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Religion was one of the most divisive issues of the Restoration period. The Civil Wars had been fought partly over religious questions, and the Interregnum had seen a flourishing of radical Protestant sects. When Charles II returned, the key question was: what kind of religious settlement would the Restoration bring? This lesson covers the religious landscape of Restoration England, the impact of the Clarendon Code, and the attempts at toleration.
By 1660, England's religious situation was complex. The Church of England had been dismantled during the Interregnum, and a wide range of Protestant groups had emerged.
| Group | Beliefs and Practices |
|---|---|
| Anglicans | Wanted to restore the Church of England with bishops, the Book of Common Prayer, and traditional ceremonies |
| Presbyterians | Wanted a national church but without bishops; favoured a system of elders (presbyters) |
| Independents (Congregationalists) | Believed each congregation should govern itself |
| Baptists | Insisted on adult baptism; rejected infant baptism |
| Quakers | Rejected all formal ministry and ceremony; believed in the "inner light" of the Holy Spirit |
| Fifth Monarchists | Believed Christ's return was imminent and that the saints should rule |
Key Term: Nonconformists (or Dissenters) — Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England after the Restoration settlement. This included Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Quakers, and others.
Charles II himself was relatively tolerant in religious matters. He had spent years in exile in Catholic countries, and his mother, Henrietta Maria, was Catholic. There is strong evidence that Charles had Catholic sympathies and may have converted on his deathbed in 1685.
In the Declaration of Breda, Charles had promised "liberty to tender consciences" — suggesting that some form of religious toleration would accompany the Restoration. However, the strongly Anglican Cavalier Parliament had other ideas.
As covered in the previous lesson, the Clarendon Code (1661–1665) was a series of four Acts designed to enforce religious conformity. Its effects were severe:
Exam Tip: Be prepared to evaluate the effectiveness of the Clarendon Code. Did it achieve religious unity? The evidence suggests it did not — Nonconformists continued to worship in secret, and persecution often strengthened their resolve rather than destroying it.
In 1672, Charles II issued the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, which suspended all penal laws against Nonconformists and Catholics. This allowed Nonconformists to worship in licensed meeting houses and permitted Catholics to worship privately.
The Declaration was deeply controversial because:
In 1673, Parliament forced Charles to withdraw the Declaration of Indulgence and passed the Test Act:
| Act | Date | What It Did |
|---|---|---|
| Test Act | 1673 | Required all holders of civil and military office to take Anglican communion and swear oaths rejecting Catholic beliefs (transubstantiation) |
The most dramatic consequence of the Test Act was that Charles's brother, James, Duke of York, had to resign as Lord High Admiral because he was unable to take the required oaths — effectively confirming publicly that he was a Catholic.
Key Figure: James, Duke of York — Charles II's brother and heir. His open Catholicism was the central political issue of the later Restoration period and would eventually lead to the Exclusion Crisis.
Despite the Clarendon Code and the Test Act, Nonconformist communities survived. Some key examples:
Question: "The Clarendon Code failed to achieve religious unity in Restoration England." How far do you agree?
A Level 4 response would argue that the Clarendon Code failed to achieve unity in its own terms, while producing significant secondary effects. The four Acts of the Clarendon Code — the Corporation Act of 1661, the Act of Uniformity of 1662, the Conventicle Act of 1664, and the Five Mile Act of 1665 — were designed to force Nonconformists back into the Church of England or to silence them. In that primary aim they failed. The Great Ejection of 24 August 1662 removed approximately 2,000 ministers from Anglican livings, but these ministers did not return to conformity; they became the backbone of a distinct Nonconformist ministry that continued to worship in private houses, barns, and licensed conventicles. John Bunyan's imprisonment from 1660 to 1672 and his subsequent publication of The Pilgrim's Progress in 1678 symbolise this resilience. The persecution of Quakers under the Quaker Act of 1662 and the Conventicle Act produced, between 1660 and 1685, several thousand imprisonments and approximately 450 deaths in prison, yet the Society of Friends continued to expand under George Fox and William Penn. However, the Clarendon Code did succeed in one important secondary sense: it entrenched the Church of England as the legal establishment and excluded Nonconformists from municipal office and higher education until the nineteenth century. So the judgement is double-edged: the Code failed as a tool of religious unity but succeeded as a tool of political exclusion. A Level 4 answer would conclude that "religious unity" is the wrong benchmark — the Code was better understood as a device for defining the political nation in Anglican terms, and in that it largely succeeded until the Toleration Act of 1689.
Grade 4 (simple): "The Clarendon Code was unfair to Nonconformists. The Act of Uniformity made 2,000 ministers leave the Church. The Conventicle Act stopped them from meeting. John Bunyan went to prison and wrote a famous book. Quakers were treated badly. The Code did not really work because Nonconformists still met in secret." This identifies features and gives a simple verdict but does not develop the analysis.
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