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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 June 2015
This article explores the reception of the European Protestant Reformation in the British Atlantic using the early Bermudan Church as a case study. It offers an alternative model for Puritan colonisation which was driven by a reformed vision for godly globalisation and evangelisation rather than flight from persecution in England. By shedding light on ecclesiastical ties between the reformed Churches on the continent and the British Atlantic, it extends the ideological foundations for the establishment of British America beyond the theories of empire and economic opportunism usually addressed by historians.
1 This appeared from ‘the difference that was between it and other blazing stares’: whereas ‘they did blaze downwards; it did blaze upwards, with a great streame, like fire sparkling’: Hughes, Lewis, A looking-glasse for all trve hearted Christians, London 1642 (Wing H3317), 2Google Scholar.
2 Although Puritanism in early Virginia did not follow the New England model, the colony has likewise been characterised by its lack of concern with evangelising the native population: Levy, Babette, ‘Early Puritanism in the Southern and Island Colonies’, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society lxx (1960), 164–200Google Scholar; Horn, James, Adapting to a new world: English society in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake, Chapel Hill 1994, 385–6Google Scholar.
3 Miller, Perry, Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630–1650, New York 1933Google Scholar, and The New England mind: the seventeenth century, Cambridge, Ma 1939Google Scholar; Bremer, Francis, Puritanism: transatlantic perspectives on a seventeenth-century Anglo-American faith, Boston 1993Google Scholar, and Congregational communion: clerical friendship in the Anglo-American Puritan community, 1610–1692, Boston 1994Google Scholar.
4 For a recent discussion of the relationship between reformed Protestantism and congregationalism in England and New England see Ha, Polly, English Presbyterianism, 1590–1640, Palo Alto 2011, chs iii–ivGoogle Scholar.
5 Kupperman, Karen, Providence Island, 1630–1641: the other Puritan colony, Cambridge 1993CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Others have likewise stressed the religious diversity of the British Atlantic. For example see Lovejoy, David, Religious enthusiasm in the new world, Cambridge, Ma 1985Google Scholar, and Gardina Pestana, Carla, ‘Religion’, in Armitage, David and Braddick, Michael , The British Atlantic world, 1500–1800, Basingstoke 2002, 69–89Google Scholar.
6 Although many studies have acknowledged the theological beliefs shared by British, American and continental European Calvinists, no continuity has appeared in their church government and organisation of worship. For instance, reformed government is predominantly represented in the Atlantic by Huguenots and Dutch Protestants in W. A. Speck's and L. Billington's discussion of ‘Calvinism in colonial North America, 1630–1715’, in Prestwich, Menna, International Calvinism, 1541–1715, Oxford 1985, 256–84Google Scholar. A more recent example of this perception of Atlantic Puritan ecclesiology in relation to reformed Churches on the continent can be found in Benedict, Philip, Christ's churches purely reformed: a social history of Calvinism, New Haven 2002, 389–92Google Scholar.
7 Elliott, J. H., Empires of the Atlantic world: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830, New Haven 2006Google Scholar.
8 Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge, Puritan conquistadors: Iberianising the Atlantic, 1550–1700, Palo Alto 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 More recently, Carla Gardina Pestana has drawn attention to how religion played a key role in British expansion to the Atlantic world in Protestant empire: religion and the making of the British Atlantic world, Philadelphia 2009Google Scholar.
10 See Canny, Nicholas, ‘The ideology of English colonisation: from Ireland to America’, William & Mary Quarterly xxx (1973) 575–98Google Scholar.
11 Armitage, David, The ideological origins of the British Empire, Cambridge 2000Google Scholar.
12 This is of course not to suggest that Bermuda strictly conformed to reformed continental practices. For novel claims to religious liberty which developed in Bermuda during the mid-seventeenth century see Ha, Polly, ‘Religious toleration and ecclesiastical independence in revolutionary Britain, Bermuda and the Bahamas’, Church History (2015), forthcomingGoogle Scholar.
13 Kennedy, Jean, Isle of devils: Bermuda under the Somers Island Company, 1609–1685, London 1971, chs i–iiGoogle Scholar.
14 For a comparison between the social profile of Bermuda and Virginia settlers see Bernhard, Virginia, ‘Bermuda and Virginia in the seventeenth century: a comparative view’, Journal of Social History xix (1985), 57–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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16 Lefroy, J. H., Memorials of the discovery and early settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, 1515–1685, Hamilton, Bermuda 1981, i. 182–218Google Scholar.
17 Ibid. 95–6.
18 Butler, Nathaniel, Historye of the Bermudaes or Summer Islands, ed. Lefroy, J. H., London 1882, 179Google Scholar.
19 The Rich papers: letters from Bermuda, 1615–1646, ed. Ives, Vernon, Toronto 1984, 10Google Scholar.
20 Ibid. 116–17.
21 Butler, Historye of the Bermudaes, 171.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid. 172.
24 Letters from Bermuda, 116.
25 ‘There is one Mr Alday a printer of my acquaintance that (as I thinke) wilbe glad of it. He dwelleth in a garden house by the brick wales as you goe from Christ Church to Smithfield. Mr Abot of Coulmanstreete who is Bishop of Canterburie his brother and one of the Adventurers, it may be if you speak unto him will get it licenced’: ibid. 106. Along with a copy of the text, Hughes sent detailed instructions to Nathaniel Rich in 1617/18 on procuring a printer, including name and address and also a potential licenser.
26 Thompson, Bard, Liturgies of the Western Church, Philadelphia 1961, 191–2Google Scholar.
27 Bermuda under the Sommer Islands Company, 1612–1684: civil records, ed. Hallett, A. C. Hollis, Hamilton, Bermuda 2005, i. 229Google Scholar.
28 Aside from liturgical freedom in the Channel Islands, Alan Ford has also argued, with reference to the Irish Articles of 1615, that Irish Protestantism developed a distinctive theology which followed European Calvinist doctrines more closely than the Church of England: The Protestant Reformation in Ireland, 1590–1641, Frankfurt-am-Main 1985, 194–201. Whilst the Bermudans ultimately adopted the Channel Islands liturgy, there is evidence that Hughes also drew from direct Irish experience. Dropping off the English record after 1602, he appears in the records of Trinity College Dublin in 1604 before departing for Bermuda in 1614. Based on a comparison of his signatures from Trinity College Dublin and Bermuda, this appears to be the same Hughes who later emigrated to the New World. His signature as a witness in 1604 for ‘accounts of money expended for the use of Trinity College and building Bridewell in College Green’ (TCD, ms 364) can be compared with signatures on letters signed by Hughes sent from Bermuda; Bermuda Archives, HMC 209, 2010.
29 Hughes, Lewis, To the Right Honorable, the Lords and others of his Majesties most Honourable priuie Councell, London 1625 (2nd edn, STC 13920.5)Google Scholar, Br–Bv.
30 Idem, A letter sent into England from the Svmmer Ilands, London 1615 (2nd edn, STC 13919), B3vGoogle Scholar.
31 Letters from Bermuda, 10.
32 Ibid. 11.
33 Ibid. 10.
34 Ibid. 116.
35 Ibid. 162.
36 Ibid..
37 Hughes, Lewis, The covenant of grace, London 1640 (2nd edn, STC 13918)Google Scholar.
38 Hughes, A looking-glasse, 12.
39 Letters from Bermuda, 162.
40 Ibid. 10.
41 Lefroy, Memorials, 222.
42 Ibid. 220.
43 Ibid. 132.
44 Ibid. 221.
45 Hughes, The covenant of grace, qq. 10, 11.
46 In a later treatise, he wrote of one ‘Sir Richard Reinolds Warriner, had his head cloven, his skull rent into three pieces … his braines fell intire and whole into the next seat behind him … his body was left in the seat as though it had been alive, sitting asleepe, leaning upon his elbow, his elbow resting on the deske before, with the fore-part of his head and face whole, as some say’: Hughes, The covenant of grace, 33.
47 Lefroy, Memorials, 221.
48 Ibid. 222.
49 Ha, English Presbyterianism, 176.
50 Lefroy, Memorials, 221, 320.
51 Ibid. 225.
52 Ibid. 221.
53 Ibid. 220.
54 Ibid. 320.
55 For a comparative discussion of disciplinary cases in reformed Churches see Benedict, Christs churches purely reformed, ch. xiv. Despite the infrequency of sexual sins in Bermuda, they were strictly disciplined. For instance, one Martin Wetherall, yeoman at St Georges, confessed to adultery in October 1616 and received ‘threescore lashes with a whippe upon the naked backe at a Post upon two severall dayes in viewes of the congregation’, and the woman ‘forty lashes in the same manner and upon the same dayes’ for her consent and fornication: Lefroy, Memorials, 125, 320.
56 Graham, Michael, Uses of reform, Leiden 1996Google Scholar.
57 Lefroy, Memorials, 163; Letters from Bermuda, 132.
58 Lefroy, Memorials, 222.
59 Letters from Bermuda, 162.
60 Hughes, Lewis, A plaine and true relation of the goodness of God towards the Sommer Ilands, London 1621 (2nd edn, STC 13920)Google Scholar, B3v; Lefroy, Memorials, 222.
61 Hughes, A plaine and true relation, B4; Lefroy, Memorials, 132.
62 Lefroy, Memorials, 132, 222.
63 Ibid. 418.
64 Hughes, A letter sent into England, B3v.
65 Naphy, William, Calvin and the consolidation of the Genevan Reformation, Manchester 1994Google Scholar.
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67 Butler, Nathaniel, Botler's dialogues, ed. Perrin, W. G., London 1929, p. xiiGoogle Scholar.
68 This precedent should be taken into account when considering Oliver Cromwell's ambitious plans to take Hispaniola by conquest and to use it as a base to make inroads into Central America during the Protectorate. Although this proved to be one of the most humiliating and disastrous moments in Cromwell's career it has been important for interpretations of his wider foreign policy. Whereas historians previously tended to view Cromwell's Western Design as a reversion to outdated Elizabethan policy, this reading has been challenged: Prestwich, Menna, ‘Diplomacy and trade in the Protectorate’, Journal of Modern History xx (1950) 109Google Scholar, 116; Kupperman, Karen, ‘Errand to the Indies: Puritan colonisation from Providence Island through the Western Design’, William and Mary Quarterly xlv (1988), 70–99Google Scholar.
69 As Paul Avis put it, it has been ‘widely assumed that the protestant Reformers had no interest in foreign missions’: The Church in the theology of the Reformers, London 1981, 167Google Scholar.
70 Pestana, Protestant empire, 7–9.
71 Canny, Nicholas, ‘The origins of empire: an introduction’, in Canny, Nicholas, The Oxford history of the British Empire, Oxford 1998, i. 18Google Scholar.
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73 Copland, Patrick, Virginia's God be thanked, or A sermon of thanksgiving for the happie successe of the affayres in Virginia last yeare, London 1622 (2nd edn, STC 5727), 12Google Scholar.
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75 See Ribault, Jean, The whole and true discovery of Terra Florida, London 1563Google Scholar, and Hakluyt, Richard, A notable history containing four voyages made by certain French captains, London 1587 (2nd edn, STC 15316)Google Scholar.
76 Jennings, Francis, ‘Goals and functions of Puritan missions to the Indians’, Ethnohistory xviii (1971) 201Google Scholar. See also Axtell, James, The invasion within: the contest of cultures in colonial North America̧ Oxford 1985, chs vii–viiiGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to David Bebbington for his comments on the relative importance of civilisation and conversion.
77 Copland, Virginia's God be thanked, 30.
78 Hotson, Howard, ‘A “General Reformation of common learning” and its reception in the English-speaking world, 1560–1642’, in Ha, Polly and Collinson, Patrick (eds), The reception of continental Reformation in Britain, Oxford 2011, 193–228Google Scholar.
79 For the Geneva Academy's role as a ‘nursery’ for pastors in France, England and Flanders see Maag, Karin, Seminary or university? The Genevan Academy and reformed higher education, 1560–1620, Aldershot 1996, 53–62Google Scholar.
80 Hallett, A. C. Hollis, Bermuda company records, 1619–1826, Pembroke, Bermuda 1991, i. 228Google Scholar.
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82 Copland, Patrick, A second covrante of newes from the East India in two letters, London 1622 (2nd edn, STC 7458), 2Google Scholar.
83 McNeill, John T., ‘The Church in sixteenth-century reformed theology’, Journal of Religion xxii (1942), 268Google Scholar.
84 Ha, English Presbyterianism, ch. iii.
85 Jacob, Henry, A confession and protestation of the faith of certaine christians in England, Amsterdam 1616 (2nd edn, STC 14330)Google Scholar, B2v.
86 Idem, Reasons taken out of Gods word, Middelburg 1604 (2nd edn, STC 14338), Bv.Google Scholar
87 White, Nathaniel, Truth gloriously appearing from under the sad and sable cloud of obliquie, London 1645 (2nd edn, Wing W1799)Google Scholar, B2.
88 Ibid. 6.
89 Following his civilising and missionising efforts in Bermuda, Patrick Copland later embraced independent ecclesiology. Rather than pursuing a similar missionary campaign in the mid-seventeenth century, he emigrated to the Bahamas and supported a broad toleration which excluded magisterial coercion in religious matters. See further Ha, ‘Religious toleration and ecclesiastical independence’.
90 Baxter, Richard, Mr Baxter's vindication of the Church of England … taken out of his own writings (Defense of love), London 1682 (Wing B1449), 15Google Scholar.
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