Comprehension in the Later Seventeenth Century: A Postscript

Abstract

Within the last decade, the history of the often obscure efforts made to reach some modus vivendi between the Established Church and the Protestant Nonconformists after 1662 has attracted renewed scholarly attention.1 Recent works have stressed that during the generation dividing the Stuart Restoration from the “Glorious” Revolution, proposals for both comprehension and toleration were repeatedly mooted—sometimes in combination, and at other times in opposition to one another. But it was a scheme of limited toleration which was enacted by the “Convention” Parliament of 1689, while plans for comprehension were shelved by the Houses. Thereafter, as the late Dean of Winchester put it, “Comprehension…faded out of the realm of practical politics with the Non-juror schism and the consequent inaction of Convocation in 1689.”2