of the Commonwealth, claims amplified after his death in 1649 and into the later-seventeenth century by bishops, divines and royalist gentlemen. This triumph was to receive annual commemoration, through the fasts of royalist gentlemen but also the delivery of annual sermons on January 29, which each year reminded auditors of the trauma of Charles I's martyrdom. But the monarchy was not the only institution to suffer and then experience resurrection, for the episcopacy of the Church of England also collapsed under the weight of puritan parliamentary displeasure. But the execution of the king and the sufferings of the English bishops during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth cast enduring but different shadows into the Restoration age and prompted different assessments of the resurrection of monarchy and episcopacy. Charles’s apotheosis and the resurrection of his reputation and dynasty, if not his actual corporeal resurrection, find no parallels in the Restoration accounts of episcopal resurrection, where episcopal writers returned again and again to noting their suffering, not describing their triumph. Narratives of episcopal suffering contained polemical intentions for the restoration of episcopal discipline after 1660 and suffering more than triumph was significant to this purpose.

Unpublished.