"Enthusiasm had its downfall": a 1722 Oak Apple Day sermon
The 1722 Restoration Day sermon preached in St Paul's Cathedral, London, by Joseph Watson - then rector of one of Wren's churches in the City of London, St. Stephen Walbrook - provides an excellent example of how 29th May was celebrated by 18th century Anglicanism as a restoration of both constitutional and ecclesiastical order. (The reredos of St. Stephen Walbrook - pictured - provides a fine example of Restoration Anglicanism.) The deliverance from the rule of the Protectorate, "a Government founded in violence", was a cause for gratitude: We were freed then this Day from Rapine, Plunder, Bloodshed and Oppression of all Kinds, with which we had long been harass'd , the natural Effects of Liberty and Property unguarded: As this also was, and ever will be, the Effect of a Government founded in Violence; the same Measures being always necessary to supports such Governments which at first erected them. The bitter experience of that rule, however, was the conseque
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