‘Rigour upon men’s consciences’: Political Allegiance, Religious Profession, and the English Catholic Community during the Interregnum

Abstract

This dissertation offers a new interpretation of Oliver Cromwell’s rule as Lord Protector (1653-58). English Catholics, a minority religious community maligned on both religious and political grounds, are the analytic lens for this dissertation. Through statute law, parliamentary debates, administrative records, foreign policy decisions, and correspondence, it contrasts the treatment of English Catholics with the rhetoric used to describe the community. Utilizing analytical techniques from political theory, legal scholarship, and religious studies in addition to history, this interdisciplinary study situates the Protectorate both among Interregnum regimes struggling to retain authority while reorganizing government and the national church in the wake of civil war and regicide, and, more broadly, among post-Reformation English governments negotiating the link between religious profession and political participation. It demonstrates that amidst constitutional experimentation, the recognizable shape of governmental and ecclesiastical institutions rendered familiar discourses and tropes available to coopt, redefine, and deploy in the service of new objectives. It concludes that Lord Protector Cromwell espoused a coherent theory of governance and consistently employed the same tactic in service of this goal.