‘It is a Church of England loyalty that I persuade you to’, William Sherlock enjoined on the House of Commons in his Restoration Day sermon of 1685. The principles and effects of this ambiguous subject form the backdrop to William Gibson’s reappraisal of the trial of seven English prelates in June 1688. Led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops were charged with publishing seditious libel against James II. They had petitioned the king not to require their clergy to read his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience which effectively dispensed with the Test Act against Roman Catholics. To the King’s consternation the trial acquitted the bishops.
Gibson construes the bishops’ trial as axiomatic to the events which preceded the Glorious Revolution. He sees it as James’ El Alamein, before which the king had not been defeated and after which he had no success (p. 19). Gibson thus promotes the significance of religion in the events of 1688–89 over against Marxist historians’ framework of competing economic interests, and revisionists’ exculpation of James by emphasizing the macro European picture. Integrally connected is Gibson’s second emphasis on the affection in which the bishops were held by the populace and the subsequent involvement which popular opinion played in James’ downfall. As such, the bishops’ trial and the reaction it generated welded together a popular rebellion and a coup d’état. For Gibson, to see populist and aristocratic explanations of the Revolution as alternatives is a false choice: ‘without the popular opposition, elicited by the trial, the conspirators would have been less likely to act’ (p. 199).
James II and the Trial of the Seven Bishops is a traditional narrative, setting the personal lives of the bishops, their backgrounds and inclinations, into the events of the day. The core chapters 2–6 detail the causes, progress and aftermath of the trial and the interweaving of personal and political proceedings in the summer and autumn of 1688. Gibson does not write as a hagiographer. He draws out the divisions between the bishops, in particular the attraction of Lloyd and Trelawny to William of Orange and the conservative attachment of Sancroft and the others to James. One of the ironies of the story, illustrative of the sincerity with which many within the Church held their oaths of allegiance, is the path which Sancroft, Turner, Ken, White and Lake took into non-juring. Even after their shabby treatment by James, they could not abandon their allegiance. Thus, for Gibson the seven bishops are not so much the agents of the Revolution as its ‘midwives’ (pp. 19 and 203).
The style and lucidity of writing makes this book an attractive and accessible entry into a complicated and condensed period of British history. The literature review in the introduction slightly detracts from this in that it assumes much prior knowledge of individuals, issues and historiography; this important section might perhaps be better located after the narrative or at least a summary of it.
There are a few minor errors. Gibson uses two spellings of Simon Patrick’s forename (e.g. pp. 79, 85). Sherlock was not Dean of St Paul’s in 1686 (p. 56). There is a syntax error at the beginning of the second paragraph on p. 56 and ‘prejudicial’ on p. 182 is split across two lines. It would be useful to have some clarification on p. 45 as to the nature of the apostolic succession envisaged — whether this is a physical successio episcoparum or a theological successio doctorum. There is confusion on p. 188 about the order in which Francis Turner and James II died.
This lively and engaging read is not untimely born in the post 9/11 age. The seventeenth-century debate about loyalty to King and God resonates with the relationship of people of faith to the twenty-first century state. The paramount allegiance claimed by Muslims, Christians and others to God may have implications for the course of earthly governance.
