tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2456802468539868519.post4164142796345636882..comments2023-10-12T02:21:40.102-07:00Comments on English Historical Fiction Authors: Religious persecution and Glorious revolutionDebra Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03256313302199653185noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2456802468539868519.post-42625116356997565132015-03-26T15:05:19.850-07:002015-03-26T15:05:19.850-07:00Interesting, but one could consider jut how "...Interesting, but one could consider jut how "moderate" it was to draw up the Act of Exclusion :)Anna Belfragehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09159728310623757488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2456802468539868519.post-24986003592763359852015-03-26T10:08:31.379-07:002015-03-26T10:08:31.379-07:00One of the two central characters in my recent nov...One of the two central characters in my recent novel, This Rough Ocean, is John Swynfen, one of my husband's ancestors. He was a Member of Parliament, but a Moderate, so he opposed the killing of Charles I. As a result, Cromwell had him imprisoned. He returned to Parliament at the Restoration, but he was still a Moderate, and as such was one of those tasked with drawing up the Act of Exclusion, debarring James II from the throne on the grounds of his Catholicism. The Act was never passed and in revenge, when he came to the throne, James had John imprisoned again, on the totally false grounds that he was implicated in Monmouth's rebellion. (He was quickly released.) So it all goes to show that in a time of extremes, it was very dangerous to be a Moderate. John had the last laugh, though, surviving and becoming one of the founders of the Whig (Liberal) party.Ann Swinfenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08168095839845563846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2456802468539868519.post-52903526387355557242015-03-26T07:59:03.143-07:002015-03-26T07:59:03.143-07:00Nothing in the above contradicts my post, rather i...Nothing in the above contradicts my post, rather it supports my take on James II :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2456802468539868519.post-66677232662142177522015-03-26T06:41:16.954-07:002015-03-26T06:41:16.954-07:00Scott Sowerby's "Making Toleration: The R...Scott Sowerby's "Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution" offers a different view of James II's efforts to bring religious freedom to England: <br /><br />"In the reign of James II, minority groups from across the religious spectrum, led by the Quaker William Penn, rallied together under the Catholic King James in an effort to bring religious toleration to England. Known as repealers, these reformers aimed to convince Parliament to repeal laws that penalized worshippers who failed to conform to the doctrines of the Church of England. Although the movement was destroyed by the Glorious Revolution, it profoundly influenced the post-revolutionary settlement, helping to develop the ideals of tolerance that would define the European Enlightenment.<br /><br />"Based on a rich array of newly discovered archival sources, Scott Sowerby’s groundbreaking history rescues the repealers from undeserved obscurity, telling the forgotten story of men and women who stood up for their beliefs at a formative moment in British history. By restoring the repealer movement to its rightful prominence, Making Toleration also overturns traditional interpretations of King James II’s reign and the origins of the Glorious Revolution. Though often depicted as a despot who sought to impose his own Catholic faith on a Protestant people, James is revealed as a man ahead of his time, a king who pressed for religious toleration at the expense of his throne. The Glorious Revolution, Sowerby finds, was not primarily a crisis provoked by political repression. It was, in fact, a conservative counter-revolution against the movement for enlightened reform that James himself encouraged and sustained." <br /><br />http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674073098Stephanie A. Mannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com