ABSTRACT
Examining the leading membership of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) reveals their European-wide commitment to the “Protestant International.” The most suggestive documents at the SPCK archives are the partly surviving minutes of its so-called “secret committee,” which served from around 1711 to 1715, and the reports from agents, obviously hired by the committee, in Roman Catholic territories on the continent. Continental Protestants soon realised, presumably through the SPCK network, that the SPCK’s leading members had come to acquire a general control over official fundraising. Since the SPCK was governed by a few leading members, their personal connections were of vital importance. The Society immediately traced Porter through its members while distributing extra publications against popery in Rutland, as well as attempting to have Mrs Digby’s children adopted. The secret committee was an instance of how under the intense fear of popery, the Society became almost militantly committed to the Protestant cause.
