Remembering Episcopalian Conformity in Restoration England

Abstract

This article examines how the phenomenon of episcopalian conformity in the late 1640s and 1650s was remembered, debated and explained after the Restoration. Drawing on petitions, pamphlets, funeral sermons and clerical biographies, it shows that both personal ambition and polemical advantage encouraged episcopalians to suppress evidence of Interregnum conformity from the moment the king returned in May 1660. Crucially, however, this kind of whitewashing was by no means the only—or even the principal—way in which episcopalian conformists retrospectively presented their own careers. Many clergymen after 1660 were eager to defend their decision to continue ministering publicly under the English Republic, claiming that their proselytising activities in these years had ultimately helped to advance the interests of Church and king. It is argued that these contrasting approaches to remembering conformity reflect the unstable, contested meaning of loyalty, especially after 1649. As well as adding a new dimension to recent literature on the significance of memories of the English Revolution in the late seventeenth century, the article therefore enhances our understanding of episcopalian identities during the 1640s and 1650s, helping to explain why clergymen who considered themselves loyal to the pre-war order could embark on such divergent trajectories when confronted with defeat, disestablishment and regicide.