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This chapter stresses the importance of Edwards’s Gangraena in the mobilization of zealous Presbyterian campaigns against Parliament’s proposals for church government in 1646-7. It looks especially at Edwards’s links to London petitioning campaigns, to attempts in the city to defend the Solemn League and Covenant, and to the struggles over the Presbyterian City Remonstrance of May 1646. His most important connections with the Westminster Assembly, the Common Council, and the Scots are discussed. The importance of John Goodwin’s congregation to the struggle for religious liberty is stressed, along with the role of the New Model Army and the city radicals highlighted in Part Three of Gangraena. Edwards here attacked the men who were soon to become identified as leaders of the Levellers. The Army’s occupation of London in August 1647 prompted Edwards’s flight to Amsterdam. Finally, the Presbyterian contribution to the parliamentarian public sphere is evaluated.

In the late 1930s, many individuals and organizations argued that a defining feature of American life was the ability of people of diverse origins to live together harmoniously. Such assessments were both descriptive and prescriptive. Despite the nation’s long history of intolerance, when compared to the rest of the world the U.S. looked to many observers like a cosmopolitan haven. At the same time, many of those who hailed American pluralism did so to shore up tolerance and prevent the U.S. from succumbing to the hatreds ravaging other lands. Thus, nearly all of those who lauded America’s pluralist makeup also emphasized an ideological consensus that made other forms of pluralism possible. The bulk of this chapter explores the different versions of pluralism and consensus offered by Louis Adamic and the Common Council for American Unity, the interfaith movement spearheaded by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Margaret Mead and other intellectuals concerned with cementing national morale, and Gunnar and Alva Myrdal.

This chapter demonstrates how Edwards’s place as a lecturer in Christ Church, in the heart of revolutionary London, enabled him to produce Gangraena. His links with London Presbyterian clergy, with the Westminster Assembly, the London Common Council, and the Stationers’ Company brought him oral evidence, letters, and other manuscript sources. The accuracy of Edwards’s picture of religious divisions in London and in the provinces (particularly Kent and Essex), and his description of the New Model Army are assessed by comparing his version with that in other sources.

The Atlantic oligarchy reacted in a coordinated way to the upheavals which engulfed Scotland, Ireland and finally England, 1638–42. It made the financial arrangements that ended the Bishops’ Wars while securing the calling of the Long Parliament and then took the lead in reinforcing Protestant Ireland following the outbreak of the 1641 revolt. The colonial merchants emerged as a powerful force in London politics at the outbreak of the city’s rebellion against Charles I in January 1642. The central argument of this chapter is that the merchant networks that supported parliament’s opposition to the king were not operating independently, but were contractors to or under the patronage of specific peers. The key role of colonial sponsors and returned migrants from the colonies in the upheavals of the winter of 1641–42 is made clear. Alliances forged in the Atlantic world between 1620 and 1640 finally coalesced as a pivotal political and military force at the forefront of parliament’s ousting of Charles I from London in January 1642.

This chapter discusses the close association of Catholics with fire and the firing of cities. It looks particularly at the resonant memory of the 1666 Great Fire. The chapter considers the Monument that was erected to commemorate this disaster, and also studies the controversial inscriptions that were added to its base by London's Common Council in 1681.

Chapter 3 demonstrates for the first time that the Adventure for Irish land, a suggestion of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork, was instigated and funded by the small circle of radical peers, politicians and merchants at the heart of the rebellion against Charles I. The core purpose of the Adventure was political and the participants’ interest in Irish land appears incidental and opportunistic. Much of the money raised was only contributed after it became apparent in July 1642 that the funds would be used to finance parliament’s forces in England. Most of the resources raised for the Adventure to Ireland were transferred to the parliamentary cause during the summer of 1642. A key argument in this chapter is that parliament prepared for war in England under the cover of its response to the rebellion in Ireland and was encouraged by the peers and merchants central to the Irish Adventure.

This chapter examines in detail the various courts or assemblies where the business of governing the city was undertaken. The courts ranged from meetings of householders in the twenty-four wards, to the Folkmoot assembly of all citizens and the court of Husting where property disputes were heard. The development of the work of the Court of Aldermen and the Court of Common Council as the City's main deliberative (and representative) assemblies is also analysed.