The eighteenth-century Church of England has long been a byword for pastoral neglect and confirmation has been tarred with the same brush. A revisionist perspective that began with Norman Sykes in the 1930s has made slow headway. This study of the theology and practice of confirmation in the Church of England and in North America, between the publication of the Book of Common Prayer in 1662, and the eve of the Tractarian movement, breaks new ground and is another nail in the coffin of the unreconstructed view of eighteenth-century English church history. It examines the theologies, liturgies, sermons and practices of confirmation, supported by tables of what was done when and by whom. Tovey insists that we should not view this period through nineteenth-century spectacles. Church parties did not exist then. The later theological alternatives of confirmation as the instructed reaffirmation of baptismal vows and as conferring the gifts of the Spirit were held in balance in the eighteenth century. It took time and energy to rebuild the shattered fabric of Anglican church life after the Civil War and Interregnum. Tovey outlines the theologies of confirmation of Jeremy Taylor, Herbert Thorndike, Charles Wheatly, Samuel Clarke and Thomas Bray (who did much to promote confirmation at home and those forms of Christian initiation that were possible in America). A common theme – the consensus position – was the baptismal covenant; not a contract, but divine promises matched by human obedience. The researches of Bingham and Whiston revealed that the primitive Church had practised anointing and this was adopted by some Nonjurors and a few Scottish bishops. Proposals for liturgical reform at the time of the Restoration are examined, including those of John Cosin that helped to shape the 1662 rite. The Savoy Conference (1661) resulted in the addition of the words ‘ready and desirous to be confirmed’, which proved to be a lifeline in the colonies. While the Church was campaigning in vain for bishops for America, this rubric was invoked to admit persons to Communion after baptism and catechism. Among the first United States' bishops Samuel Seabury held a high view of confirmation and was energetic in administering it; William White – never confirmed himself – adopted a laissez-faire attitude towards a rite that, to him, had little to do with the Holy Spirit. John Henry Hobart of New York was assiduous, confirming about 9,000 people in total. Charles Inglis brought a similar pro-active approach to the ministry of confirmation in the vast diocese of Nova Scotia. The problem in England was not paucity of numbers, but crowd control. Confirmation was so popular that some availed themselves of it more than once. Accusations of clerical neglect, for example in the case of Parson Woodforde, are often arguments from silence. There were penalties for clergy who did not catechise and bishops who neglected to confirm. Confirmation was a public act, openly prepared for, advertised and reported, while today it is usually enacted between consenting adults behind closed doors.