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The Empire Reformed
EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES
SERIES EDITORS
Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown,
Max Cavitch, and David Waldstreicher
Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial, revolutionary, and early national history and culture, Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes and events in fresh ways. Interdisciplinary in character, and with a special emphasis on the period from about 1600 to 1850, the series is published in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
The Empire Reformed
English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution
Owen Stanwood
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2011 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-8122-4341-3
For Simon
Contents
Introduction: Popery and Politics in the British Atlantic World
Chapter 2. Catholics, Indians, and the Politics of Conspiracy
Chapter 3. Rumors and Rebellions
Chapter 4. The Empire Turned Upside Down
Chapter 5. The Protestant Assault on French America
Epilogue: Nicholson’s Redemption
Illustrations
1. British Atlantic in the late seventeenth century
2. West Indies in the late seventeenth century
3. A Scheme of Popish Cruelties
4. Seal of the Dominion of New England
5. Massachusetts declaration of 1689
6. King William’s War in North America
7. King William’s War in the West Indies
8. English Assault on Quebec City
9. Richard Coote, earl of Bellomont
Introduction: Popery and Politics in the British Atlantic World
ON 4 JUNE 1702, a crowd of worshippers gathered in Boston to pay homage to their departed monarch. William III had died the previous March, and as the Reverend Benjamin Wadsworth noted, seldom had there been a more heroic leader. William had been “A Good King,” Wadsworth preached, because he “Imploy[ed] his Power and Authority for the good of his People.” The king’s greatest moment had been the manner in which he had come to the throne fourteen years earlier. At that time, England and its dominions were in “languishing circumstances,” ruled by a Catholic monarch, James II, whose policies alienated many of his subjects. They were “quite depriv’d of Liberty and Property,” Wadsworth remembered, “having their Religion, Laws, and Lives in utmost hazard; sinking under Arbitrary Power and Tyranny; almost overwhelm’d with Popery and Slavery.” William, then the Prince of Orange, bravely “came over the sea to help them,” engineering the coup that became known as the Glorious Revolution and establishing the Protestant faith and limited monarchy in Great Britain for good.1
In its time, Wadsworth’s paean to William was an utterly uncontroversial statement—one probably recreated by dozens of ministers around the king’s dominions. In this case, however, an ordinary event gave testimony to great political changes that had occurred on the far reaches of the empire. In the years before William’s accession, colonial Americans had reputations as refractory subjects. None were worse than New Englanders, and in that region, Congregational ministers had particular reputations for disloyalty. The first royal governor in the region, Edward Cranfield of New Hampshire, believed there would be no peace in the colonies until the king “remove[d] all such their Preachers who oppose & indeavour to disturb the peace of this Government.” However bad the ministers were, they were only a step removed from colonial subjects as a collective group, who engaged in open rebellion with an alarming frequency during the late 1600s. The problem was that rulers and subjects