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In 17th century England, Thorough was a name given by Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford to a scheme of his to establish absolute monarchy in England. Although "Thorough" is largely attributed to Strafford, its implementation can also be accredited to the Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud.
Laud exploited his secular and religious roles to implement the policy of Thorough in England. Laud used his authority as Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint only Arminian clergymen as bishops; this in turn meant that most vicars they appointed would also be Arminian. Arminianism is a sect of Protestant Christianity which believes in the "Divine Right of Kings" and the (Catholic reminiscent) "Beauty of Holiness". Laud hoped that his new Arminian Church of England would make the English conform to believing in the "Divine Right", supporting Charles I's personal rule and setting up a parliament-independent monarchy.
Though English Arminians often supported expansion of royal authority, this did not correlate to support of absolutist monarchies. Arminians challenged Calvinist conception of absolute predestination by introducing an element of free will into Protestant soteriology; that is, they asserted that even the elect (those destined to salvation) could fall totally and finally from saving grace. This idea often translated into acceptance of an increased role of sacraments and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or the "Beauty of Holiness", though this was not necessarily the case. [1] The phrase "Divine Right of Kings" has been incorrectly interpreted as equivalent to absolutism. [2] [3]
Laud used his authority over the prerogative courts to humiliate the gentry, who were largely Puritan and Presbyterian. As Puritans and Presbyterians, the gentry were opposed to Laud's beliefs and opposed to the idea of a parliament-independent monarchy. William Laud used his authority over the prerogative courts to punish many people, including Puritan martyr William Prynne. In this era, religious issues were constitutional issues as in the case of Charles I and William Laud's attempt to impose the English Book of Common Prayer on Scotland. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Strafford was Lord Deputy of Ireland, and domiciled in Ireland for much of the personal rule. He left the running of England largely to Laud, although the application of Thorough in Ireland was entirely down to Strafford. The fear that Strafford instilled in the Irish through the policy of "Thorough" can be demonstrated when looking at the ease with which Strafford extracted subsidies from the Irish Parliament as the Second Bishops War approached during 1640. As well as attempting to raise revenue, Strafford aimed to assert the authority of, both, the Church and the State. The assertion of the state's authority was embodied by the extension of Protestant settlements in the north of Ireland, at the expense of the Old English and Native Irish. However, he, also, targeted the Protestant New English settlers with the Star Chamber. This punished those whom possessed land that was not well documented enough. The authority of the Church was supported by the Court of High Commission and consisted of policies, which aimed to see a change towards Laudianism. These policies united Catholic and Protestant opposition against him. [8]
Charles I was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.
The English Civil War refers to a series of civil wars and political machinations between Royalists and Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the struggle consisted of the First English Civil War and the Second English Civil War. The Anglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652 is sometimes referred to as the Third English Civil War.
James Ussher was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656. He was a prolific Irish scholar and church leader, who today is most famous for his identification of the genuine letters of the church father, Ignatius of Antioch, and for his chronology that sought to establish the time and date of the creation as "the entrance of the night preceding the 23rd day of October... the year before Christ 4004"; that is, around 6 pm on 22 October 4004 BC, per the proleptic Julian calendar.
Roundheads were the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I of England and his supporters, known as the Cavaliers or Royalists, who claimed rule by absolute monarchy and the principle of the divine right of kings. The goal of the Roundheads was to give to Parliament the supreme control over executive administration of the country/kingdom.
John Pym was a politician and administrator from London, who played a major role in establishing what would become the modern English Parliamentary system. One of the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 was a major step in sparking the First English Civil War, his use of procedure to out manoeuvre opponents was unusual for the period. Though this meant he was respected by contemporaries rather than admired, in 1895 historian Goldwin Smith described him as "the greatest member of Parliament that ever lived".
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford,, was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1640 he was Lord Deputy of Ireland, where he established a strong authoritarian rule. Recalled to England, he became a leading advisor to the King, attempting to strengthen the royal position against Parliament. When Parliament condemned Lord Strafford to death, Charles reluctantly signed the death warrant and Strafford was executed. He had been advanced several times in the Peerage of England during his career, being created 1st Baron Wentworth in 1628, 1st Viscount Wentworth in late 1628 or early 1629, and, finally, 1st Earl of Strafford in January 1640. He was known as Sir Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baronet, between 1614 and 1628.
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement is the name given to the religious and political arrangements made for England during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). The settlement, implemented from 1559 to 1563, marked the end of the English Reformation. It permanently shaped the Church of England's doctrine and liturgy, laying the foundation for the unique identity of Anglicanism.
The Personal Rule was the period in England from 1629 to 1640 when King Charles I ruled as an autocratic absolute monarch without recourse to Parliament. Charles claimed that he was entitled to do this under the royal prerogative and that he had a divine right.
Francis Rous, also spelled Rouse, was an English politician and Puritan religious author, who was Provost of Eton from 1644 to 1659, and briefly Speaker of the House of Commons in 1653.
The Protestation of 1641 was an attempt to avert the English Civil War. Parliament passed a bill on 3 May 1641 requiring those over the age of 18 to sign the Protestation, an oath of allegiance to King Charles I and the Church of England, as a way to reduce the tensions across the realm. Signing them was a necessity in order to hold public office. Those that were not willing to sign it were also listed under it as refusing to pledge its oath.
The Clergy Act 1640, also known as the Bishops Exclusion Act, or the Clerical Disabilities Act, was an Act of Parliament, effective 13 February 1642 that prevented men in holy orders from exercising any temporal jurisdiction or authority.
James VI and I, King of Scotland, King of England and King of Ireland, faced many complicated religious challenges during his reigns in Scotland and England.
The Caroline Divines were influential theologians and writers in the Church of England who lived during the reigns of King Charles I and, after the Stuart Restoration, King Charles II. There is no official list of Caroline-era divines; they are defined by the era in which they lived, and Caroline Divines hailed from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, of these four nations, it is Caroline England which is most commonly considered to have fostered a golden age of Anglican scholarship and devotional writing, despite the socio-cultural upset of civil war, regicide, and military rule under Oliver Cromwell. Importantly, the term divine is restricted neither to canonised saints nor to Anglican figures, but is used of many writers and thinkers in the wider Christian church.
Laudianism was an early seventeenth-century reform movement within the Church of England, promulgated by Archbishop William Laud and his supporters. It rejected the predestination upheld by the previously dominant Calvinism in favour of free will, and hence the possibility of salvation for all men. Laudianism had a significant impact on the Anglican high church movement and its emphasis on liturgical ceremony and clerical hierarchy. Laudianism was the culmination of the move towards Arminianism in the Church of England, but was neither purely theological in nature, nor restricted to the English church.
Protestantism is a Christian minority on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline of approximately 5% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 census of the Republic of Ireland, 4.27% of the population described themselves as Protestant. In the Republic, Protestantism was the second largest religious grouping until the 2002 census in which they were exceeded by those who chose "No Religion". Some forms of Protestantism existed in Ireland in the early 16th century before the English Reformation, but demographically speaking these were very insignificant and the real influx of Protestantism began only with the spread of the English Reformation to Ireland. The Church of Ireland was established by King Henry VIII of England, who had himself proclaimed as King of Ireland.
The reign of King James I of England (1603–1625) saw the continued rise of the Puritan movement in England, that began during reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603), and the continued clash with the authorities of the Church of England. This eventually led to the further alienation of Anglicans and Puritans from one another in the 17th century during the reign of King Charles I (1625–1649), that eventually brought about the English Civil War (1642–1651), the brief rule of the Puritan Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658), the English Commonwealth (1649–1660), and as a result the political, religious, and civil liberty that is celebrated today in all English speaking countries.
Under Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Catholic influence both at Court and within the Church.
Arminianism was a controversial theological position within the Church of England particularly evident in the second quarter of the 17th century. A key element was the rejection of predestination. The Puritans fought against Arminianism, and King James I of England opposed it before, during, and after the Synod of Dort, 1618–1619, where the English delegates participated in formulating the Calvinist Canons of Dort, but his son Charles I, favoured it, leading to deep political battles. The Methodists, who espoused a variant of the school of thought called Wesleyan–Arminian theology, branched off the Church of England in the 18th century.
William Laud was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms; he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 and executed towards the end of the First English Civil War in January 1645.
The 1604 Book of Common Prayer, often called the Jacobean prayer book or the Hampton Court Book, is the fourth version of the Book of Common Prayer as used by the Church of England. It was introduced during the early English reign of James I as a product of the Hampton Court Conference, a summit between episcopalian, Puritan, and Presbyterian factions. A modest revision of the 1559 prayer book, the Jacobean prayer book became the basis of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, a still-authorized liturgical book within the Church of England and global Anglicanism.
