Julie Spraggon. Puritan Iconoclasm during the English Civil War. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003. xvii + 318 pp. $75.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-85115-895-2. Reviewed by R. C. Richardson Published on H-Albion (May, 2004) The destruction of images in England in the lavish edition of his journal, prepared by a dedi‐ 1640s formed a significant chapter in the long- cated team headed by Trevor Cooper, appeared in running saga of iconoclasm which came into 2001 and documented Dowsing's strident assault prominence with the Reformation. It is a subject in 1644 on parish churches as well as Cambridge which has acquired a bulky literature with no‐ University chapels and the stained glass, statuary, table recent contributions to the debate coming roof bosses, elevated and railed-off altars, organs, from Margaret Aston, Patrick Collinson, Eamon brasses, and stone crosses associated with them. Duffy, Ronald Hutton, Peter Lake, John Morrill, [1] Dowsing, an autodidact and avid reader of John Phillips, and Tessa Watt. What distinguished Long Parliament fast sermons and other inflam‐ the 1640s experience was that in that over-heated matory religious literature, emerges from these decade a minority agenda gained the upper hand. pages as an unflinching man of conscience, dedi‐ It was enacted within Protestantism chiefly cated to the task in hand, which he deemed was against recent innovations associated with the vital for men's salvation and for success in the Laudian party. And it was spearheaded by Parlia‐ cause for which he and others were fghting. Icon‐ ment. The targets of iconoclasm, too, in these oclasm in the eastern counties, though a crusade, years were more broadly defined than before. was conducted as systematically as any military Though chiefly religious in character, Civil War campaign. iconoclasm moved on to attack the images of Unsurprisingly, Spraggon's book draws on monarchy itself, especially after Charles I's execu‐ Dowsing's journal and the editors' work on it, but tion in 1649 and the creation of a republic. pushes out the investigation of the subject both Best known of all the iconoclasts of this peri‐ geographically and chronologically. It comes from od--because of the surviving records and journal-- the same publisher, is very nicely produced, and is William Dowsing, agent of the Earl of Manches‐ is part of a series devoted to viewing religious his‐ ter in the counties of the Eastern Association. A tory "in the round." Based on the author's recent H-Net Reviews University of London Ph.D. thesis, the book bears inces--and is sometimes ambiguous. She is on some of the hallmarks of its origins but the author surest ground when dealing with officially spon‐ succeeds in producing an accessible text which sored iconoclasm, with London, with the universi‐ will cater to the general reader as well as the spe‐ ties--the contrasting experience of Cambridge and cialist. The title, however, is not quite adequate Oxford is clearly drawn--and with the cathedrals. for the longer period embraced by the book. Ty‐ Well-documented assaults on key targets like pos are mercifully few--though "principle" for Cheapside Cross, Queen Henrietta Maria's chapel "principal" looks like more than that--as are er‐ in Somerset House, Archbishop Laud's chapel at rors. (Brilliana, well-known wife of Sir Robert Lambeth Palace, and Westminster Abbey are dis‐ Harley, is, unfortunately, mistaken for his daugh‐ cussed in full. Her argument and conclusions rest ter.) Capitalization is odd. The adjective "Puritan" chiefly on the accumulation of instances. The only appears in upper case throughout; "bible" and attempt at statistics relates to London. "parliament" are in lower case. Though not local history, there is micro-histo‐ Spraggon sets out to survey the nature, ex‐ ry of a kind in these pages. Case histories bring in‐ tent, and impact of 1640s iconoclasm, making dividuals briefly into focus. Pre-Civil War icono‐ clear as she goes along that there was more of it clasts like Henry Sherfield of Salisbury and John than some historians have been prepared to rec‐ Bruen from Cheshire come into prominence. ognize. There is a neat logic to the sequence of Within the framework of the 1640s, Robert chapters. Chapter 1 sets the scene by dealing with Harley; radicals like Henry Clark and Samuel Chi‐ the Reformation and later "pre-history" of the dley; Michael Herring; zealous churchwarden of subject. Arguments for reform by Milton and St. Mary Woolchurch, London, William Springett; many more outlined in the early 1640s literature and the Kentish minister Richard Culmer are are then rehearsed. The formulation of official brought to life. William Dowsing here, as in the policy is then detailed, followed by chapters ex‐ recent edition of his journal, is almost larger than amining its enforcement and local response. Lon‐ life. So are some of the moderates of the time-- don, the cathedrals, and the universities each get men like John Bond, Master of the Savoy in Lon‐ chapters to themselves. The work of the Harley don, and Colonel Anthony Martyn, who barred Committee, set up by Parliament, is carefully in‐ the doors of Ewelme church in Oxfordshire to vestigated. Local initiatives and the spontaneous, save its brasses. The complex attitudes of Oliver brutal iconoclastic activities of soldiers come un‐ Cromwell, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and Colonel John der scrutiny. Examples are drawn from the whole Hutchinson to the iconoclasm going on around country, but the bulk of the evidence used by them are carefully rehearsed. (Not a few of Spraggon hails from fve counties--Berkshire, Charles I's religious paintings ended up in Hampshire, Kent, Northamptonshire, and Oxford‐ Cromwell's possession, as did the ejected organ shire--and from eight cathedral towns--Canter‐ from Exeter Cathedral.) bury (hated epicenter of the Laudian regime), Ex‐ The white heat of puritan iconoclasm came in eter, Gloucester, Norwich, Peterborough, Win‐ the early 1640s, as Spraggon makes clear. There‐ chester, Worcester, and York. Self-evidently this is after, there was a cooling off, not least in popular not, nor could it be, a work of genuinely local his‐ support from a war-weary population. Much im‐ tory and, as a result, Spraggon is often unable to agery was destroyed and some cathedrals were firmly situate the instances of iconoclasm she dis‐ wantonly vandalized; battered Lichfield is the cusses within the specific contexts which generat‐ prime example. That much is clear. But that such ed them. The available evidence, of course, is a great deal survived must be explained by suc‐ patchy and incomplete--especially for the prov‐ 2 H-Net Reviews cessful attempts to hide things away from the gaze and destructive weapons of the intruders. No cathedral, despite the hostile railings of men like Chidley to get rid of all of them, was wholly de‐ stroyed. Some, indeed, like Exeter, were adapted to suit the new purposes of the puritan godly. And the surviving stained glass in university college chapel windows speaks volumes about the con‐ temporary will to conceal and protect them. An‐ glicanism in the last analysis, as many historians have come to recognize, proved indestructible in the English Revolution and its survival often ap‐ pears to have been actively connived at. Note [1]. Trevor Cooper, ed., The Journal of William Dowsing: Iconoclasm in East Anglia dur‐ ing the English Civil War (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001). Reviewed by R. C. Richardson for H-Albion, http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi? path=155781029098566. [Editor's note.] If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-albion Citation: R. C. Richardson. Review of Spraggon, Julie. Puritan Iconoclasm during the English Civil War. H- Albion, H-Net Reviews. May, 2004. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9335 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3.