¹ Geoffrey, Holmes, Religion and Party in Late Stuart England, London 1975, 15–18. A weakened version of the Occasional Conformity Bill passed in 1711.Google Scholar

² CSPD 1682, 608–9.

³ Hill, Christopher, ‘Occasional Conformity’, in R. B. Knox (ed.), Reformation, Conformity and Dissent: essays in honour of Geoffrey Nuttall, London 1977, 199. The Independent Henry Jacob advocated occasional communion in 1616.Google Scholar

⁴ The Occasional Conformity Bill Proceedings, 1703, in G. M. Trevelyan (ed.), Select Documents for Queen Anne's Reign, 1702–1707, Cambridge 1929, 39–40.

⁵ The Compton Census of 1676: a critical edition, ed. Anne Whiteman (Records of Social and Economic History, new series x, 1986), p. xxxvii n. 71.

⁶ Ibid. 7.

⁷ Ibid. pp. xxxviii–ix, 26.

⁸ ‘Right from the beginning English Presbyterianism exhibited features which distinguished it sharply from the system established north of the Border’: Bolam, C. G., Goring, J., Short, H. L., and Roger, Thomas, The English Presbyterians, Boston–London 1968, 20. The use of inverted commas here and elsewhere is to underline the fact that these followers of Calvin did not adhere to a separate church government made up of synods and presbyteries. The Scottish polity was rejected by parliament in the 1640s and made little impact in England at large. Despite this, at the Restoration, ‘Presbyterian’ began to be used to designate Nonconformist clergy who could not be classified as ‘Congregational’ or ‘Baptist’. For the purposes of this article, congregations associated with such a minister will also be identified as Presbyterian.Google Scholar

⁹ Morrill, J., ‘The Stuarts’, in Kenneth O. Morgan (ed.), The Oxford History of Britain, New York 1988, 393.Google Scholar For the view that the Restoration led almost directly to the gulf between church and chapel, see Beddard, R. A., ‘The Restoration Church’, in J. R. Jones (ed.), The Restored Monarchy, 1660–1688, London 1979, 166.Google Scholar An exception to the view that the Restoration marked a watershed in religious history is voiced by Ronald, Hutton, The Restoration, Cambridge 1986, 288.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The requirements laid down by parliament and the Nonconformist response to them are well summarised by John Spurr, ‘The Church of England, Comprehension and the Toleration Act of 1689’, EHR civ (1989), 927–46 at pp. 929–32, 940.

¹¹ Kenyon, J. P., The Stuart Constitution, Cambridge 1968, 378–82, at p. 380.Google Scholar

¹² The ‘Act to retain the Queen's subjects in obedience’, 35 Eliz. 1 c. 1 (1593), already provided a penalty for illegal conventicling: Elton, G. R., The Tudor Constitution, Cambridge 1972, 447–50.Google Scholar The Act of Uniformity (1662), the Conventicle Acts (1664, 1670), and the Five Mile Act (1665), along with the Corporation Act (1661), have come to be known (inaccurately) as the ‘Clarendon Code’: Hutton, , Restoration, 235–6.Google Scholar

¹³ A. G. Matthews (ed.), Calamy Revised, Oxford 1934, 301. The gathered congregation comprised only twenty–nine people, drawn from twenty of the parish's 150 families: Patrick, Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England: religious and cultural change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, New York 1988, 15.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly…; Extracts from the Church Book of Altham and Wymondhouses, ed. Henry Fishwick (Chetham Society, new ser. 33, 1895), 133; Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 301.Google ScholarSee also Patrick, Collinson, ‘The English Conventicle’, in W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood (eds), Voluntary Religion (Studies in Church History xxiii), London 1986, 256–7.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Turner, G. Lyon, Original Records of Early Nonconformity, London 1911–1914, i. 33. For Postlethwaite and Crouch, see Matthews, Calamy Revised. Further information on the group is contained in J. Ramsbottom, ‘Puritan Dissenters and English Churches, 1630–1690’, unpubl. PhD diss., Yale 1987, 232–3.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Of 1339 ministers licenced in England, 923 were Presbyterian, 416 Congregational and about 200 Baptist: C. G. Bolam and Jeremy Goring, ‘Presbyterians in separation: the cataclysm’, in Bolam, C. G., Goring, Jeremy, Short, H. L. and Thomas, Roger, The English Presbyterians from Elizabethan Puritanism to Modern Unitarianism, London–Boston 1968, 90.Google Scholar

¹⁷ The most recent study of these successive proposals is found in Spurr, ‘Church of England’, passim. As late as 1688, Archbishop Sancroft urged consideration of changes in the Church's ‘constitution’ which might ‘bring in the honest & moderate dissenters, especially of the laity, to join in Communion with us’. Quoted in Spurr, ‘Church of England’, 938. Edmund Calamy estimated that ‘two–thirds of the Dissenters’, meaning the clergy, would have conformed to the Established Church if parliament had adopted the Prayer Book as revised by Convocation in 1689: Ernest, Payne, ‘Toleration and Establishment: I’, in G. Nuttall and O. Chadwick (eds), From Uniformity to Unity, London 1962, 260.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Patrick, Collinson, Godly People: essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism, London 1983, 8–11;Google ScholarAcheson, R. J., ‘The Development of Religious Separatism in the Diocese of Canterbury, 1590–1660’, unpub. PhD diss., Kent 1983, 24–6.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Patrick Collinson, ‘Lectures by Combination: structures and characteristics of church life in 17th–century England’, BIHR xlviii (1975), 183–213; Matthews, A. G., Congregational Churches of Staffordshire, London 1924, 6.Google Scholar

²⁰ Richardson, R. C., Puritanism in North–west England: a study of the diocese of Chester to 1642, Manchester 1972.Google Scholar Richardson observes (p. 179) that conventicles indicate the Puritan laity's capacity ‘to organize their own devotional life’ but asserts that ‘complete and deliberate separatism was rare’; Murray, Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints: the separate Churches of London, 1616–1649, Cambridge 1977, 28.Google Scholar

²¹ For a detailed examination of these attitudes as they developed before the Civil War, see Collinson, ‘The English Conventicle’, esp. 245–52. As he notes, the small groups gathered by Puritan ministers during the Interregnum did not necessarily separate from the parish after the Restoration.

²² PRO, SP 29, 126/109, 15 July 1665; Lambeth Palace Library, Tenison MS 639, fos. 342–5. For other examples in Somerset, see Ramsbottom, ‘Puritan Dissenters’, 162–4, 168.Google Scholar

²³ John, Corbet, A Discourse of the Religion of England, London 1677, 33–4.Google Scholar

²⁴ Anon, . Toleration Not to be Abused, London 1672, 8.Google Scholar

²⁵ Quoted in Thomas, ‘Comprehension and Indulgence’, 205.

²⁶ Quoted in Hill, ‘Occasional Conformity’, 215; Watts, M. R., The Dissenters, Oxford 1978, 248.Google Scholar

²⁷ Quoted in Hill, ‘Occasional Conformity’, 217.

²⁸ DWL, Baxter Letters, iii. 221–2V.

²⁹ Baxter to Henry Osland, 29 June 1670, ibid. i. 25.

³⁰ Ibid. ii. 210 (1673?).

³¹ Edmund, Calamy, A Continuation of the account of the ministers… who were ejected, London 1727, ii. 827.Google Scholar

³² Rel. Baxt. pt iii, 92; DWL Baxter Letters, iv. 232. In 1672, Baldwin was conducting a licensed Presbyterian meeting in the town: Bate, F., Declaration of Indulgence, 1672, Liverpool 1908, appendix vii, pp. liv–lv.Google Scholar

³³ DWL, Baxter Letters, iv. 232.

³⁴ Compton Census, ed. Whiteman, p. xxxvix.

³⁵ English Historical Documents, VIII. 1660–1714, ed. A. Browning, Oxford 1958, 416; DWL, Baxter Letters, iv. 232.

³⁶ Ibid. i. 25.

³⁷ A conspicuous exception is the Presbyterian assembly at Coley chapel, membership in which ‘required a decision to associate with like–minded neighbors’. Several lists of members, in addition to a register–book, survive among the papers of the minister, Oliver Heywood. Yet, as Dr Sheils observes, the subsequent relationship of this covenanted group with the local parish church foreshadows the phenomenon of ‘occasional conformity’: Sheils, W.J., ‘Oliver Heywood and his congregation’, in Sheils and Wood, , Voluntary Religion, 267–8, 275–6.Google Scholar

³⁸ Devon Record Office, PR 519, Complaints against the clergy, Blackawton.

³⁹ The parish living was worth £700 per annum and included three churches. Dr Crouder, who succeeded the ejected minister in 1662, was a pluralist who failed to provide for the cure. ‘The Parish went to law with him, and he was at length turned out’: Calamy, , A Continuation of the account, ii. 895.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ HWR.O 2638: 795, 61, 31 Oct. 1695.

⁴¹ Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 179.Google Scholar

⁴² HWRO, 2513: 794.011, fo. 237V; 2059: 759.02; 2289: 807, 12 (vi), 1690.

⁴³ ‘Churchwardens’ Presentments, 1664–1768', ed. L. Lascelles and E. Guise–Berrow, Worcestershire Recusant xii (1968), 20.

⁴⁴ HWRO, 2058:807, fos 13–13V; Bate, , Declaration, app. vii, p. v;Google ScholarMore, R., Abel Redivivus, London 1675, 71.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Kenyon, , Stuart Constitution, 408. Given these circumstances, it is difficult to agree with the judgment that ‘ the action of taking out licences made the Presbyterians ipso facto schismatics’: Bolam and Goring, ‘Cataclysm’, 89–90.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Turner, , Original Records, i. p. xii.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 51–2.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ R. A. Beddard, ‘Vincent Alsop and the emancipation of Restoration dissent’, this JOURNAL xxiv (1973), 171, 182. TheTothill Street congregation under Alsop held monthly communion until 1682, when it was forced into hiding to avoid prosecution. In the smaller gatherings, communion was given fortnightly and the time of meeting was varied, a practice which, in Beddard's words, ‘facilitated the spread of occasional conformity’ at Anglican services. I am inclined to agree with this conclusion, though not with the imputation of separatism.

⁴⁹ Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 179. After being driven out of Sedgley to another village, he preached privately at his house and then brought his hearers to the local church.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ CSPD 1683, 425.

⁵¹ Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 468; CSPD 1683, 431. Sir William Portman specifically mentioned his ‘hopes of discovering that the Presbyterians at their meetings took a sacramental oath to be true to and defend their religion’.Google Scholar

⁵² Somerset Record Office, QS Rolls 103/26.

⁵³ Rel. Baxt. pt iii, 207.

⁵⁴ Lichfield Joint Record Office, B/V/1/68, 16 Oct. 1663.

⁵⁵ Bowden was one of the Nonconformists found to be holding conventicles in Somerset in 1669: Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 62, 91;Google ScholarBate, , Declaration, app. vii. See also [White Kennett], Some Remarks on the Life, Death and Burial of Mr. Henry Cornish, London 1699, cited in Bishop Fell and Nonconformity, ed. Mary Clapinson (Oxfordshire Record Society, li, 1980), p. xvi.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ ‘Churchwardens’ Presentments', Worcestershire Recusant xv (1970), 30–1. Ward was licensed in 1672 to keep a Congregational meeting at Eckington, near Pershore: Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 509;Google ScholarTurner, , Original Records, i. 525.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Staffordshire Record Office, QS/S, Epiphany 1670/1, no. 23.

⁵⁸ Devon Record Office QS 74, 36/3.

⁵⁹ Collyer to Francis Cooke, 2 Jan. 1670/1, Devon Record office, Basket A. 2467.

⁶⁰ In addition to Budock and Mabe, both in Cornwall, Tregoss preached at Great Torrington, Devon: Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 491.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Five parishioners of Drayton also followed this habit: Bishop Fell and Nonconformity, Visitation Documents from the Oxford Diocese, 1682–1683, ed. Mary Clapinson (Oxfordshire Record Society, lii, 1980), 1–2, 14.

⁶² Bennett, G. V., ‘Conflict in the Church’, in G. Holmes (ed.), Britain After the Glorious Revolution, London 1969, 163.Google Scholar By 1715–1718, there were 1,238 Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist meetings recorded in the Evans list; the proportion that were Presbyterian meetings was about the same as in 1672: Watts, Michael R., The Dissenters, Oxford 1978, 248, 285.Google Scholar

⁶³ Toleration Not to be Abused, 27–8.

⁶⁴ Examples for 1690 are taken from the reports of the Common Fund, Presbyterian and Congregationalist, printed in Alexander, Gordon, Freedom After Ejection, 94–8;Google ScholarCumberland, A. G., ‘Protestant Nonconformity in the Black Country, 1662–1851’, unpubl. MA diss., Birmingham 1951, 30–1.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Broughton, B. to Edward, Verson, 24 Apr. 1664, SP 29, 97–31;Google ScholarMatthews, , Calamy Revised, 231; DWL, Lyon Turner MS 89.12 (extracts from the Act Book of Stafford Deanery).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Edward, Pearse, The Conformist's Fourth Plea for the Nonconformists, London 1683, 61–2.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ DWL, Lyon Turner MS 89. 12, 26 Jan. 1665/6.

⁶⁸ Anthony, Fletcher, ‘The enforcement of the Conventicle Acts, 1664–1679’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), Persecution and Toleration (Studies in Church History xxi), London 1984, 235–46;Google ScholarTim, Harris, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II, Cambridge 1987, 70–2, summarises the evidence for the capital. Ecclesiastical and civil prosecution of dissent in several other counties is discussed in Ramsbottom, ‘English Churches and Puritan Dissenters’, 81–92.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ ‘A Late Surrey Chronicler’, ed. Hilary Jenkinson, Surrey Archaeological Collections xxvii (1914), 8–10. It is not surprising to learn that the minister at this conventicle, John Farroll (Farwell), regularly attended the Church of England himself: Matthews, , Calamy Revised, 192.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Palmer, S., The Nonconformists'Memorial, 1802, i. 524; Rel. Baxt. pt. iii, 92.Google Scholar

⁷¹ In 1665, the Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire arrested Spilsbury, whom he termed ‘A Silenc'd minister, a preacher at Conventicles, and follow'd by great Numbers’: PRO SP 29, 143/36. For the prosecutions for not coming to church, see churchwardens’ presentments, HWRO, 2289: 807, 4 (v), and Act Book, xviii 1661–4, 2513: 794–011, fo. 222. Those cited in 1663 for ‘refusinge to joyne in Communion with the people of the Church of England’ included several inhabitants who would later form a Baptist church. Almost two dozen persons were also presented for standing excommunicate from the Church; these offenders were local Quakers: P. J. Wortley (ed.), Church Record Book, vol. I, 1670–1715 (Baptist Historical Society, London 1974), 80–6.Google Scholar

⁷² Bate, , Declaration, app. vii, p. liv; ‘Churchwardens'Presentments’, Worcestershire Recusant vi (1965), 31–2; HWRO, 2884: 802 (i), fos. 142–3.Google Scholar

⁷³ Spilsbury was excommunicated and threatened with civil prosecution. With the help of the vicar of a nearby parish, he obtained absolution: HWRO, 2884: 802 (i), fo. 146; (ii), fo. 21.

⁷⁴ Ibid. 2289: 807, 4 (v), 2 June 1684.

⁷⁵ Watts, , Dissenters, 258; HWRO, Shirehall, QS constables–presentment, Michaelmas (Oct.), 1681: thirty–one popish recusants were named.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ ‘Churchwardens’ Presentments', 30.

⁷⁷ DWL, Lyon Turner MS 89. 16–18, extracts from State Papers.

⁷⁸ Turner, , Original Records, i. 29.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ ‘A Narrative of the late proceedings of some Justices… against Conventicles… in and about the town of Lewes’, in T. Horsfield (ed.), History and Antiquities of Lewes, Lewes 1827, i, appendix ix, pp. xxv–xxvi.

⁸⁰ West Sussex Record Office, Ep II/9/27, fo. 17; 9/28, fos 29V, 48V–49, 88v, 96–98; Turner, , Original Records, iii. 398. The licence was for a‘Presbyterian’meeting under Edward Newton.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 148, fo. 3.

⁸² Ibid. West Sussex Record office, Ep II/10/4, fos. I–IV. Snatt had been curate of St Michael's and All Saints since at least September 1670.

⁸³ Ibid. Ep I/15/1, Box 152, misc. court papers, 1673–4, examination of William Trigge on articles against Martin.

⁸⁴ Ibid. Ep III/7/6, 1–7.

⁸⁵ Ibid. QR/W, 161, 4–7; Ep III/7/5–6.

⁸⁶ Carleton to Sancroft, 27 Feb. 1683/4, BL, Tanner MS 131, fo. 89; Lake to Sancroft, Tanner MS 30, fo. 16.

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ Lake to Sancroft, 18 Apr. 1687, ibid., fo. 9.

⁸⁹ Ibid.

⁹⁰ In 1673, Bishop Morley spoke of minimal concessions that would have ‘devided the Presbyterians from the rest of the Sectaries’: Spurr, ‘Church of England’, 933–6, at p. 936 n. 3.

⁹¹ Ibid. 944–5.

⁹² Occasional Conformity Bill Proceedings, in Trevelyan, Documents of Anne's Reign, 40.