Protestant pluralism was a fact of life in early Hanoverian England. After 1714 George I and his Whig ministers acted to suppress clerical agitation against Dissenters and reverse the restrictions placed on the Toleration Act during Queen Anne's reign. The age of Whig oligarchy, as historians have described it, would see the maturing of Dissenting groups as distinct denominations within English society, even as their demographic and cultural prominence declined. This securing of religious freedoms would be accompanied, however, by the delineation of lasting limits on Dissenting political participation and the continuation of at least something of a confessional state. Despite arguments for repeal, the sacramental test on public office would remain until 1828. Even Whigs instinctively averse to persecuting Protestant consciences would support such limitations, as the ability of Tories to attack the Toleration Act swiftly faded and the prospect of a Jacobite counter-revolution gradually receded.

The Protestant succession

The death of Queen Anne on 1 August 1714 marked the close of the Stuart age, delivering the throne to a German cousin qualified primarily by his Protestant faith. Dissenters had been assured by their Whig allies that the arrival of the Hanoverian dynasty, provided for since the 1701 Act of Settlement, would reverse Tory inroads on their religious liberties. The Elector of Hanover's diplomatic envoy had made similar assurances, urging Dissenters to remain engaged in political life, even at the cost of forbearing tolerated worship, and await the repeal of the 1711 Occasional Conformity Act and ‘other hardships’. Dissenters were identified by the regime-in-waiting as a crucial element in a Protestant coalition committed not only to the change of dynasty, but moreover to shared strategic interests in Europe. The role of Hanover in the ‘Grand Alliance’ against Catholic France had made the Elector Georg Ludwig, like William of Orange before him, into an icon of militant Protestantism. In September 1714 the newly arrived George I declared to the Privy Council that he would rule ‘without the least impairing the Toleration’, while two years later he would pointedly ask the bishop of Carlisle if Dissenters had not ‘deserved well’ from his government. Dissenters were understandably joyful at the achievement of the Protestant succession.