Puritans

The Puritans in England

The Puritans made their initial historical appearance as frustrated English religious Pietists who thought that Elizabeth I (1533–1603) did not sufficiently carry out the process of religious reform initiated by her father Henry VIII (1491–1547). In the eleven years between Henry's death and Elizabeth's coronation, Protestant thinkers in England held little hope for success. With Elizabeth's assent to the throne, they hoped that England would join those areas of Europe that were embracing the radical theologies of Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–1564). They hoped Elizabeth would purge the English church of the corruption that reformers believed had crept in during the long years of what they called the Catholic apostasy under her sister, Mary I (1516–1558; reigned 1553–1558). To the reformers' delight, Elizabeth did affirm the independence of the English church and in 1663 convened the Convocation of Canterbury at Saint Paul's Cathedral to hammer out the church's new structure and doctrine. Delight turned quickly to dismay, however, when the reformers realized that the Elizabethan Settlement, as the Convocation's work was called, changed little and instead set up an English church with the queen at its head and a slightly altered version of Catholic worship and doctrine at its heart. Crying foul at what they regarded as a mere cosmetic commitment to Protestantism, the reformers denounced the settlement as a fraud and demanded real reform. Purity, purity, purity, they demanded, not half-hearted compromises, and, at some point, their opponents, who regarded the reformers as fanatics, labeled them puritans. The name stuck.

From 1563 to 1689, when the new joint monarchs, William (1650–1702) and Mary (1662–1694), affirmed forever the principle of religious toleration, English politics were bedeviled by religious quarreling between supporters of the Settlement and reformers. Defining a Puritan in England during this period is difficult, since defenders of the Church of England used the term to describe a wide range of dissenting beliefs that often had little in common beyond contempt for the Elizabethan Settlement. Probably the most significant bond uniting the reformers was that they were more intense, more deeply pious, and more inclined to see God in daily activities than were the supporters of the Settlement who were more inclined to a moderate godliness. Many dissenters held out hope throughout Elizabeth's reign that greater reforms would be forthcoming and, indeed, the possibility always existed because the queen had several advisers within her court and within the Anglican Church who were sympathetic to the call for dramatic change.

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