Presbyterianism has played an important, often central role in the religion and politics of Ulster since the early seventeenth century. But the historiography of the subject is mixed in quality and patchy in coverage, some eras being better served than others. Much of the work on this topic has been written by denominational rather than academic scholars and not all of the former have always avoided partisanship.

Among the academic historians of the early years of Ulster Presbyterianism Robert Armstrong of Trinity College Dublin is preeminent; and among the most important contemporary sources for the history of that subject is one of the two works edited in the volume under review, Patrick Adair's ‘A true narrative’. Despite the significance of this book as a history of Presbyterianism in the middle years of the seventeenth century by a minister who lived through much of the period that it deals with and despite the use many historians have made of it, Adair's work has until now been available only either in the author's manuscript or in an uncritical nineteenth-century edition which was republished late in the last century. The absence until now of a critical edition has been a handicap to students of the period. Now at last Adair's work has been made available thanks to Robert Armstrong and three other editors: Scott Spurlock of Glasgow, Andrew Holmes of the Queen's University Belfast and Patrick Walsh of University College Dublin.

The edition opens with an essay by Armstrong on Presbyterianism and Adair and Andrew Stewart, the author of the other seventeenth-century work presented here. In this contribution Armstrong provides the historical background to the work of these two ministers. He suggests that the 1640s ‘were the Presbyterian moment in Ulster’ and that Adair's vision was one of making the Church of Ireland (ambiguously episcopalian under Ussher, more adamantly so under Wentworth and Bramhall) Presbyterian (p. 20). The number of Presbyterian clergy was reduced to six or seven by the early 1650s and, despite a revival of fortunes under Cromwell's Protectorate, persecution did not go away entirely and was renewed under the Restoration (pp. 22–3).

Patrick Walsh's essay is on Adair, Stewart and the writing of history. Stewart's account went back much further than Adair's and he emphasised what he regarded as the Presbyterianism of the Patrician Irish Church (p. 33). Adair took over from Stewart the task of writing a history of Ulster Presbyterianism – a commission from the presbyteries in the province – by 1676 (Stewart having died in 1671). He meant to take the narrative up to the reign of James ii but concluded in 1670 (pp. 37–9). Adair himself died in 1694 (p. 44). Andrew Holmes deals with the use made of Adair's ‘True narrative’ in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Adair's manuscript was lost in 1769 but was recovered in 1810, in time for the account to be used by J. S. Reid, a leading Presbyterian historian, in the 1830s. W. D. Killen produced a published version in 1866 (p. 47). Adair's nineteenth-century readers saw his work as ‘a blueprint for religious revival’ (p. 47). Reid and Killen were both Evangelicals; and the latter's work was criticised by (non-Trinitarian) non-subscribing Presbyterians (p. 53).

The remainder of the work consists of the texts of the works by Adair and Stewart. Adair's anti-episcopalianism is obvious. While we are told that Robert Blair, the early Presbyterian, found Archbishop Ussher ‘very affable and communicative in conference’ (p. 79), Sir Richard Bolton is described as ‘a violent urger of English conformity’ (p. 78). The Caroline bishops of Down and Connor (Henry Leslie) and Derry (John Bramhall) are called, respectively, ‘a violent and vain glorious man’ (p. 84) and ‘that violent man’ (p. 88). Later still, Jeremy Taylor, Leslie's Restoration successor in Down, is described as ‘a man pretending civility and courteous carriage especially before his advancement’ (p. 236). Laud's Scottish Prayer Book had in it, according to Adair, ‘more of the poison of superstition and error, than the old common prayer book of England’ (p. 100).

The errors of Independency and Anabaptism (as Adair saw them) are also condemned (p. 149). But Adair was a royalist as well as a covenanter. No less than his Anglican contemporaries he regarded the execution of Charles i as murder (p. 175). He notes that the ministers of Ulster prayed for the executed king's heir in 1649 and declared against ‘the sectarian party’ – the Independents (p. 192). Writing of the Restoration Adair made obvious his disapproval of Covenanter rebels in Scotland (p. 252). Nevertheless, Taylor, in conference with Adair and other ministers in 1661, associated Presbyterians and Jesuits as ‘the persons who were greatest enemies to Monarchy and most disobedient to Kings’ (p. 239).

Adair writes of the growth of toleration under Cromwell and the return of government in Presbytery (pp. 209, 211). He recounts the dealings of ministers with Jeremy Taylor, the bishop who ejected three dozen of them (pp. 236–40). He has less to say of Taylor's archbishop (and fellow Laudian) John Bramhall and nothing at all about George Wild, bishop of Derry and sometime chaplain to Laud, who was also a vigorous enemy of the Presbyterians. The duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant for much of the first decade of the Restoration, is described as ‘moderate’ (p. 251), perhaps because he (unlike Bramhall, Leslie, Taylor and Wild) was still alive when Adair wrote; and yet there is no evidence that Ormond disagreed with the repressive policies of the bishops of Down and Derry.

Andrew Stewart's history of the Church in Ireland is an account stretching back to St Patrick which is designed to strengthen Presbyterian claims. St Patrick is praised (p. 275) and the early exercise of papal authority in Ireland is denied (p. 306). There is some reliance on Ussher as an authority (pp. 281, 307). Stewart's work, cut short by his death, ends early in the reign of Charles i.

The editors of this volume have placed in their debt historians of religion in early modern Ireland and in particular scholars interested in the foundation of Ulster Presbyterianism. This book represents one of the most valuable contributions to our understanding of Protestantism in early modern Ulster to be published to date.