4 - The management of disputes

Summary

Religion is one sphere of activity often thought to be inevitably under the control of the squire. The country gentry had an interest in defending the Established Church, just as the Church supported the social and political hierarchy, a marriage of church and state that J. C. D. Clark has termed the ‘confessional state’. Sir Roger de Coverley provides the archetypal example of the relationship between the gentry, the clergy and the people. The church that Sir Roger ornamented provided an arena for the confirmation of his authority. At the end of services, the congregation showed their respect for the squire by forming a double row through which he processed and bowing to him as he passed. The squire and parson co-operated in governing the parish. The latter mediated local disputes on behalf of Sir Roger and sought favours for members of the congregation. Yet, as Addison observed, the social relations in many parishes were not as amicable as they were in Coverley.

Disputes between the clergy and the laity had serious implications for eighteenth-century society. Their occurrence may appear to cast into doubt the robustness of the ‘confessional state’. John Phillips has argued that the clergy were faced with an individualistic population who required very careful handling and whose deference was illusory. We should not assume that a rigid alliance between the gentry and the clergy prevailed.