BOOK REVIEWS 251 Many future developments originate there. A second contribution by L. Ceyssens intends to show that J. Jansonius was not the link between Baius and Jansenius. For one thing Jansenius did not show great respect for the works of his predecessor and master. The contribution by M. B. Pranger picks up the theme of pure nature and studies how in his Augustinus,Jansenius rejects it. The other papers, all ofquality,touch topics that are less related to the theme. H. Hillenaar studies the place of the University of Louvain in Fénelon's conflict with Bossuet.J. Roegiers studies the type ofAugustinism taught in Louvain during the eighteenth century. It was rather unimaginative, he concludes, lacking originality and impulse. T. Clemens proves a Lovanist influence over the Dutch Mission, though mostly neutralized by the religious orders active in the mission. In "The Pursuit of a Phantom or a Disguised Heresy?", E. Mijnlieff analyzes Jansenism in theJesuits'Mémoire de Trévoux. Finally, L. Kenis surveys"The Faculty of theology in the nineteenth century on Augustine and Augustinism." In all, this volume presents a coherent collection that advances our knowledge of the place of St. Augustine at this famous Faculty ofTheology. A copious bibliography and a precise index add to the value of this scholarly contribution. Jacques M. Gres-Gayer The Catholic University ofAmerica Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678-81. By Mark Knights. [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1994. Pp. xv, 424. $69.95) In this powerfully argued, meticulously documented study, Mark Knights challenges the widespread interpretation of English history in the period 1678-1681 according to which an intense struggle over the exclusion of the Catholic heir to the throne,James, Duke ofYork, resulted in the founding of the first political parties, the Whigs and the Tories, the former under the leadership ofthe Earl of Shaftesbury.Jonathan Scott criticized this reading in 1991, arguing thatWhig and Tory identified polarities ofbelief,not parties, and two years later, Tim Harris, while accepting the emergence of parties in the aftermath of the Popish Plot, stressed the primacy of religious over constitutional factors. Knights critiques all of these interpretations, rightly contending that exclusion was only one of many key issues and until November, 1680, not even the dominant one. The crisis, Knights avers, was over succession, not merely exclusion . Numerous men proposed other solutions to the crisis, including the annulment of Charles IFs marriage to Catherine, followed by his remarriage to a Protestant capable of bearing an heir; the imposition of limitations on the monarchy (which James and Prince William opposed); the establishment of an Elizabethan-style association ofProtestants to protect religion and property; the appointment of a regent to govern for James; the legitimation of the Duke of 252 BOOK REVIEWS Monmouth; the enactment of more anti-Catholic legislation; and the conversion ofJames to Protestantism. As early as 1678 Charles was prepared to accept limitations on James's power, but the fall of the Earl of Danby led to crippling disorganization at court. The king's efforts to find a solution to the succession crisis were hampered by the bitter struggle between court and country. That struggle—not the Whig-Tory conflict, which best depicts the outcome of the crisis—largely shaped the politics of at least the early years of the period. On the vexed question of party, Knights prefers to speak of political groupings that coalesced into polarities with differing views on the succession, religious dissent, and arbitrary government. Only when the court and the loyalists¦who supported it became a coherent political force in late 1680 and early 1681 —at which point they depicted themselves as defenders of right religion, liberty, and property—is Knights prepared to refer to political parties, and only then with the caveat that neither group was prepared to accept this status as permanent inasmuch as each saw itself as the eventual embodiment of the national will. Religion played a crucial role in this development, as Harris contends , but so too, avers Knights, did constitutional issues. "If party politics first emerged between 1679 and 1681 it was because the constitutional conflict added a new layer of...