Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution by Scott Sowerby (review)

In recent years, Sowerby has published an important series of articles dealing with England’s efforts to advance toleration during the later seventeenth century. In Making Toleration, he has now produced a full-scale study focused upon the attempts of James II and VII (1685–1688) to promote this cause and the disastrous consequences for Britain’s Stuart monarchy. His monograph rests upon an exceptional knowledge of the sources and, in particular, an exemplary investigation of local archives: He visited no fewer than 136 repositories in the course of his research. Hence, the book has a welcome local dimension that some recent scholarship on later Stuart England has lacked, supplementing the conventional dominance of London. Clear, attractive writing and a notably effective chapter structure combine to make this a model monograph, particularly for a first book.

By April 1687, King James’ attempt to promote toleration for English Roman Catholics through co-operation with Anglicans had clearly failed. Therefore, he decided to extend the proposed toleration to Protestant nonconformists (“dissenters”) and even to Quakers and Baptists. Sowerby demonstrates how this strategy was his main preoccupation during the remaining months of his reign, adding many new touches to the established account. He demonstrates how the king, with more than a nod to the emerging “public sphere,” sponsored and assisted a group of advocates for religious freedom. His study explores how James’ desire to elect a compliant parliament in the election of 1688—which never took place—led to a large-scale campaign to drive out recalcitrant officeholders from England’s parliamentary boroughs, which controlled urban elections to the House of Commons. Thus did he manage to have 2,342 individuals evicted, affecting around 41 percent of seats.

In Sowerby’s book, James’ determination to champion the cause of toleration, and his support for the “repealers” (those who wished to remove most of the restrictions upon non-Anglicans) during the critical final phase of his reign, emerge as never before. One strength of his crisp narrative is its confirmation of the absolute centrality of religion, and the complex issues that it posed, in the Revolution of 1688.

Behind this detailed account is a clear purpose—to advance recent efforts to rehabilitate the last Stuart king. Sowerby makes a good case for the genuineness of James’ wish to promote religious toleration, much in the spirit of the early Enlightenment. However, he does not fully face the question of why James came to consider Protestants worthy of religious freedom only after his failure to free Catholics from restrictions on worship and participation in public life. Many other scholars interpret James’ inclusion of the Protestants at this point as more of a tactical move than a principled one.

Even more problematical is Sowerby’s consistent underplaying of the king’s lack of political wisdom at key points. He acknowledges it, but he does not give it sufficient emphasis. Sowerby’s evidence discovers that only around 20 percent of James’ subjects could be induced to support his program. To persist with his campaign in the face of such opposition, and with news of heightened religious tension reaching England from the continent, might have been laudable ethically, but it was also risky politically, as the events of 1688 were to demonstrate. The main obstacle to a revisionist view of James II and VII will always be the king himself.

Specialists will be grateful for Sowerby’s detailed and original account of the repealer movement and his demonstration of its important role in 1687/88, which confers genuine significance on his monograph. They will also appreciate his valuable emphasis upon the Revolution’s provincial dimension, but they are likely to regard some of his broader arguments with a degree of skepticism.