Restoration, Persecution

I have just finished Tom Harris’ Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms 1660-1665. I was not merely indulging my taste for seventeenth-century fare. I wished to better understand that period of time when evangelicals were so badly persecuted. Although Bloody Mary burned 300 in the 1550s, and Charles' government officially executed none, tens of thousands were fined or imprisoned and several hundreds died in filthy Restoration jails. Scotland witnessed the appalling ‘killing times’ when Presbyterians were mutilated, tortured and murdered in the fields.

It was not just the government that was hostile to nonconformists. While political Whigs burnt images of the Pope and sought for limits on royal power, their Tory opponents demonstrated their loyalty to the Crown by burning effigies of Presbyterian and Congregational pastors. “Down with Jack Presbyter!” loyal townsmen would cry, to the approving nods of Anglican clerics and Tory JPs.

We may live in godless times, but thank God our homes are not burnt, our ministers not imprisoned, our members not fined.

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