University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2018 A Church Adrift: Virginia's Church Of England, 1607-1677 Katherine Gray Blank University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Blank, Katherine Gray, "A Church Adrift: Virginia's Church Of England, 1607-1677" (2018). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 333. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/333 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A CHURCH ADRIFT: VIRGINIA'S CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 1607-1677 A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History The University of Mississippi by KATHERINE GRAY BLANK MAY 2018 Copyright Katherine Gray Blank 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT The Church of England in the Virginia colony is an institution which has been much overlooked in historiography. Traditionally, historians have focused upon the weakness of the Church, with its lack of a complete hierarchy and dearth of ministers. These weaknesses, combined with some of the more unsavory attitudes and actions of early colonists, have led many scholars to postulate that religion did not play much of a role in the Virginia colony. While the early colonists did struggle, and the Church was weak, historians have overlooked the fact that most Virginians were seventeenth-century Englishmen, and inhabited a world that knew no sacred-secular divide. This lack of clear division is reflected in the manner in which Virginians shored up the weaknesses of their Church: county courts took the place of ecclesiastical courts, and the governor and congregations filled the role of archbishop. In the end, Virginians created a peculiar hybrid of a Church, one in which the Book of Common Prayer was taught and reverenced, but also one in which the vestries chose the ministers for individual congregations. This congregational Anglicanism proved a strength to Virginia's Church of England when civil war struck England and the Church was outlawed. Virginia's Church was able to continue to function because, as long as individual congregations were pleased with their ministers, that minister's job was secure, whatever theological differences he may have had with those in power. The Restoration in Virginia took only three years, too, because its Church had never ceased to function. The colony's religious weakness became its strength. ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to Kyle, in love and gratitude for his unwavering support and respect. I could not have done it without you. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe many people a debt of gratitude for their role in this dissertation. First, I offer thanks to my advisor, Dr. Jeffrey Watt, and my other committee members, Dr. Sheila Skemp, Dr. Joseph Ward, and Dr. Caroline Wigginton, for their patience and flexibility. I express deep appreciation to the librarians of Interlibrary Loan, who obtained a number of odd sources for me promptly and without complaint. I would not be in graduate school if it were not for the teaching and mentorship of Dr. George Webb, Dr. Kent Dollar, Dr. Susan Laningham, and Dr. Jeff Roberts of Tennessee Tech. I think of them every time I teach and hope to be half as good. In addition, I am grateful for my administrators and colleagues at Regents School of Oxford, who gave me a flexible schedule to accommodate my finishing this project and made me smile on difficult days. Jake Todd and Lori Bray have been especially helpful in this regard. My church family have been a wonderful blessing throughout this project's duration. I would be a poorer person if I did not have Sally Freeny, Harter Crutcher, Debra Patterson, and Janet Prather and others in my life. I am thankful for the friendship of Travis Eakin, who is always ready to pray, rant, or celebrate. I am grateful to my Blank family for their support, and for helping make this degree a reality. My own parents provided me with a good educational foundation. I do not have adequate words to acknowledge my wonderful husband, Kyle. He has been my greatest supporter, encourager, and advocate through personal difficulties and graduate difficulties. He works tirelessly to care for those around him. Finally, in unceasing praise to the One who holds it all together: Soli Deo gloria. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION................................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1..................................................................................................................................19 CHAPTER 2..................................................................................................................................49 CHAPTER 3..................................................................................................................................81 CHAPTER 4................................................................................................................................121 CHAPTER 5................................................................................................................................144 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................163 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................168 VITA............................................................................................................................................178 1 INTRODUCTION April 26, 1607: three English ships arrived in Chesapeake Bay, carrying the adventurers of what would become the first permanent English colony in North America. On May 14, these men landed at the site they christened James City (later and still today known as Jamestown). One wonders just what thoughts raced through their minds as they surveyed the unfamiliar forests surrounding them. Did they have any inkling of the trials that faced them, or any sense that the choices they would make would lead them to the brink of ruin? One thing they could not have predicted was the manner in which their stories, and the stories of their descendants, would be told and re-told by future historians and teachers, who sought to do everything from entertain students to inculcate morals to express political opinions. Often the story of Virginia is presented in the broader narrative of the founding of the United States as a whole. When that is the case, a comparison almost inevitably occurs: Massachusetts versus Virginia. Rocky, cold, sea-swept Massachusetts was a religious colony. Puritans, entire families of them, came there from England, hoping to escape the corruption of Europe and to purify the "popish" Church of England. Few would deny that this was the mission of the Massachusetts Puritans, explicitly stated by John Winthrop, William Bradford, and others. Modern historians have therefore constructed an extensive narrative on "godly" Massachusetts, 1 which they often conflate with New England as a whole.1 Virginia, meanwhile, has generated a rather different narrative. The warm, mosquito- ridden colony was founded by men interested primarily in trade. Though the charter for the colony states an interest in spreading Christianity to the Indians, in practice the Virginia immigrants did little to fulfill that stated goal. In the beginning, few showed any interest in remaining permanently in North America, and John Smith painted an ugly picture of their refusal to work at anything other than acquiring wealth. It took years to establish a stable society in Virginia – the first women did not arrive in any significant numbers until three years after the founding, and even then the swampy climate of Jamestown claimed a vast number of lives. Relations with the local Native Americans proved unstable, too, eventually erupting into the Powhatans’ wholesale massacre of Jamestown in 1622. Even to contemporaries, Virginia had a rather less-than-desirable reputation.2 1 To obtain the opinion of the Puritan elites about their mission in Massachusetts, one may simply consult such works as John Winthrop’s “City on a Hill” speech or William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation. Theologians such as the Matherses and Cottons have further left numerous sermons from which their opinions may be gauged. Historians have worked for decades to attempt to recapture exactly what the Puritan mission meant to Everyman. Fortunately for those historians, Puritans in general, elite or not, tended to write a great deal. Court proceedings, town charters, and purchasing habits have revealed still more about the belief systems of those men and women not leading the colony. Kenneth Lockridge’s A New England Town: The First Hundred Years: Dedham, Massachusetts,