Puritans

The group of people we now refer to as Puritans emerged early in the reign of Elizabeth I. Encompassing a spectrum of religious and, in many cases, political beliefs those early Puritans were united by their desire to purify the Anglican Church. The creed of pure reformed doctrine and spiritual self-discipline in the name of Christ found many followers at all levels of English society. Men like John Hampden and Sir William Waller provided the nation with a strong and vigorous leadership, while increasingly the members of Cromwell's New Model Army subscribed to the subversive political and religious ideologies of groups such as the Diggers and Levellers. Feared by many for their radical ideas and frustrated in their aims at home, some Puritans – led by the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620 – reluctantly abandoned the mother church and set sail for America, there to found a 'land of saints and a pattern of holiness to all the world'. In this readable and absorbing book John Adair traces the origins of the Puritans in the religious and political turmoil of seventeenth-century England and skilfully weaves a narrative of extraordinary vividness, with the foundation of New England and the English Civil War as its double climax. He concludes with a chapter exploring and assessing the Puritan heritage of the United States and its influence on the modern world. This book will be essential reading for all students of seventeenth-century British and American history or for anyone fascinated by Puritan ideas and the history and background of Protestant fundamentalism.