Edward Gee and the Matter of Authority

Ian Michael Smart

doi:10.1017/S0022046900052957

Edward Gee and the Matter of Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

Ian Michael Smart

Show author details

Ian Michael Smart: Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Strathclyde

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

Edward Gee, rector at Eccleston, near Chorley in Lancashire, from 1643 until 1660, was born in 1612 or 1613, at Banbury (Oxon.). During the years following the reorganisation of the Church in Lancashire along Presbyterian lines in 1646, he achieved recognition as a leading member of the clergy in that county. In 1650 he was said to possess the parsonage-house and glebe at Eccleston, with tithes and a water cornmill. Although he had agreed with the parliamentary cause in the Civil War, he opposed the more revolutionary changes carried out in 1648 and 1649, years in which the House of Commons was purged by the army, king Charles I executed, and the monarchy and the House of Lords abolished. The decision of the new republican Commonwealth regime to exact a promise of allegiance, known as the Engagement (first, in 1649 from a number of important Englishmen, and then in 1650 from all adult males in England) provoked a major pamphlet debate. This Engagement Controversy was the occasion of a lengdiy and detailed exchange of opinions and interpretations concerning the whole problem of how the subject should in conscience behave with respect to a drastic change of government, or, as many would have it, a usurpation of civil authority.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 115 - 127

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900052957 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 115 note 1} Raines, F. R., Notitia Cestriensis, Chetham Society, 1850, II, 372Google Scholar.

^{page 115 note 2} Wallace, John M., ‘The Engagement Controversy 1649–1652, An Annotated List of Pamphlets’ in The Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 68 (1964), 384–405Google Scholar.

^{page 115 note 3} Gee is mentioned in: Laslett, P. (ed.), Patriarcha and other Political Works of Sir Robert Filmer, Oxford 1949, 38Google Scholar; Zagorin, P., A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution, London 1954, 75–77Google Scholar; J. M. Wallace, loc. cit., 386–389, and also in Wallace's Destiny His Choice: The Loyalism of Andrew Marvell, Cambridge 1968, 58–59Google Scholar; Tuck, Richard, ‘Power and Authority in Seventeenth-Century England’ The Historical Journal XVII, (1974), 43–61CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 116 note 1} The Divine Right and Originall of the Civill Magistrate from God Illustrated and Vindicated (1658), Preface (unpaginated), Section 2.

^{page 116 note 2} Ibid., Preface, Section 6.

^{page 116 note 3} Ibid., 20–21.

^{page 117 note 1} Ibid., 22–23.

^{page 117 note 2} A Vindication of the Oath of Allegiance (1650), 37.

^{page 117 note 3} Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex (1644), 5 and 14.

^{page 117 note 4} Philip Hunton, A Treatise of Monarchie (1643), 4.

^{page 117 note 5} Henry Ferne, The Resolving of Conscience (1642), 14.

^{page 117 note 6} Bramhall, John, ‘The Serpent-Salve’, in Works of John Bramhall, Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Oxford 1844, III, 317–18Google Scholar.

^{page 118 note 1} Divine Right and Originall, 168; Vindication, 35; A Plea for Non-Subscribers (1650), appendix 35–36.

^{page 118 note 2} Baxter, Richard, ‘King James His Abdication of the Crown Plainly Proved’ in Schlatter, Richard, Richard Baxter and Puritan Politics, New York 1957, 159Google Scholar.

^{page 118 note 3} Ibid., 161–162.

^{page 118 note 4} Divine Right and Originall, 43.

^{page 118 note 6} Ibid., 62.

^{page 118 note 7} Ibid., 70–71; An Exercitation concerning usurped powers (1650), 1–2; Plea, appendix, 13; A Treatise of Prayer and of Divine Providence as relating to it (1653), 447–448.

^{page 119 note 1} Divine Right and Originall, 41–43, 57–59, 112–113, Exercitation 62–63.

^{page 119 note 2} Treatise of Prayer, 438 and 452; Divine Right and Originall, 84–85, 88; Exercitation, 62–63.

^{page 119 note 3} Hunton, op. cit., 1.

^{page 119 note 4} Divine Right and Originall, 91.

^{page 120 note 1} (Anon.) A Pack of Old Puritans (1650), 34.

^{page 120 note 2} Halley, Robert, Lancashire, Its Puritanism and Non-conformity, Manchester 1869, ii, 68Google Scholar.

^{page 120 note 3} Ibid., 115–116.

^{page 120 note 4} Exercitation, 81.

^{page 120 note 5} Plea, 33; see also, 21.

^{page 120 note 6} Divine Right and Originall, 271–272.

^{page 121 note 1} Ibid., 180, 184, 124–126.

^{page 121 note 2} Ibid., 296.

^{page 121 note 3} Parkinson, Richard (ed.), The Life of Adam Martindale, Written by Himself, Chetham Society, 1845, 98Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 4} (Francis Rous?), The Exercitation Answered (1650), 18.

^{page 121 note 5} Knachel, Philip (ed.), Nedham, Marchamont, The Case of the Commonwealth of England Staled, Charlottesville, Va., 1969, 30–31Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 6} John Dury, Objections against the taking of the Engagement Answered (1650), 4.

^{page 121 note 5} Ibid., 9 and 12.

^{page 121 note 8} Ibid., 7; see also Dury's Just Re-Proposals to Humble Proposals (1650), 10 and 25.

^{page 122 note 1} Nedham (ed. Knachel), 41.

^{page 122 note 2} Plea, 11.

^{page 122 note 3} Exercitation, 20–21.

^{page 122 note 4} Nedham (ed. Knachel), 30; Exercitation Answered, 17; Dury, Objections, 15–16 and 21.

^{page 123 note 1} Nedham (ed. Knachel), 15–29 and 38.

^{page 123 note 2} Ferne, op. cit., Section III, and Bramhall, Works, iii, 318–319, and 341–342.

^{page 123 note 3} Divine Right and Originall, 293.

^{page 124 note 1} Parkinson, Richard (ed.), The Autobiography of Henry Newcome M.A. Chetham Society, 1852, 119Google Scholar.

^{page 124 note 2} Divine Right and Originall, 157 and 148–149.

^{page 124 note 3} Ibid., 150.

^{page 124 note 4} Ibid., 138–143.

^{page 124 note 5} Ibid., 332.

^{page 124 note 6} Ibid., 331–332.

^{page 125 note 1} Ibid., 160.

^{page 125 note 2} Ibid., 160–161.

^{page 125 note 3} Sir Robert Filmer, ‘The Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy’ in Laslett (ed.), Patriarcha, 288.

^{page 125 note 4} Divine Right and Originall, 185–186.

^{page 125 note 5} Ibid., 172, and 185–186.

^{page 125 note 6} Ibid., 186.

^{page 126 note 1} Ibid., 186–187.

^{page 126 note 2} Parkinson (ed.), Martindale, 98–100.

^{page 126 note 3} John Dury, A Second Parcel of Objections against the taking of the Engagement Answered (1650), 82.

^{page 126 note 4} Ibid., 87.

^{page 127 note 1} Ibid., 89 and 93.

^{page 127 note 2} Halley, Lancashire, 187.

Article contents

Edward Gee and the Matter of Authority

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests