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History and Narrative Identity: Religious Dissent and the Politics of Memory in Eighteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2005

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References

1 Ricoeur, Paul, Time and Narrative, vol. 3, trans. Blamey, K. and Pellauer, D. (Chicago, 1988), p. 246Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., p. 248. See also Ricoeur, 's essay “Narrative Identity,” Philosophy Today (Spring 1991), pp. 7381Google Scholar. For some other uses of the term, see Somers, Margaret, “The Narrative Constitution of Identity,” Theory and Society 23 (1994): 605–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lewis, P. and Hinchman, Sandra K., eds., Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences (New York, 1997)Google Scholar; Rimmon-Kenan, S., “The Story of I: Illness and Narrative Identity,” Narrative 10, no. 1 (2002): 927CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 de Rapin-Thoyras, Paul, The History of England … Translated into English with Additional Notes (and Continued from the Revolution to the Accession of King George II.) by N. Tindal, 3d ed., 21 vols. (London, 1757–63), 11:209Google Scholar. This Huguenot historian is customarily known as Rapin.

4 Calamy, Edmund, An Historical Account of My Own Life with Some Reflections on the Times I Have Lived In, 2 vols., ed. Rutt, J. T. (London, 1829), 2:505Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., 2:531.

6 See, e.g., Spaeth, Donald, The Church in an Age of Danger: Parsons and Parishioners, 1660–1740 (Cambridge, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gregory, Jeremy, Restoration, Reformation, and Reform, 1660–1828: Archbishops of Canterbury and Their Diocese (Oxford, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an important critical survey of the historiography of the church, see Taylor, Stephen and Walsh, John, “Introduction: The Church and Anglicanism in the ‘Long’ Eighteenth Century,” in The Church of England c. 1689–c. 1833: From Toleration to Tractarianism, ed. Walsh, J., Haydon, Colin, and Taylor, S. (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 164Google Scholar.

7 The following pages are from a book to be published by Edinburgh University Press: Memories of the Present: Historiography, Religious Dissent, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century England.

8 Note that the first edition of 1702 is spelled “Abridgment” and the second edition of 1713 as “Abridgement.” Here these works will be cited simply as Abridgment (1702) or Abridgement (1713).

9 Calamy, An Historical Account, 1:88.

10 Ibid., 1:89.

11 Ibid., 1:376–77.

12 Reliquiae Baxterianae, or, Mr. Richard Baxter's Narrative of the Most Memorable Passages of His Life and Times, Faithfully Published from His Own Original Manuscripts by Matthew Sylvester (London, 1696), pt. 1, p. 249Google Scholar.

13 Quoted in Powicke, Frederick J., Life of Richard Baxter (London, 1924), p. 294Google Scholar.

14 See Macaulay, 's account in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, 10th ed., 4 vols. (London, 1854), 1:487–91Google Scholar.

15 The most careful modern scrutiny of the sources has revised the figure downward to just over 1,900. This revision excludes Wales. If included, this would return the figure to around 2,000. See Matthews, A. G., Calamy Revised: Being a Revision of Edmund Calamy's Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660–2 (Oxford, 1934)Google Scholar.

16 Calamy, Abridgment (1702), n.p.

17 In 1707 Calamy had also published a massive four-volume edition of works by Baxter: The Practical Works of the Late Reverend and Pious Mr. Richard Baxter, in Four Volumes, with a Preface; Giving Some Account of the Author, and of This Edition of His Practical Works (London, 1707)Google Scholar.

18 Calamy, Abridgment (1702), n.p.

19 Ollyffe, John, A Defence of Ministerial Conformity to the Church of England in Answer to the Misrepresentations of … Mr. Calamy in … His Abridgement of the History of Mr. Baxter's Life and Times (London, 1702)Google Scholar, A Second Defence of Ministerial Conformity to the Church of England: In Answer to Mr. Calamy's Objections against the First; in His Pretended Vindication of the 10th Chapter of His Abridgment of Mr. Baxter's Life and Times (London, 1705)Google Scholar, A Third Defence of Ministerial Conformity to the Church of England: In Answer to Mr. Calamy's Objections against the First; in a Letter Annext to His Third Part of Moderate Conformity (London, 1706)Google Scholar.

20 Calamy, Edmund, A Defence of Moderate Nonconformity: In Answer to the Reflections of Mr. Ollyffe and Mr. Hoadly, on the Tenth Chapter of the Abridgment of the Life of the Reverend Mr. Rich. Baxter. Part I. With a Postscript Containing Some Remarks on a Tract of Mr. Dorringtons, Entitled, The Dissenting Ministry in Religion, Censur’d … from the Holy Scriptures. Part II. With a Postscript, Containing an Answer to Mr. Hoadly's Serious Admonition, etc. Part III … to Which Are Added Three Letters: One to Mr. Ollyffe, in Answer to His Second Defence of Ministerial Conformity. Another to Mr. Hoadly, in Answer to His Defence of the Reasonableness of Conformity. And, a Third to the Author, from Mr. Rastrick … Giving an Historical Account of His Nonconformity, 3 vols. (London, 1703–5)Google Scholar.

21 Orme, William, “A Life of the Author and a Critical Examination of His Writings,” in The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter (London, 1830), 1:733Google Scholar.

22 See, e.g., Seditious Preachers, Ungodly Teachers. Exemplified in the Case of the Ministers, Ejected by the Act of Uniformity 1662 … Opposed Chiefly to Mr. Calamy's Abridgment, Where He Has Canonized Them for So Many Saints and Confessors, Etc. (London, 1709)Google Scholar.

23 Calamy, Continuation, p. xx.

24 Ibid., p. xv.

25 Ibid., p. xxxviii.

26 Ibid., p. iii.

27 Neal, Daniel, The History of the Puritans; or, Protestant Nonconformists; from the Reformation in 1517. To the Revolution in 1688: Comprising an Account of Their Principles; Their Attempts for a Further Reformation in the Church; Their Sufferings; and the Lives and Characters of Their Most Considerable Divines, vol. 1 (London, 1732), vol. 2 (London, 1733), vol. 3 (London, 1736), vol. 4 (London, 1738)Google Scholar. Subsequent references are to the four-volume edition of 1755 published in Dublin.

28 Robbins, Caroline, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), p. 240CrossRefGoogle Scholar. She does not, however, go on to examine the text of Neal's History in any detail.

29 Neal, History of the Puritans, 4:133.

30 Ibid., 1:473.

31 Ibid., 1:425.

32 Ibid., 1:181.

33 Nichols, John, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century; Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of W. Bowyer, and Many of His Learned Friends; an Incidental View of the Progress and Advancement of Literature in This Kingdom during the Last Century, and Biographical Anecdotes of a Considerable Number of Eminent Writers and Ingenious Artists, 9 vols. (London, 1812–15), 2:540nGoogle Scholar.

34 Neal, History of the Puritans, 2:483.

35 Ibid., 3:421–22. One Whig churchman and historian, and future bishop, had conceded: “in Justice to the greater part of the Presbyterian ministers, it must be acknowledg’d, that when they saw too late the sad Issues of Separation and Rebellion, they did then repent of them, and they did then labour to prevent the execrable Fact of putting the King to Death.” [Kennett, White], A Complete History of England: With the Lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; from the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His Late Majesty William III. Containing a Faithful Relation of All Affairs of State Ecclesiastical and Civil (London, 1706), 3:175Google Scholar. Neal would not, of course, have concurred with some of the insinuations in this passage.

36 Neal, History of the Puritans, 3:431.

37 Ibid., 3:116.

38 Ibid., 3:435–36; 12 Car. II, c. 30.

39 Neal, History of the Puritans, 4:1.

40 Ibid., 4:2.

42 Ibid., 4:149.

43 Trenchard, J. and Gordon, T., Cato's Letters; or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects, 4 vols. (London, 1755), ed. Hamowy, R. (Indianapolis, 1995), 1:330Google Scholar.

44 Worden, B., “The English Reputation of Oliver Cromwell 1660–1900,” in Historical Controversies and Historians, ed. Lamont, W. (London, 1998), p. 40Google Scholar.

45 Neal, History of the Puritans, 4:175.

46 Ibid., 4:494.

47 Ibid., 4:502.

48 This was the kind of position adopted by dissenting reformers in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. It was voiced most notoriously in Richard Price's sermon commemorating and criticizing 1688, A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (London, 1790)Google Scholar.

49 Neal, History of the Puritans, 4:505. Support for Neal's criticisms of the Act of Toleration, should any be required, can be found in Schochet, Gordon, “Samuel Parker, Religious Diversity, and the Ideology of Persecution,” in The Margins of Orthodoxy: Heterodox Writing and Cultural Response, 1660–1750, ed. Lund, Roger D. (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar.

50 Neal, History of the Puritans, 1:48–49. Neal's editor in the 1790s, Joshua Toulmin, was himself a Baptist and a Unitarian and pointedly remarks that such comments are unfortunate. They could be construed as justifying the kind of persecution of religious beliefs that elsewhere Neal quite properly condemns. Neal, Daniel, The History of the Puritans … New Edition, Revised, Corrected, and Enlarged, by J. Toulmin … to Which Are Prefixed, Some Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Author, 5 vols. (Bath, 1793–97), 1:49nGoogle Scholar. Note that Toulmin rarely tampers with the text of Neal's History. It is reprinted more or less as it was first published in the 1730s, with minor changes and modernizations of spelling and style. However, there are occasional tactful excisions, and Toulmin uses the footnotes to keep up a generally sympathetic but occasionally critical running commentary.

51 Crosby, T., The History of the English Baptists, from the Reformation to the Beginning of the Reign of King George I, 4 vols. (London, 1738–40), vol. 1, n.p.Google Scholar

52 Again, in the footnotes to his edition of The History of the Puritans, Toulmin intervenes here, saying that Fox was committed to public justice, honesty, and fair dealing in the marketplace; to rejection of intemperance; and to the value of education in raising children to a life of sobriety. The Quakers were, says Toulmin, “a new, despised and hated sect” too often confused with another sect whose principles they vigorously opposed, the Ranters, , “whose practices outraged all decency and order.” The History of the Puritans … New Edition, Revised, Corrected, and Enlarged, by J. Toulmin … to Which Are Prefixed, Some Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Author, 5 vols. (Bath, 1793–97), 4:34nGoogle Scholar.

53 Neal, History of the Puritans, 4:41.

54 Crosby, The History of the English Baptists.

55 See, e.g., An Abstract of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers, 3 vols. (London, 1738)Google Scholar; A Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers, 2 vols. (London, 1753)Google Scholar.

56 The Western Martyrology; or, Bloody Assizes, 5th ed. (London, 1705)Google Scholar.

57 Delaune, Thomas, Delaune's Plea for the Nonconformists … with a Preface by the Author of the Review (London, 1706)Google Scholar. See also A Narrative of the Tryal and Sufferings of Thomas Delaune, for Writing and Publishing a Late Book Called “A Plea for the Nonconformists” … with Some Modest Reflections Thereon (London, 1684)Google Scholar, which went through several editions.

58 See, e.g., Goodwin, Thomas, Works, 5 vols. (16811704)Google Scholar; Henry, M., The Life of … Philip Henry with Funeral Sermons for Mr. and Mrs. Henry, 3d ed. (London, 1712)Google Scholar; Calamy, Edmund, Memoirs of the Life of the Late Revd. Mr. John Howe (London, 1724)Google Scholar.

59 Watt, Ian, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding (London, 1957), p. 55Google Scholar.

60 Calamy, Edmund, A Letter to Archdeacon Echard, Upon Occasion of His History of England: Wherein the True Principles of the Revolution Are Defended; the Whigs and Dissenters Vindicated, Several Persons of Distinction Clear’d from Aspersions; and a Number of Historical Mistakes Rectify’d (London, 1718), p. 19Google Scholar.

61 The full title is The Nonconformist's Memorial: Being an Account of the Ministers, Who Were Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration, Particularly by the Act of Uniformity, Which Took Place on Bartholemew-Day, August 24, 1662. Containing a Concise View of Their Lives and Characters, Their Principles, Sufferings and Printed Works. Originally Written by the Reverend and Learned Edmund Calamy D.D. Now Abridged and Corrected, and the Author's Additions Inserted, with Many Further Particulars and New Anecdotes (London, 1775)Google Scholar. Palmer's abridgments, corrections, and additions did make Calamy's very difficult texts more accessible for a middle-class readership. However, Palmer's version lacked the scholarly value of Calamy's work, which was a collection of sometimes original documents and sources. The historian of Restoration dissent will still go to the pages of Calamy.

62 Ibid., p. iv.

63 Toulmin, Joshua, An Historical View of the State of the Protestant Dissenters in England, and of the Progress of Free Enquiry and Religious Liberty, from the Revolution to the Accession of Queen Anne (London, 1814), p. xxGoogle Scholar.

65 Hazlitt, William, “On Court-Influence” (1819), in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, 12 vols., ed. Waller, A. R. and Glover, A. (London, 1902), 3:265–66Google Scholar.

66 William Hazlitt, “Mr Coleridge, the Spirit of the Age” (1825), in Waller and Glover, eds., 4:217.

67 William Hazlitt, The Plain Speaker (1826), in Waller and Glover, eds., 7:322.

68 See Miall, J. G., Footsteps of Our Forefathers: What They Suffered and What They Sought. Describing Localities, and Portraying Personages and Events Conspicuous in the Struggles for Religious Liberty (London, 1852), esp. pp. 350–52Google Scholar, for the political lessons to be learned in mid-Victorian England from histories of persecuted Puritans and Dissenters in Tudor and Stuart England.

69 See Larsen, Timothy, “Victorian Nonconformity and the Memory of the Ejected Ministers: The Impact of the Bicentennial Commemorations of 1862,” in The Church Retrospective: Papers Read at the 1995 Summer Meeting and 1996 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical Society, ed. Swanson, R. N. (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 459–73Google Scholar. The centenary in 1762 was not apparently commemorated in any public way, though a few years later, 1688 was celebrated by Dissenters on a considerable scale.