Throughout the reign of Elizabeth the repres sive policy of the Government continued, but the Puritan party grew. and on the death of the Queen, in 1603, entertained strong hopes of favor from the new sovereign, James I. These hopes were disappointed, notably at the Hampton Court Conference (q.v.) in 1004. The Puritan party. however, continued to gain adherents throughout James's reign and that of his son Charles I. Under the latter repeated clashes occurred between the Puritans and the Anglican Court party; and when the Civil War broke out in 11142 as a re sult of the many points of difference between Charles and the Parliament, the Puritans identi fied themselves strongly with the latter, while the Anglicans cast in their lot with the former. In the struggle that followed, the Presbyterian wing of Puritanism was at first dominant. especially when reinforced by the military and political aid of the Scotch. Episcopacy was done away with. so far as an act of Parliament could abolish it. The acceptance of the 'Solemn League and Cove nant' bound the Parliament to practical Presbyterianism, and Parliament responded to the desire for a modification of the Church of England, always characteristic of Puritanism, by calling all 'Assembly of Divines,' which met at. Westminster from July, 1643, onward, to recommend alterations in doctrine and Church government. (See CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS.) The result of its sessions was the preparation of an essentially Presbyterian Directory for Worship and form of discipline, of a Confession of Faith, and of two eatechisMs. This Westminster Con fession was accepted by the 'General Assembly' of the Church of Scotland in 1647 as its doctrinal standard, and approved, with some modifications, though not completely given the sanction of law, by the English Parliament in 1648.
But, while the Westminster Assembly had been doing this work, the influence of anti-Presbyte rian types of opposition to episcopacy had been growing in the army. The Presbyterian majority in Parliament and in the Westminster Assembly were as strongly insistent on uniformity and as opposed to toleration as the Anglican party had been. But the more radical religious thinkers represented in the army, who were grouped to gether under the general name of 'Independents,' demanded by their very variety of opinion a certain measure of toleration, and the course of the struggle made the army the dominant force, for the time being, in English political life. The result was that the Presbyterian system was never fully established in England, and the West minster Confession of Faith never obtained more than a limited recognition there. The forces of Puritanism were divided and Presbyterian Puri tanism found it impossible to establish the prin ciples which it desired to make controlling. Un der the protectorship of Cromwell to his death, in 1658, the army's principle of partial toleration was dominant, but Cromwell's government, though enlightened and forceful, ulti mately on the sword, and did not, therefore, en joy the confidence of a majority of the people of England as a permanent system. Pis death left no efficient successor, and the restoration of the monarchy and with it Anglicanism was inevi table. Attempts were made at adjustment by which the Presbyterian wing of Pyritanism, at least, might he included in the Establishment, and men like Richard Baxter laho•ed to this end, but without success. Puritanism, instead of be ing a party within the Church of England as it had thus far been, was driven outside that Church and made to assume the attitude of 'Dis sent,' to the great spiritual loss of the English Establishment. In spite of the discussions of the previous twenty years, no considerable number of Englishmen bad yet accepted the principle of toleration at the time of the Restoration, and the result was that the triumphant Anglican faction adopted a rigorously persecuting policy toward Puritanism. Under the Act of Unifor
mity (q.v.) all Puritans who would not wholly accept the Prayer Book were driven from their livings. Some two thousand ministers of Puritan sympathies are alleged to have been thus ex cluded. Episcopal ordination was now made obligatory; and by the 'Conventicle Act' of 1664, any assembly of five o• more persons not of the same family, for worship, was forbidden, save in conformity with the Church of England. The 'Five-Mile Act' of 1665 forbade all in holy or ders who would not take oath never to attempt any alteration in the government of Church or State to continue to live within five miles of where they had exercised their ministry or of any English borough.
Moved by the desire to favor Roman Catholi elm, and anxious to gain, if possible, the sup port of the Dissenters, James 11. modified this repressive policy by issuing a Declaration of In dulgence in 1687; but a permanent legal status was not acquired by Puritan Dissent until after the revolution which put William and Nary on the throne. The Toleration Act of 1689 gave to the evangelical dissenting bodies a permanent and recognized, if limited, freedom of worship and an established legal position. At the time of the Toleration Act about two-thirds of the Puritan Dissenters appear to have been Presby terian in polity and one-third Congregational or Baptist. The fire and enthusiasm of the move ment had been largely spent, but it still con tinued a strong religious force, chiefly among the middle class of the population. During the course of the eighteenth century the Presbyterian wing of Puritanism became largely affected by Arian and Unitarian opinions, while the Congre gational section was not so influenced to any marked extent. By the beginning of the nine teenth century the Congregational wing was the largest, and the spiritual life of Puritanism had been greatly reenforced by the effect of the Wesleyan movement. Its later history may be traced in the story of the religious bodies known as Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist.
Outside of England, the chief effect of the Puri tan movement is to be seen in the planting of New England and the development of its char acteristic religious faith and ecclesiastical pol ity. See CONGREGATIONALISM.
The literature of Puritanism is very extensive. The following volumes may be cited as of impor tance in connection with its story: Calamy, Abridgment of Mr. Ba.rtrr's History of His Life and Times (London, 1702; edited by Palmer as the Non-Conformist Memorial, London, 1775) ; Neal, History of the Puritans (London, 1732; annotated editions by Touhuin, Bath, 1793-97; by ebonies, New Yo•k, 1844) ; Brook, The Lives of the Puritans (London, 1S13) ; Price, History of Protestant Non-Conformity in England (Lon don, 1838) ; Marsden, History of the Early Puritans (London, 1853) ; id., History of the Later Puritans (London. 1853) ; Hopkins, The Puritans (New York, 1859-61) ; Green. History of the English People, section "Puritan Eng land" (London, 1874) ; Gardiner, Tie First Two Stuarts) and the Puritan Revolution (London, 1876 and 188S) ; id., History of England from the Accession of James I., etc. (London, 1883 sqq.) ; Wakeman, The Church, and the Puritans (Lon don, 1887) ; Ellis, The Puritan, Age and Rule in the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1888) ; Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, Eng land, and America (New York, 1892) ; Gregory, Puritanism in. the Old World and in the New (London, 1896).