The Bishop Controversy in British North American Colonies in the 18th Century

Throughout the eighteenth century there were repeated attempts to appoint an Anglican bishop to the North American colonies, but each time they run into a strife among the political factions in England itself. Controversy over the establishment of the Anglican episcopate in America played an important role in fueling the Anglo-American conflict. Such issues as the political role of Anglicanism, American provinces’ place in the British Imperial system, colonists’ rights as British subjects, limits of the colonial self-government and right to resist despotic rule became central to the conflict between New England’s Puritans and Anglicans since the second half of the 1740s, after Jacobite rising of 1745 had failed. During the unfolding pamphlet war, Anglican clergy linked the issue of the British Empire subjects’ political loyalty to the confession of Anglicanism, while their Puritan opponents insisted on the British rather than the English nature of the Empire and denied the Anglican Church authority over a number of British possessions. No Anglican bishop was ever appointed, but the episcopal issue became part of the anti-English propaganda, when it was viewed in a relation to stamp duty in the mid—1760s or to the Quebec Act in 1774. The Massachusetts colonists feared that regardless of their religious beliefs they would pay a heavy tax that would go towards the Anglican bishop’s allowance. New England’s Puritan ministers would play a prominent role in consolidating the patriotic movement during the Revolutionary War.

Keywords

War of Independence, American Revolution, New England Puritanism, Church of England, Seven Years’ War

Received

22.04.2020

Publication date

06.08.2020

Number of characters

48687

Cite

GOST	Khruleva I. The Bishop Controversy in British North American Colonies in the 18th Century // Novaia i noveishaia istoriia – 2020. – Issue 4 C. 37-53 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://nni.jes.su/S013038640010322-2-1 (circulation date: 27.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013038640010322-2
MLA	Khruleva, Irina "The Bishop Controversy in British North American Colonies in the 18th Century." Novaia i noveishaia istoriia 4 (2020):37-53. DOI: 10.31857/S013038640010322-2
APA	Khruleva I. (2020). The Bishop Controversy in British North American Colonies in the 18th Century. Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (4), pp.37-53 DOI: 10.31857/S013038640010322-2

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