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Conversion, Conscience, and Family Conflict in Early Modern England

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Childhood, Youth and Religious Minorities in Early Modern Europe

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood ((PSHC))

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Abstract

This chapter explores the problems facing young converts as they attempted to reconcile the demands of their new faith with their duty to honour and obey their parents. Their families were often also torn by conflicting emotions, and they too faced competing moral obligations, for their duty to protect their children clashed with the need to uphold parental authority, and the authority of state and church. The stories of Agnes Beaumont, Thomas Ellwood, Richard Davies and others show how such family tensions could leave permanent and painful scars, while the remarkable story of Richard Norwood reveals a troubled young man struggling for years to find peace with himself as well as with his family.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Susan Brigden, ‘Youth and the English Reformation’, Past and Present, 95 (1982); Alexandra Walsham, ‘The Reformation of the Generations: Youth, Age and Religious Change in England, c.1500–1700’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 21 (2011).

  2. 2.

    Samuel Clarke, The Lives of Two and Twenty Eminent Divines (London, 1660), 168–9.

  3. 3.

    Godfrey Anstruther, The Seminary Priests. A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales 1558–1850, 4 vols. (Great Wakering, Essex: Mayhew-McCrimmon, 1969–77), ii.213–14.

  4. 4.

    ODNB, Parnell; A Collection of the Several Writings Given Forth … from James Parnel (1675), 233–4.

  5. 5.

    Norman Penney, ed., Records of the Sufferings of Quakers in Cornwall 1655–1686 (London: Friends’ Historical Society, 1928), 17–19, 22; Joseph Besse, The Sufferings of the Quakers (London, 1753), i.116.

  6. 6.

    Bernard Capp, ‘The Travails of Agnes Beaumont’, in Bronach Kane and Fiona Williamson, eds., Women’s Agency and the Law, 1300–1700 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013), 111–24. The most accessible text is John Bunyan: Grace Abounding and other Spiritual Autobiographies, ed. J. Stachniewski and A. Pacheco (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

  7. 7.

    Thomas Ellwood, The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood, ed. G.C. Crump (London: Methuen, 1900); ODNB, Ellwood.

  8. 8.

    Ellwood, History, 1–9.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 9–14.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., 14–19.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., 26–34.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 35–7.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 37–41, 43; cf. King Lear, III.ii.60.

  14. 14.

    Ibid, 55–7, 67, 70–2, 100–1.

  15. 15.

    Ibid, 162–3; Thomas Ellwood, A Fair Examination of a Foul Paper (London, 1693), 20–1.

  16. 16.

    Ellwood, History, 14, 35–6, 38, 40–1, 50.

  17. 17.

    Ellwood, Fair Examination, 20–1.

  18. 18.

    Richard Davies, An Account of the Convincement, Exercises, Services, and Travels of Richard Davies (London, 1794), 6–7, 18–24. On anti-Quaker propaganda see Barry Reay, The Quakers and the English Revolution (London: Temple Smith, 1985), Chap. 4.

  19. 19.

    Davies, Account, 25–6.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., 18, 33.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 22.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 43.

  23. 23.

    The Christian Progress of that ancient servant and minister of Jesus Christ, George Whitehead (London, 1725), 9; The Autobiography of William Stout of Lancaster 1665–1752, ed. J.D. Marshall (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967), 82–5.

  24. 24.

    L. Claxton, The Lost Sheep Found (London, 1660); ODNB, Clarkson.

  25. 25.

    The Journal of Richard Norwood, Surveyor of Bermuda, ed. Wesley Frank Craven and Walter B. Hayward (New York: Bermuda Historical Monuments Trust, 1945), introduction. Substantial extracts are published in Stachniewski and Pacheco, eds., John Bunyan. ODNB, Norwood.

  26. 26.

    Norwood, Journal, 3–10.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 13–17.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 17–23.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 23–30.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 30–4. Edward Elton was Rector of St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey, 1605–24: J. and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, to 1751 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922–7), ii.101.

  31. 31.

    Norwood, Journal, 34–6, 60, 64–5.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 36–9.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 39–42, 51–3.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 61, 64–7, 79–87.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 20–1, 29, 41–2.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 12–13.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., 36, 59, 100–1.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 87–106. For Jacob see ODNB.

  39. 39.

    Norwood, Journal, 106–11.

  40. 40.

    Richard Norwood, Considerations tending to remove the present Differences (London, 1646).

  41. 41.

    Norwood, Journal, xi–li.

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  1. University of Warwick, Warwick, UK

    Bernard Capp

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  1. Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Tali Berner

  2. University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Lucy Underwood

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Capp, B. (2019). Conversion, Conscience, and Family Conflict in Early Modern England. In: Berner, T., Underwood, L. (eds) Childhood, Youth and Religious Minorities in Early Modern Europe. Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29199-0_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29199-0_12

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