Orthodox Puritans and Dissenting Bishops: The Reformation of the English Episcopate, ca. 1580–1610

Abstract

The reformed English Church retained its bishops and its episcopal hierarchy. Yet contemporary evidence reveals perceptions of EnglishThe English Reformation bequeathed the English Church a body of doctrines distinct from medieval belief, but the Church of England retained a hierarchy derived from the Medieval Church -its bishops.2 These English bishops became in some Tudor and Stuart polemical texts both the withholders of reform and the persecutors of Protestants. Protestant dissenters, both named and anonymous, aligned the authority of bishops with Popish religion, rather than reformed religion. One anonymous author from 1609 delineated the actions of Protestant bishops in "upholding of their hyerarchie", a