6 - High Churchmen and the Politics of the Press: Defining the Cause of Restraint

Summary

The threat posed by a licentious press to the providential status of the country and to the soul of each individual might have been expected to favour the cause of Protestant reconciliation and Anglican unity. Yet the growing realisation that Anne's ministries, in conjunction with parliament, either would or could not successfully legislate against the press caused certain churchmen to call for other solutions to the spread of deism, infidelity and impiety. Before Anne had succeeded to the throne, however, William had made a policy decision that intensified religious division in the eighteenth century. By the end of 1700, King William's parliamentary affairs were in disorder and the junto administration was in disarray. To form a new government he turned to the earl of Rochester (1642–1711), the leading Tory of the day and an ally of Atterbury. As a price for his return, Rochester extracted a concession from the king that convocation would return. In accordance with his wishes, convocation was called and sat from spring 1701 until William's death and then from 1702 to 1705. Almost from the start of its meeting, the clergy in the lower house attempted to employ the jurisdictional authority of convocation to censure heretical and dangerous books that the bishops rejected on legal grounds. The insistence by the bishops that convocation lacked jurisdictional authority struck many clergy as a dishonest way to avoid restraining books and amplified their anger. As a result, the debate between the two houses spilled out from private discussions into public debate. In the first section of this chapter, both the private discussions and printed pamphlets of the houses of convocation are used to outline the increasing anger of the clergy at the refusal to restrain the press, and their increasing concern at the danger caused by the spread of impious books. It details the rearguard action fought by the bishops and their allies to refute the accusation that they approved of a free press and that they themselves were infected by heresy and unorthodox ideas.

These debates emphasised the jurisdictional authority of convocation to control books and paid little attention, aside from general assertions of impiety, to the reasons why they should be stopped, whether they endangered the souls of individuals or corrupted the status of the Church, for example. Alongside these debates Henry Sacheverell began to publish his sermons.