Loyal or Rebellious? Protestant Associations in England 1584–1696

Abstract

The current historiography of oaths of association in early modern England mainly concentrates on the two oaths which bookend the period discussed in this article, the 1584 association in defence of Elizabeth I and the 1696 association for William III. Generally, the verdict of historians on these two associations has been negative. Christopher Haigh, paraphrasing Sir John Neale, describes the Elizabethan association as a 'political vigilante group, pledged to use lynch law to safeguard the throne'.1 The association of loyalty to William III has come in for even harsher criticism, described by John Kenyon as a 'bitter faction instrument' imposed on the pretext of a flimsy assassination plot.2 In both cases these associations have been seen as exceptional responses to moments of crisis. However, more recently Patrick Collinson, Ann Hughes and Mark Knights have all noted that oaths of association were promoted and imposed in the 1620s, 1640s and 1680s. These historians agree that these documents were not, first and foremost, designed to protect the person of the monarch but were instituted to secure the Protestant state. For Patrick Collinson, the 1584 association fits in with schemes for an interim republic to ensure that the crown passed to a Protestant successor in the event of Elizabeth's death.3 Ann Hughes sees the Elizabethan association as providing the opponents of Charles I with an earlier, English equivalent of the Scottish National Covenant.4 Mark Knights has shown how proposals for an oath of association during the crisis over succession 1678-83 became linked to demands for the exclusion of James II from the throne.5This article follows the work of Collinson, Hughes and Knights by unravelling the radical implications of oaths of association in this period. By dealing chronologically with the proposals for and implementation of these documents, it will be demonstrated that oaths of association were tendered with even more frequency than these historians have realised. It will also be shown that these were all tests imposed at times of particular Protestant crisis, that they were associations which accepted the possibility of the death of the reigning monarch and that they usually attempted to deal with this eventuality by making provision for a temporary republican government. This article will also explore the ways in which, especially in the 1640s, the notion of an oath of association became intertwined with the idea of a national covenant.6 As will be made clear, this carries with it important implications for political allegiance, defining loyalty confessionally and making obedience to the monarch conditional on his or her readiness to defend the faith. Under Elizabeth, the consequences of this redefinition of allegiance were muted. Under a more religiously suspect ruler like Charles I, or an outright papist like James II, the king's apparent inability or unwillingness to defend the faith became not only a grounds for resisting him, but also for deposing him. There were of course differences between these various oaths of association and the ends to which they were put. The point of this article is not to suggest that there was a 'high road' to the Civil War which began in 1584, but to argue that there were intellectual legacies from the end of the Elizabethan era which played an important part in English resistance movements of the 1640s and 1680s.IThe association of 1584 was a response to genuine anxiety about the security of the Queen's person. William of Orange, having survived one Catholic assassination attempt, had been murdered that year and an English conspiracy, the Throckmorton plot, had recently been uncovered. Parliament was not in session and there was a clear danger of a political vacuum should Elizabeth be killed.7 To deal with this situation, in October Walsingham and Burghley set about drawing up an 'Instrument of Association', it seems without the Queen's knowledge. In its final form the association bound those taking it to give their 'lyves, landes and goodes in her defence' and promise that they would 'revenge, all maner of persons of what estate soever they shalbe and their abettors, that shall attempte by any acte counsell or consent to any thinge that shall tende to the harme of her Maties royall person'. …