Conclusion

Summary

In the spring of 1715, the day after he celebrated his 55th birthday, King George I attended a service of thanksgiving at St James's palace chapel. The king's court had gathered to remember the providential restoration of the established state and Church, heralded by the popular rejoicing that had greeted King Charles II upon his entry into London in May of 1660. The sermon, subsequently published at royal command, was delivered by William Burscough, an Oxford don and one of the new king's chaplains. Taking as his text Psalm 147.1, ‘For it is Good to sing Praises unto our God’, Burscough proposed several reasons why it was good to take time to recall the happy end of the civil wars and Interregnum. Significantly, however, the preacher chose not to narrate any particulars about the miseries and tribulations from which the people had been delivered almost six decades earlier. It was better, he claimed, to avoid any kind of ‘black Representation of that time’, let alone to point out yet again which party and principles had wrought such trauma upon the bodies politic and ecclesiastic. Rather than remembering who was to blame for England's seventeenth-century civil wars, Burscough exhorted his auditors and readers to render thanks for the political stability and religious peace that their kingdom's moderate constitution had secured since the return of Charles II. The minister encouraged all people who wanted to ensure the happy endurance of stability and peace to be grateful always for the great miracle of 29 May 1660.