Presbyterianism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England

Abstract

English Presbyterianism emerged as a subversive tradition of dissent by its sustained attempt to dismantle the Church of England’s episcopal hierarchy. This chapter explains why it exercised a wider influence on religious, political, and literary culture in proportion to its size. It presents a broader context for the evolution of Presbyterianism from early reformation impulses, to principled and pragmatic attempts to solve the Church of England’s problems, to its acerbic assault on episcopacy. Closer connections between English Presbyterianism and wider confessional conflict on the European continent are drawn, including the emergence of its literature alongside leading resistance tracts. Challenging historical narratives that tend to assign a largely theoretical status to Presbyterianism following the formal suppression of the movement by the crown in the early 1590s, this chapter argues that it continued to play an active and formative role in defining conformist and dissenting traditions in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England.