ABSTRACT
Henceforth the Church of England was rent by divisions. A small group of Non-Jurors (including five of the Seven Bishops) felt that, having sworn allegiance to James, they could not conscientiously accept William and Mary as sovereigns. But few Anglican clergymen followed them into the wilderness for long. This is the age of the Vicar of Bray. By the end of Anne’s reign the Non-Juror schism was virtually over. More serious were the divisions between those who remained within the Church. Many rank-and-file parsons admired, if they would not imitate, the courage and consistency of the Non-Jurors. Inevitably Bishops who resigned in 1689 or died later were replaced by men who accepted the Revolution Settlement, including Latitudinarians like Tillotson, Sancroft’s successor at Canterbury, and a radical Whig like Burnet. Even Anne, despite her personal predilections, had sometimes to appoint Whig Bishops when her ministers insisted: Tory propagandists like Sacheverell and Swift never became Bishops. So the higher clergy were predominantly Whig or moderate Tory, whilst the mass of the lower clergy tended to be high-flyers. This division was similar to that between Whig lords and Tory gentry. The split made Convocation unworkable as an organ of self-government for the Church, and led to its falling into disuse. Convocation failed to agree on revision of the liturgy and canons in 1689, and the Toleration Act passed through Parliament. An attempt by Convocation to suppress the deist John Toland’s book, Christianity Not Mysterious, also failed; the Church had lost its power in the judicial as well as the legislative sphere.
