Revolutionary England and the National Covenant: State Oaths, Protestantism, and the Political Nation, 1553-1682

Front Cover
Boydell Press, 2005 - History - 263 pages
An assessment of the importance of oaths, and the taking of, and the idea of national covenants during a turbulent time in English history.

This book studies the oaths and covenants taken during the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth century, a time of great religious and political upheaval, assessing their effect and importance. From the reign of Mary I to the Exclusion crisis, Protestant writers argued that England was a nation in covenant with God and urged that the country should renew its contract with the Lord through taking solemn oaths. In so doing, they radically modified understandings of monarchy, political allegiance and the royal succession. During the civil war, the tendering of oaths of allegiance, the Protestation of 1641 and the Vow and Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 (all describedas embodiments of England's national covenant) also extended the boundaries of the political nation. The poor and illiterate, women as well as men, all subscribed to these tests of loyalty, which were presented as social contracts between the Parliament and the people. The Solemn League and Covenant in particular continued to provoke political controversy after 1649 and even into the 1690s many English Presbyterians still viewed themselves as bound by itsterms; the author argues that these covenants had a significant, and until now unrecognised, influence on 'politics-out-of-doors' in the eighteenth century.

EDWARD VALLANCE is Lecturer in Early Modern British History, University of Liverpool.

From inside the book

Contents

The origins of the idea of a national covenant in England
6
Protestation Vow and Covenant
51
Covenants and allegiance 16411646
61
Secular contracts or religious covenants?
82
the public response
102
the Levellers
133
The Covenant the execution of Charles I and the English republic
157
Covenants oaths and the Restoration settlement
179
For the Preservation of Our Happy Constitution
200
Conclusion
217
Select bibliography
223
Index
245
Copyright

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