Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America

Abstract

Michael P. Winship's Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America is a stand-out work of history. In just under 300 pages, Winship brings together the puritanism of old and New England in a compelling narrative that reveals a movement as deeply political as it was theological. Eminently readable, Winship's account guides the reader through this complicated trans-Atlantic landscape with vignettes and biographies of the men and women whose passions drove it forward and ultimately contributed to its collapse. Winship begins his account in England in the 1530s, follows developments on both sides of the Atlantic as puritans migrated to New England in the 1620s, and traces the movement's decline by the 1690s.Winship maintains that the puritan movement was largely shaped by a single question: “how to respond when your monarch or other authorities make a demand of you that you believe violates the laws of England and/or of God?” (4–5) England's shifting politics resulted in different answers. Following the break with Rome under Henry VIII, England lay open to influences both Catholic and Protestant. Winship illustrates the challenges posed by this unsettled state of affairs with the case of John Hooper, a Cistercian monk expelled from Cleve Abbey when it closed in 1536. Hooper converted to Protestantism, and a visit to Zurich left him convinced that the Swiss Reformers had “recovered Christian worship in its true biblical purity and simplicity.” (11) Returning to London, Hooper distinguished himself as a puritan preacher and was invited to expound at the court of Edward VI. In his sermon, Hooper criticized the Church of England for the “incompleteness of its reformation” as revealed in the wearing of vestments and kneeling for the Lord's Supper. (13) When ordained Bishop of Gloucester, Hooper grudgingly complied with the monarch's preference and donned traditional vestments.Hooper's fortunes took a dramatic turn for the worse when Queen Mary came to the throne in 1553 “determined to rip out England's shallowly rooted reformation.” (17) In 1555 she sent Hooper to the stake for heresy. In a botched process that took forty-five minutes, Hooper murmured, “Lord Jesus have mercy on me” until his mouth was burned away, and beat his breast until his arm fell to his feet. (17) The horrifying spectacle of Hooper's death powerfully highlights Winship's claim that an individual's embrace of puritanism was often inextricably linked to the shifting tides of English politics.Not all of Winship's vignettes are as grim as that of Hooper's death. He also captures the shape of puritan piety among less influential figures. Katherine Clarke was a minister's wife who amassed a written record of her piety from childhood to death that included sermon notes, a sheet of Bible verses worn with use, and her personal reflections. She hoped her writings would lead to the edification of others. Upon her death, her husband Samuel discovered among these papers the admission that Katherine had spent years in a “‘sad and disconsolate condition’” in doubt of her salvation. (58) Her grief was compounded when God chose to take away her youngest son, a minister and her spiritual counselor. In response to her emotional pain, she asked God to “‘make up this outward loss with some more durable spiritual comforts.’” (58) Such comfort proved forthcoming: Samuel reported that upon her death bed, “‘she enjoyed peace and serenity, unmolested by Satan.’” (58) Here Winship presents the characteristic strands of puritan piety as expressed in one ordinary life.In 1676, Edward Randolph, an English civil servant, arrived in Massachusetts. The mother country had been shaken by rise and fall of Oliver Cromwell, but with the Stuart Restoration in 1660, the monarchy sought more control of its overseas colonies. New England had a curious past: when the Massachusetts Bay Company was founded, no place of meeting was stipulated. Puritan settlers took advantage of this oversight to make the colony itself the place of meeting. Thus these godly settlers launched a “quasi-republic” (1) and managed their own affairs for over half a century. But by 1684 the charter was “legally dead” (254) and the arrival of Governor Edmund Andros in 1686 “knocked the Congregationalists off of the privileged perch they had crossed the Atlantic to erect for themselves.” (255)Less than ten years later, in 1692, New England paid a price for its diminished puritan influence. In Winship's view, “The Salem disaster is often treated as the defining expression of American puritanism. But it was an expression of American puritanism in its fevered death throes.”(284) Ahead of the furor, the Crown had appointed illiterate treasure-hunter William Phips as royal governor. Terror spread as Increase Mather was informed that “vastly larger numbers of witches than New England had ever known” were gathering near the Salem meeting house. (282) Phips convened a court and named deputy governor William Stoughton as presiding judge. The magistrates conducting the trial made serious mistakes such as opening the proceedings to the public. With the hysteria spinning out of control, Phips sought the counsel of leading ministers. The clerics urged restraint, including less reliance on spectral evidence. The devil, they warned, “was very likely scheming to get as many innocent people jailed and executed as possible.” (284)Under the old Massachusetts theocracy, such admonitions would have served to rein in the damage. Stoughton was not moved, however, and Phips was unable to sway him. It took the General Court's call for a fast and convocation of ministers to “know the mind of God” to serve as vote of no confidence in the court. Phips suspended its proceedings, alerting his superiors in London that he had become disillusioned with the reliability of spectral evidence. Winship wonders if Phips reached this conclusion when his own wife was named as a specter. While he was not able to spare the lives of the nineteen who perished, Phips did manage to stop the madness from claiming any more.Hot Protestants is an engrossing volume, marked by an impressive blend of archival research, fresh analysis, and welcome attention to the humanity of its subjects.