Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History (92 page)

Baptists
Protestants who believed in baptism only by adult choice, thus vitiating any notion of a national Church. In England, often called
Anabaptists
(“re-baptizers”), but only as a term of abuse to associate them with continental radicals. During the seventeenth century, divided between Particular Baptists who were strict
Calvinists
believing in a Church restricted to the elect, and General Baptists who believed in the potential for universal salvation.

Calvinists
Protestant followers of John Calvin who believed that God has predestined all humans to be saved (the elect) or damned (reprobates). Most members of the Church of England prior to 1630, and all
Puritans
, were Calvinists.

Cavaliers
Cant name for Royalists during the Civil Wars, derived from the Spanish
caballero
or horseman. It was originally a pejorative name for the courtly gallants, often of magnificent appearance but little money, who rallied to the king’s side.

Cavalier Code See Clarendon Code.

Chantry
A chapel, often a side-chapel in a church, set aside for prayers for the dead in
Purgatory
, often endowed by the deceased. Dissolved by the Crown in 1547.

Clarendon
Code Popular name for the set of statutes passed by the Cavalier Parliament to establish the monopoly of the Church of England and outlaw Dissent after the Restoration (
see Conventicle Act, Corporation Act, Five Mile Act, Licensing Act, Uniformity, Act of, 1662
). Its effect was to make
Dissenters
second-class citizens.

Conventicle Act, 1664
Statute which forbade meetings of more than five people for illegal (i.e., Dissenting) worship on pain of fines and exile for a third offense. Lapsed in 1667; replaced by another Conventicle Act in 1670.

Copyhold
Form of land tenure less secure than freehold but more so than leasehold. Copyholders held land on terms set out in a copy of the manor roll. Copyholders could often transfer the holding to their descendants even though they did not technically own the land. Prevalent at the beginning of the early modern period, rare at its end because capitalist landlords and market forces worked to eliminate it.

Corporation Act, 1661
Statute which gave Crown-appointed commissioners the right to expel and replace members of town corporations thought to be of questionable loyalty to the Restoration in Church and State.

Corporation
The mayor, aldermen, and/or other governors of a city or borough as laid out in its charter, granted by the Crown.

Covenant, National, 1638
and
Covenant, Solemn League and, 1643
Both were at once agreements and oaths whose takers agreed to act together militarily to resist episcopalian influence and achieve religious reform. First signed in 1638 by the leaders of Scottish society to defend the Presbyterian Church government and its
Calvinist
theology against the Anglicizing tendencies of Charles I (see
Presbyterians
). The English Parliamentarians in 1643 agreed to a similar Solemn League and Covenant, by which the Scottish Covenanters supplied their army in return for £30,000 a month and a promise to establish Presbyterianism in England. This agreement made possible the crushing parliamentary victory at Marston Moor, 1644.

Declarations of Indulgence, 1672, 1687, 1688
Royal proclamations suspending (see
Suspending power
) the laws against both recusants (Catholics) and
Dissenters
. Not supported by many Dissenters because of their fear of Catholics, and fiercely opposed by
Anglicans
.

Deists
Those who, in the wake of the scientific revolution and Enlightenment, ceased to believe that God intervenes in worldly occurrences. Rather, they conceived of a “watchmaker God” who set the universe running according to unalterable natural laws. Suspicious of Scripture and dogma as infallible guides for behavior, preferring the exercise of reason.

Demesne
The part of a manor reserved for the landlord’s crops and other uses, farmed for him by his tenants.

Diggers
Agrarian communists who emerged following the Civil Wars. They believed that the Bible did not sanction private property. Their brief attempts at communes at St. George’s Hill, Surrey and elsewhere, ca. 1649-50, were broken by bad weather, government repression, and local hostility.

Dispensing power
The customary, but increasingly controversial, right of English kings to dispense with the law in individual cases. Its use died out after the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9.

Dissenters
Protestants, usually theological
Puritans
, who rejected or were expelled from the Church of England after the Restoration (see
Clarendon Code
). Dissenters were persecuted until the passage of the Toleration Act in 1689, after which those who accepted the Trinity could worship openly if they kept the doors of their meeting houses unlocked. Major groups included the
Presybterians, Independents, Baptists
, and
Quakers
.

Enclosure
Process whereby landowners ceased arable (crop) farming and turned their lands over to pastoral, usually sheep, farming. This was thought to involve not only the enclosing of land by fences but the eviction of the tenant farmers who had worked it. In fact, historical research indicates that its motivations and effects varied considerably from place to place.

Excise
Sales tax, first introduced in 1643, often on necessities - like beer.

Exclusion Crisis
The crisis over the succession which occurred 1678-81. The issue was whether James, duke of York, a Catholic, should be allowed to succeed his brother Charles II. This raised the larger constitutional issue of whether Parliament had the power to alter the succession. The crisis, which was borne of the supposed discovery of a
Popish Plot
to overthrow Charles and put James on the throne, precipitated three elections and led to the rise of the first two political parties in England.
Whigs
opposed the duke’s succession, proposing that Parliament name a Protestant instead;
Tories
favored it.

Five Mile Act, 1665
Statute barring any nonconforming minister from coming within 5 miles of a town in which he had served.
Forced loan
Extraparliamentary levy, occasionally resorted to by the Tudors, which came to be seen as simple extortion under Charles I.

Grammar school
An endowed primary school with a classical curriculum, usually patronized by the middling orders.

Gunpowder Plot
Catholic plot organized in 1605 by Robert Catesby to blow up King James I and both houses of Parliament at the state opening on November 5. The plot was uncovered and one of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, caught red-handed with the explosives. The conspirators were executed and anti-Catholic legislation toughened.

Heretic
One who publicly denied principal doctrines of the established Church. The Act for Burning Heretics of 1401 decreed burning at the stake in punishment. This was most famously imposed on the Protestant “heretics” under Mary.

Impositions
Additional or higher Customs duties on imported goods “imposed” without parliamentary consent.

Independents
Those who, during and after the Civil Wars, believed that individual congregations should be allowed to decide on forms of worship and discipline within a loose national Church. Many favored a more aggressive war strategy during the Civil Wars and more radical solutions to social problems afterwards. Eventually evolved into Con- gregationalists.

Jacobites
Supporters of the exiled King James II and his son, the titular James III, known to his opponents as the Pretender. Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745 failed to restore the Catholic Stuarts.

Junto
From the Spanish
junta
(council), the group of five Whig politicians who acted in concert to lead the party and, often, the government between 1690 and 1715: Thomas, Lord Wharton, John, Lord Somers, Charles Montagu, Lord (later earl of) Halifax, Edward Russell, earl of Orford, and Charles Spencer, earl of Sunderland.

Justice of the peace
(
JP
) An unpaid officer of the Crown in the localities, usually a gentleman, who acted as a magistrate, sitting in judgment over (usually) noncapital felonies; regulating markets and prices; maintaining roads; and supervising the Poor Law, among many other responsibilities. The mainstay of county government.

Kett’s Rebellion
Rebellion led by Robert Kett in East Anglia in 1549 in response to hard economic times. The rebels demanded lower rents and entry fines, the inviolability of common lands, and a greater say in the selection of local officials. After the duke of Somerset hesitated, its ruthless suppression by the earl of Warwick helped catapult him to power.

Latitudinarians
Late seventeenth-century and, especially, early eighteenth-century Churchmen (many Whig bishops) who sought an inclusive Church of England accommodating a variety of beliefs, including those consistent with reason and the new science.

Legate
A papal representative on a temporary or more permanent mission (e.g., Thomas Wolsey) within a country.

Levellers
Radicals, including members of the army from 1647, who demanded freedom of conscience, near universal manhood suffrage, law reform, and “the sovereignty of the people.” A Leveller constitution,
The Agreement of the People,
was debated at Putney in October 1647, but the Commonwealth eventually suppressed the movement.

Licensing Act, 1662
Statute which limited the number of master printers in England to 20 with a few additional journeyman printers. All publications were required to carry the name of the author and printer and be approved by a licenser of the press, with powers to search out unauthorized presses and publication. Expired 1679; renewed 1685-95.

Lollards
Lollardy (a word of uncertain derivation) was a set of beliefs associated with John Wyclif, an Oxford-based theologian of the fourteenth century. Dismayed at what they saw as the growing corruption of the Church and its distance from ordinary people, Lollards emphasized the importance of Scripture (which they translated into English) and deemphasized that of ritual and hierarchy. Originally encouraged by some in government as a counterweight to papal power, Lollards were persecuted virtually out of existence after an abortive rebellion in 1414. They anticipated, but were not around to contribute to, the Reformation.

Long Parliament
The Parliament summoned in the autumn of 1640, which sat in one form or another to December 1648, at which point a purge of its more moderate members formed the
Rump Parliament
that governed the Commonwealth until 1653 (see
Pride’s Purge
). First the Rump and then the whole of the Long Parliament were recalled during the period of instability prior to the Restoration, 1659-60.

Lord lieutenant
From the late Tudor period on, an unpaid government official responsible for order in an entire county, usually the most prominent peer in that county. His duty was to maintain order, keep an eye out for disaffection, and raise the militia when called upon.

Manor
The estate of a landlord, usually originally held by feudal tenure.

Mumming
Play-acting, usually associated with Church festivals like Christmas, New Year’s, etc., in which participants represent religious or mythological figures.