A mnemonic is a device, usually a short word, phrase, poem or song, which helps you remember something more complicated. When I was a little girl, my mother often used to sing an English folk song about the “Vicar of Bray”. I couldn’t possibly have understood the satire, or the historical references it contained at the time, but it had a catchy tune, so I remembered it. It is however a really good mnemonic for the religious disagreements in England during the 17^th and 18^th centuries, which form an interesting part of British history. How I wish that I had had something similar for the Acts of Parliament in the 18th and 19th centuries, when I was doing my GCSE history!

“The Vicar of Bray“

In good King Charlie’s golden days, when loyalty no harm meant
A zealous High-Church man was I, and so I got preferment
To teach my flock I never missed kings are by God appointed
And woe to him who dare resist or touch the Lord’s anointed
And this is the law I shall maintain until my dying day, sir,
That whatsoever king shall reign, I’ll be the Vicar of Brae, sir

When royal James obtained the Crown and Popery came in fashion
The Penal Laws I hooted down, and read the Declaration
The Church of Rome I found would fit full well my constitution
And I had become a Jesuit but for the Revolution
  And this is the law etc.

When William was our king declared, to ease the nation’s grievance
With this new wind about I steered and swore to him allegiance
Old principles I did revoke, set conscience at a distance
Passive Obedience was a joke, a jest was Non-resistance
  And this is the law etc.

When Royal Anne became our queen, the Church of England’s glory
Another face of things was seen and I became a Tory
Occasional Conformers base, I blamed their moderation
And thought the church in danger was from such prevarication
And this is the law etc.

(5) When George in Pudding-time came o’er and moderate men looked big, sir
I turned a cat-in-the-pan once more, and I became a Whig, sir
And thus preferment I obtained from our new faith’s defender
And almost every day abjured the Pope and the Pretender
  And this is the law etc.

The illustrious House of Hanover and Protestant Succession
To these I do allegiance swear – while they do keep possession
For in my faith and loyalty I never more will falter
And George my lawful king shall be, until the times do alter
  And this is the law etc.

The Background

During the medieval period, the Christian church everywhere in western Europe was Roman Catholic, headed by the Pope in Rome, who had a great deal of political power as well as religious authority. In the 16^th century, reforming movements arose in many of these countries, usually based on the teachings of Luther or Calvin. Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) changed from being a devout Catholic to rejecting Catholicism and the Pope’s authority, in order to divorce his first wife. He was the king and all his subjects had to do the same – or else! His daughter Mary I (1553 – 1558), however, remained a particularly devout Catholic. When she came to the throne, she reversed her father’s reforms and everybody had to go back to being a Catholic – or else! Her efforts to impose her own religious views included burning a number of people alive in public. This deeply shocked many of her citizens, even though they were quite accustomed to public hanging and quartering (don’t ask), etc, as forms of entertainment. The memory of the ‘Fires of Smithfield’ lingered long in the public mind.

On the other hand, Protestant Dissenters, or Non-conformists, who refused to conform to the practices of the Church of England, acquired a bad name during the 11 years of the Commonwealth, when Britain was a republic. They became associated with civil war, getting rid of kings and bishops, denying general respect for your ‘betters’, and the beheading of the king himself in 1649. Needless to say, this was not popular with the authorities after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.

The song ‘The Vicar of Bray’ commemorates in satirical form the changes in the law relating to religious worship, as the monarch and Parliament veered from one side to the other during the next few hundred years .

“Good King Charlie” – King Charles II  1660 – 1686

Charles II came to the throne of England in 1660. The Puritans and other low-Church religious groups who existed under the Commonwealth tended to be a joyless lot, banning the sinful pleasures of plays, celebration of Christmas, etc. Charles, who had spent years as a penniless exile, enjoyed the pleasures available to a king very much indeed, so that he was nicknamed the “Merry Monarch”. Most of his subjects were also glad to be allowed some cheerful relaxation. However, life was less pleasant for anyone who wasn't Church of England. Refusal to conform to the established Church, of which the monarch was head, was taken as a threat to the state, and punished severely.

“High Church” meant being similar to the Catholic church in favouring ceremony and hierarchy within the church. The High Church party supported the principle of the Divine Right of Kings, the importance of the sacraments, compulsory use of the Book of Common Prayer at all religious services, and a church governed by bishops. However, they also denied the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation.  The Clarendon Code was a group of four acts of parliament passed between 1661 and 1665, which aimed to prevent dissenting groups such as Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists or Quakers from holding public office, running local schools, or graduating at Oxford and Cambridge universities. One of these, the Conventicle Act (1664) even made it illegal for non-conformists to hold their own religious services, as it forbade gatherings of more than five people who were not members of the same household, even in a private house.

Preferment meant being given a position within the church of England

James II  1685-1688

Charles II died without legitimate children, although he had plenty of illegitimate ones (he was a very Merry Monarch). He was therefore succeeded by his younger brother James, Duke of York. Charles had had the good sense not to admit to being a Catholic until he was on his deathbed. James declared himself a Catholic, married a Catholic princess as his second wife, and expressed an intention to make England a Catholic country again as soon as possible. This went down very badly.

The Penal laws, which included the Clarendon Code (see above), were a series of laws intended to enforce religious worship according to the Church of England, and, after the Union of the Crowns, the Church of Scotland. James II suspended them by proclamation in 1687.

The Declaration: the Declaration of Indulgence or Declaration of Liberty of Conscience 1687, allowed people to worship as they pleased and removed the necessity for swearing an oath of allegiance, or an oath rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation before assuming public office. In fact, there were four Declarations of Indulgence: two of them, under Charles II, were defeated by Parliament/the House of Lords. The 1687 act, and a fourth act of James II reinforcing it became law, but were unpopular with many of the powerful figures of the day.

Jesuits: the Jesuits or the Society of Jesus, are a male religious order within the Catholic church, founded in 1540 by St Ignatius Loyola.

William III a.k.a. William of Orange, (1689 – 1694 with Mary II; 1694 – 1702 by himself)

James’ queen gave birth to a son in 1688, who was baptised a Catholic. Unable to stand the prospect of an indefinite line of Catholic monarchs, all bent on making England Catholic again, James was deposed in a coup, known as the ‘Glorious Revolution’, and forced into exile with his family. His daughters Mary and Anne, by his Protestant first wife Anne Hyde, had been educated as Protestants on the instructions of their uncle, Charles II. Mary, the elder, was married to the Protestant Prince of Orange, ruler or ‘Stadtholder’ of the Dutch Republic. William and Mary were invited to take over the throne of England. Not everyone in the country agreed with this, but the majority accepted it. Mary died of smallpox in 1694, after which William ruled alone until his death in 1702. In 1701, the Act of Settlement was passed, which among other things, forbade anyone who was a Catholic or married to a Catholic to succeed to the throne.

Passive Obedience and Non-resistance: this was the doctrine that subjects should never refuse to obey the sovereign, even if his commands were unjust or contrary to the laws of God (there might be some argument as to who was the lawful sovereign at this point).  If they did disobey, on those grounds, they should accept punishment without resistance.

Queen Anne 1702 – 1714 (Queen of England from 1702 – 1707; Queen of Britain 1707 – 1714)

England and Scotland became united to form Great Britain in 1707. Until then they had been separate countries ruled by the same monarch. Anne was the younger of James’ two Protestant daughters. She became queen after William and Mary died without children. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, two political groups arose, the Tories and the Whigs. The Tories were the party of the smaller landowners and squires, and were particular supporters of the Church of England. Queen Anne was a strong supporter of the Church of England, and of the Tory party as the defender of the church. She initiated ‘Queen Anne’s Bounty’, a scheme to increase the stipends of the poorer clergy.

Occasional Conformists: were Dissenters who took the Anglican Communion once a year, while attending services at their own churches the rest of the time, so as to bypass the various acts which excluded non-Conformists from public office. The Tories tried to stop the practice and weaken their political opponents by passing the Occasional Conformity Act 1711. When the Whigs came to power, they repealed the act (1719). Interestingly, Queen Anne’s husband, Prince George of Denmark, was an ‘occasional conformist’ as he was a Lutheran, although he died in 1708 before the act was passed.

George I (1714 – 1727)

Queen Anne famously had 17 children, but none survived. When it became clear that she would not leave a direct heir, Parliament had to look around for a new Protestant monarch. This was difficult because her closest relatives were all Catholics. The closest suitable relative was George, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg and Prince-Elector of Hanover, a small state in northern Germany, hence ‘The Illustrious House of Hanover’. An ‘Elector’ meant that he was one of the princes involved in electing the Holy Roman Emperor. He was the great-grandson of King James I & VI and came to the British throne as George I. The Whigs came mostly from the aristocracy and major landowners, and from trade and industry. They were the initiators of the Glorious Revolution, and the Bill of Rights (1689), which limited the power of the monarch.  They supported the Hanoverian Succession and the exclusion of Catholics from the monarchy, but were in favour of religious toleration for Protestant non-conformists. From 1714 to 1783 the Whigs were in power almost continuously, a period often referred to as the ‘Whig oligarchy’

Pudding-time: meant the time at which pudding was served in a meal, and by extension, just at the right time, at a lucky moment.

Cat-in-the-pan: to turn cat-in-the-pan meant to switch quickly to the opposite side.

Defender of the Faith: a title originally given to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X for writing a book defending the Catholic faith against Martin Luther’s criticisms. When Henry turned Protestant, the Pope removed the title, but Parliament gave it back to him in 1546, as protector and ‘supreme governor’ of the Church of England.

The Pretender: the Old Pretender was James II’s son, James Francis Edward Stuart; the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart or ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, was the Old Pretender’s son. They both ‘pretended to’ or claimed the throne.

The House of Hanover: the rulers of the small state of Hanover in northern Germany. They were Queen Anne’s nearest Protestant relations.

This song is an excellent mnemonic for the religious aspects of this part of the history of England. But it also provides a very good illustration of what can happen when a particular form of religious worship becomes identified with loyalty to the state and the head of state. It is much safer for everyone if religion and state are kept as separate as possible. People should be free to worship as their conscience leads them, without being considered automatically subversive because they do not worship in a particular way.

The Penguin Dictionary of British History  ed. Juliet Gardiner 2000
Oxford Dictionary of British History (revised edition) ed. John Cannon