The first Parliament that met (1661) commanded the common hangman to
publicly burn the Solemn League and Covenant (S444); it restored the
Episcopal form of worship and enacted four very severe laws, called
the "Clarendon Code," against those Nonconformists or Dissenters who
had ejected the Episcopal clergy (S444).[1]
[1] The chief Nonconformists then were: (1) the Presbyterians; (2) the
Independents, or Congregationalists; (3) the Baptists; (4) the Society
of Friends, or Quakers. Originally the name "Nonconformist" was given
to those who refused to conform to the worship of the Church of
England, and who attempted to change it to suit their views or else
set up their own form of faith as an independent church. The name
"Nonconformist" (or Dissenter) now applies to any Protestant outside
the Established Church of England (SS496, 498).
The first of these new laws was entitled the "Corporation Act"
(1661). It ordered all holders of municipal offices to renounce the
Covenant[2] which had been put in force in 1647, and to take the
sacrament of the Church of England. Next, a new Act of Uniformity
(1662) (S382) enforced the use of the Episcopal Prayer Book upon all
clergymen and congregations. This was followed by the Conventicle
Act[3] (1664), which forbade the meeting of any religious assemblies
except such as worshiped according to the Established Church of
England. Lastly, the Five-Mile Act (1665) forbade all dissenting
ministers to teach in schools, or to settle within five miles of an
incorporated town.
[2] Covenant: the oath or agreement to maintain the Presbyterian faith
and worship. It originated in Scotland (S438).
[3] See, too, on these acts, the Summary of Constitutional History in
the Appendix, p. xix, S20.
The second of these stringent retaliatory statutes, the Act of
Uniformity, drove two thousand Presbyterian ministers from their
parishes in a single day, and reduced them to the direst distress.
The able-bodied among them might indeed pick up a precarious
livelihood by hard labor, but the old and the weak soon found their
refuge in the grave.
Those who dared to resist these intolerant and inhuman laws were
punished with fines, imprisonment, or slavery. The Scottish
Parliament abolished Presbyterianism and restored Episcopacy. It vied
with the Cavalier or King's party in England in persecution of the
Dissenters,[4] and especially of the Covenanters (S438).
[4] The Scottish Parliament granted what was called the "Indulgence"
to Presbyterian ministers who held moderate views. The extreme
Covenanters regarded these "indulged Presbyterians" as deserters and
traitors who were both weak and wicked. For this reason they hated
them worse than they did the Episcopalians. See Burton's "Scotland,"
VII, 457-468.
Claverhouse, who figures as the "Bonny Dundee" of Sir Walter Scott,
hunted the Covenanters with bugle and bloodhound, like so many deer;
and his men hanged and drowned those who gathered secretly in glens
and caves to worship God.[1] The father of a family would be dragged
from his cottage by the soldiers, asked if he would take the test of
conformity to the Church of England and the oath of allegiance to King
Charles II; if he refused, the officer in command gave the order,
"Make ready--take aim--fire!"--and there lay the corpse of the rebel.
[1] See the historical poem of the "Maiden Martyr of Scotland," in the
collection of "Heroic Ballads," Ginn and Company.
Among the multitudes who suffered in England for religion's sake was a
poor tinker and day laborer named John Bunyan. He had served against
the King in the civil wars, and later had become converted to
Puritanism, and turned exhorter and itinerant preacher. He was
arrested, while preaching in a farmhouse, and convicted of having
"devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church."
The judge sentenced him to the Bedford county jail, where he remained
a prisoner for twelve years (1660-1672). Later on, he was again
arrested (1675) and sent to the town jail on Bedford Bridge. It was,
he says, a squalid "Denn."[2] But in his marvelous dream of "A
Pilgrimage from this World to the Next," which he wrote while shut up
within the narrow limits of that filthy prison house, he forgot the
misery of his surroundings. Like Milton in his blindness, loneliness,
and poverty, he looked within and found that
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell."[3]
[2] "As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
certain place where there was a Denn, and I laid me down in that place
to sleep: and as I slept I dreamed a dream."--"The Pilgrim's
Progress," 1678.
[3] "Paradise Lost," Book I, 253.