'Constant in his duty towards the Church and the King': Robert Nelson's 'Life of Dr. George Bull'

I do declare and promise, that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords.

This was The Engagement, the oath of allegiance required by the Parliamentarian authorities after the execution of the Royal Martyr in January 1649. In his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull, Robert Nelson provides an account of the young Bull - then an undergraduate in Exeter College, Oxford - refusing to take The Engagement:

Mr. Bull had not been admitted two in Exeter College before the Engagement was imposed upon the Nation by a pretended Act of Parliament, which passed in January, 1649. The Kingly Office being abolished upon the Murder of an excellent Prince, it was declared, that for the time to come England should be governed as a Commonwealth by Parliament; that was, by that handful of Men who by their Art and Power, and Villainy, had wrought that wonderful Alteration. And that they might secure their new Government, and have some Obligations of Obedience from their Subjects for the future, who had broken all the former Oaths which they had taken, as is observed by a noble Author, this new Oath was prepared and established; the Form whereof was that every Man should swear, That he would be true and faithful to the Common wealth of England, as it was then Established, without a King or House of Lords. And whosoever refused to take that Engagement, was to be incapable of holding any Place or Office in Church or State; and they who had no Employments to lose, were to be deprived of the Benefit of the Law, and disabled from suing in any Court. There was great Zeal shewn in several Places to procure this Acknowledgment and Submission from the People to this New Government; particularly all the Members of the University were summoned to appear, and solemnly to own the Right and Title of the Commonwealth to their Allegiance. Our young Student appeared upon this Occasion, and signalized himself by refusing to take the Oath. The several Hypotheses that were then started to make Men easy under a Change of Government, which was directly contrary to the National Constitution, could not prevail upon him to comply. Neither the Argument of Providence, nor present Possession, nor the Advantages of Protection, which were all pleaded in those Times, were strong enough to influence a Mind that was early determined to be constant in his Duty towards the Church and the King.

Bull's experience is a vivid reminder of how the trials of the Interregnum profoundly shaped the experience of the Church of England for decades after 1660 and why "duty towards the Church and the King" was integral to Anglicanism through the 'long 18th century'. This was not - as is portrayed in the now entirely discredited but still oft-repeated Old Hat account of 18th century Anglicanism - a commitment arising from either mere self-interest or a casual prejudice in favour of the established order. Instead, it flowed from the bitter, devastating experience of both Church and Realm during the Interregnum, and from the memory of those episcopalian clergy and laity who, like Bull, refused The Engagement. This "duty towards the Church and the King", which the young Bull demonstrated at Oxford, was an Anglican vision of a rightly ordered and peaceable Church and Realm, against the bitter memory of the confusions and disorders of the dark, troubled 1650s.