ABSTRACT

The coming of the American War in 1775 was a discomforting and unwanted event for the majority of Britons. However, once hostilities commenced and the forces of the Crown had been committed, there was an expectation that the bishops and clergy of the Church of England would rally their congregations in support of the war effort. So much was to be expected from a national Church that had operated from its origins in alliance with the state; such was the price of partnership and privilege. The Church in wartime, in other words, operated as the principal repository of loyalist sentiments, presenting conflict as just and justifiable, explaining setbacks as the price of sin and disobedience, and depicting success as providential and the fruits of national repentance. This was the role happily undertaken by the established Church in the major wars of the eighteenth century: the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) and the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). In Sunday sermons, homilies delivered on the great feast days of the national calendar (30 January, 29 May and 5 November), and on fast days put aside to pray for divine assistance, from archbishops down to village curates, the Church of England was expected (and the clergy intended) to nurture a degree of national unanimity in a time of trouble.2