Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 3—The Church of the Restoration [part 1]

Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, died on the 9th of November, 1677. Illustrations have been afforded of his influence and activity at the time of the Restoration,...

[126] _Life and Times_, ii. 229. Amongst the Baxter MSS. in Dr. Williams' library, I have seen a note, apparently relating to the period now before us. Baxter said:--The late Ar...

The time had arrived for calling a new Parliament, since the Convention lacked certain constitutional attributes: and it seemed a further reason for summoning another House of C...

Charles, on his way to England, had reason for anxious care and steady forethought. Never had an English Prince come to the throne under such circumstances. A civil war was just...

Soon after the King's return the Earl of Manchester employed his influence, as Lord Chamberlain, in the appointment of ten or twelve Presbyterian chaplains at Court; of these on...

Richard Cromwell succeeded his father in the government of the realm, as if his family had from of old occupied the throne. What renders this fact the more remarkable is that th...

After all Clarendon's advice and all Sheldon's opposition, the King, within four months of the meeting of Council already described, returned to his favourite expedient. He publ...

This year appears as a terrible one in the annals of London.[461] Two men in Drury Lane had sickened in the previous December. Upon inquiry, headache, fever, burning sensations,...

The Presbyterians were the principal instruments in Charles' restoration; and in this they acted as the exponents and instruments of the nation's will. It was not Monk who influ...

The Fire of London broke out on the 1st of September, in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane. It rushed down Fish Street Hill, and soon enveloped the dwellings by London Bridge and o...

The state of the Royal family, as it respects religion, at the period which we have now reached, constituted the principal foundation in England, of Roman Catholic hope, and the...

Parliament, which had been adjourned in July, reassembled in November. Charles, on the 20th of that month, attired in crimson velvet, the crown on his head, the sceptre in his h...

The Tenth Session of Charles' Second Parliament opened on the 4th of February, 1673. His Majesty's Speech glanced at the Indulgence, as having produced a good effect by producin...

The Cabal crumbled to pieces in 1673. It had never been guided by any common principles; it had never felt any community of interest; it had never been united by personal sympat...

The fall of Clarendon had been succeeded by a Ministry well known in history under the name of the CABAL.[562] With the merely political conduct of the statesmen indicated by th...

More victims in the month of April were sacrificed upon the altar of revenge. Colonel John Okey, a distinguished officer in the Commonwealth Army, who had adopted Republican and...

The knell of the Puritan Commonwealth was rung when Oliver Cromwell died. The causes of its dissolution may easily be discovered. Some of them had been in operation for a long t...

As there had been only an adjournment, and not a prorogation in the summer of 1661, the Bill of Uniformity, carried by the Commons before that period, remained eligible for cons...

The Solemn League and Covenant had been displaced a year, and the New Parliament now resolved to brand it with fresh indignities.[256] Accordingly it was, by the common hangman,...

No Sunday in England ever exactly resembled that which fell on the 17th of August, 1662--one week before the feast of St. Bartholomew. There have been "mourning, lamentation, an...

Within two years after the passing of the Act of Uniformity, the clergy exerted themselves to obtain further legislation in favour of the Church. From a petition which they pres...

When the Act had taken effect, some of the Presbyterians looked for a mitigation of its severity. Those who lived in London, and were upon terms of friendship with the Earl of M...

It was a pamphleteering age; and religion as well as politics fell under discussion in numerous small publications. Some one published in the beginning of August, 1667, under th...

The Bill received the Royal assent upon the 19th of May. Perhaps the reader will not be wearied with an account of the ceremony, and of the speeches delivered at the time.

After Lambert's imitation of Oliver Cromwell, in dissolving the House of Commons, England might be said to be without any Government at all. In contrast with our conscious secur...

The treatment of the men who had been foremost in what the Royalists called the Great Rebellion, affords a further and a critical instance of the temper of Parliament. At first,...

of magistrates respecting them, are illustrated in the following extract of a letter written from Bristol, in the autumn of 1660:--"Be pleased to take notice that no Quaker, or...

The King was by no means disinclined to relieve Dissenters from the oppression which they experienced, provided he might extend relief on his own authority, and at his own pleas...

Durham" to Williamson, sending "the complaint received from Newcastle about the seditious meetings of the Congregation of Saints." The letter is dated November 23rd, 1668. The c...

The details are generally of a minute description, and would very extensively serve the purpose of biographers and local historians; but they are not without considerable value...