Reformation to Revolution:
Politics and Religion in Early Modern England

Margo Todd, ed.

London and New York: Routledge, 1995
Paperback (Rewriting Histories, Jack R. Censer, ed.)

Comments:
        Margo Todd has brought together in Reformation to Revolution essays representing "revisionist" and "anti-revisionist" arguments on both political and religious issues which did, or did not (as each historian argues), contribute to civil war. The essays contained in this collection have been written by historians who have been particularly influential over the past two decades in formulating and extending the debate on the causes leading to civil war.
      Todd's prologue provides a helpful introduction to the historiography of the subject, briefly relating the route of the debate from the construction of the civil war as a "Puritan Revolution" to a reactionary war of embattled Calvinists maintaining the status quo, leading to a position somewhere in between. This middle position, Todd asserts, arises from the earlier, revisionist interpretations having been influenced and modified by anti-revisionists' discoveries. In addition to the general introduction, Todd also supplies short introductions to each of the essays. Todd does not, however, maintain an aloof view as referee in this debate, and presents her own conclusions, if not on the substance of the argument, then certainly with respect to its processes.
        The essays are themselves drawn from a variety of sources, some of which remain readily available today and others which appeared in journals and are perhaps more difficult to obtain. Some of the articles have seen the hand of revision (as in that of Tyacke) in which the writer has modified interpretations; however, none have been so much changed as to alter the conclusions reached by each of the historians. The work opens with an historiographical essay written by Christopher Haigh. This is followed by Patrick Collinson's article arguing that the church of the Elizabethan Settlement was a protestant church of Calvinist consensus. Nicholas Tyacke's essay sets out his claim of Arminian innovation and Calvinist, conservative reaction (which he more thoroughly explores in Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of Arminianism c. 1580-1640). Following is Kevin Sharpe's article on archbishop William Laud, in which Sharpe maintains that Laud was interested in returning order to the church and avoiding controversy, and was himself conservative and not the innovator that brought a great "calamity" upon Britain. The final essay related to Arminianism is that of White's, who argues a position against that of Collinson and Tyacke. Part II of the book visits politics and Part III, the response to "revisionism" (which includes an  essay by Peter Lake).
       In summary, Reformation to Revolution should be recommended to students and scholars who are unfamiliar with the debate over the place of religion in the events culminating in civil war. It is an excellent source that will lead the reader to other works by the same authors which provide greater detail in the evidence supporting each historian's position. For those of us who may not have visited the subject for some time, the book is equally excellent for recalling the extent and the passion of the debate in the past and its continued basis for contention today.

Contents:

Margo Todd, "Introduction"Part I Revising Religion:
Christopher Haigh, "The Recent Historiography of the English Reformation"
Patrick Collinson, "Protestant Culture and the Cultural Revolution"
Nicholas Tyacke, "Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-Revolution"
Kevin Sharpe, "Archbishop Laud"
Peter White, "The Via Media in the Early Stuart Church" Part II Revising Politics:
Geoffrey Elton, "Parliament in the Reign of Elizabeth I"Conrad Russell, "England in 1637"
John Morrill, "The Coming of War"
Part III Responding to Revisionism:
A.G. Dickens, "The Early Expansion of Protestantism in England 1520-1558"
Peter Lake, "Calvinism and the English Church, 1579-1635"David Underdown, "Popular Politics Before the Civil War"Richard Cust, "News and Politics in Early Seventeenth-Century England"
Ann Hughes, "Local History and the Origins of the Civil War"xiii; 279; 2 maps; suggestions for further reading; glossary