ABSTRACT
During the months of uneasy peace which preceded the king’s formal declaration of war the parish clergy were often drawn into the propaganda battle which was raging. On 14 July Sir Edward Harrington, one of the parliamentary deputy lieutenants for Rutland, informed the Commons that the innovating clergy were very forward in publicizing the king’s declarations but ignored those which were issued by Parliament. The Commons had nothing but sympathy for godly ministers who, it was reported, had been forced by the sheriffs of their counties to read the king’s declarations in their churches. In some areas, however, Puritan clergymen were subjected to more severe forms of harassment. In areas where the royalist party was dominant the Puritan laity also had reason to feel isolated and exposed. In East Anglia the deputy lieutenants of Norfolk and Suffolk feared that the execution of the Militia Ordinance would precipitate a full-scale conflict in their counties.
