An Age of New Imperial Policies: Church and State, 1660–1713

Abstract

The tide of English interest in the imperial administration of Virginia and the other American colonies began to turn in the 1670s, an element in a wide-ranging effort by the Restoration government of Charles II to address critical matters at home and abroad. The chronicle of the Church in Virginia may be divided into two periods: from 1607 to 1680 and from 1680 to 1786. The new interest by the government in imperial polices and administration strongly influenced the subsequent course of affairs in Virginia and the other American provinces. But it is the period between 1680 and 1713 that we find a concentrated effort by the members of the Board of Trade and Plantations, the crown, and the Bishop of London to launch policies and governance that indelibly shaped Virginian and American affairs until the Declaration of Independence.