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This chapter examines John Toland's collaboration with elite Whig politicians as a leading defender of Protestant liberty, activities which resulted in the vindication of the legitimacy of the Hanoverian succession under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701. A key problem for Toland and other republicans in the 1700s was the dynastic insecurity of the platform for their vision of politics, because the principles espoused in his Anglia libera were dependent upon the successful coronation of Sophia or George rather than the restoration of James.

Letters to and from prominent Dissenting leaders and their political allies such as Cotton Mather and Benjamin Colman in New England, Archibald Stobo in South Carolina, and Robert Hunter in New York make it abundantly clear that the High-Church Tory ascendency during the final years of Queen Anne’s reign was a fraught period for religious Dissenters living throughout Britain’s Atlantic empire. While Tories were implementing policies designed to inhibit the influence of Dissent, a transatlantic Tory political culture was becoming far more antagonistic to the Hanoverian Succession and was increasingly associated with Jacobitism. Consequently, anti-Jacobitism became a pillar of the transatlantic Dissenting and Whig political and print culture.

This introductory chapter explores the historiography of the Hanoverian Succession and the centrality of Protestant Dissent in the party politics of the British Atlantic World in the early eighteenth century during the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. It argues that, taken together, the essays in the book represent a significant addition to scholarship on the topics of the Hanoverian Succession, party politics, and popular religion in the early eighteenth century. The combination of the volume’s tight focus on Protestant Dissent and nonconformity, and the sweeping geographic range covered by its contributors ensures that it will stand out as an authoritative addition to the scholarship of the early eighteenth century.

This chapter examines the politics of Scottish Presbyterianism in the years surrounding George I’s accession. After assessing the fortunes of the Scottish Episcopalians, the chapter analyses the tensions among Presbyterians within, and on the fringes of, the established Church of Scotland. It first reconstructs the critique of the establishment articulated by the Hebronites and United Societies, Presbyterian groups that advocated partial or complete withdrawal from the Church. The chapter then shows how the controversy over the oath of abjuration, imposed on clergy in 1712, prompted the separation from the Church of two ministers in the Dumfries area. The ministers made a coherent case for separation and propagated a Presbyterian critique of the Hanoverian succession. Moreover, they set a precedent for future secessions from the Church of Scotland. The catastrophe of the Jacobite rising in 1715 weakened the Episcopalian cause, and thereafter Presbyterian Dissent became the main motor driving the further fragmentation of Scottish Protestantism.

The gulf in values and beliefs between Tories and Dissenters on the death of Queen Anne in 1714 stood wider than it had done at any point since the Revolution of 1688–9. This essay looks for any signs and symbols of accommodation between the Tories and the Dissenters in the reign of George I (and, per contra, for evidence of enduring hostilities) and poses the underlying question: how far did these two sides remain un-reconciled throughout the reign? It suggests grounds for arguing that the gap between them narrowed as the Hanoverian Succession bedded in: more moderate Tories and Dissenters moved into the religio-political mainstream as the Whigs consolidated their hold on power, their numbers declined, and issues such as toleration that had mattered so much in the 1700s and 1710s became less pressing and receded in public importance.

The era of the Hanoverian Succession was a period of rapid demographic change in Ireland. The arrival of 90,000 Scots pushed the extent of Presbyterian influence in Ulster well beyond its heartland in the northeast. This stoked concerns within the Church of Ireland of a possible Presbyterian coup like the one that befallen the Scottish Church in 1690. The fear of expansionist Dissent faded in the years after the death of Queen Anne when Irish Presbyterians began sailing en masse to the American Colonies. Irish Presbyterians were quick to capitalize on Ascendency concerns regarding perceived Protestant decline in their efforts to repeal the Test Act of 1704. This essay examines the changing debate over Dissenter demography in the works of William Tisdall and Jonathan Swift. It argues that Protestant anxieties regarding fluctuations in Dissenting numbers influenced the larger political debates in early eighteenth-century Ireland.

In 1660–88, Protestant Dissenters had been stigmatized as naturally rebellious and regicidal. However, from 1689–1716, they reshaped their image and became something of a ‘model minority’ in terms of their producing a number of loyalist political sermons in favour of George I far out of proportion to their actual percentage of the Christian population of England. How did they attempt to effect a change in public attitudes towards them, altering their reputation from radical fringe element to model minority? This essay uses James J. Caudle’s database/bibliography of the political sermons of 1714–17 in order to analyse patterns in the geography of Dissenter communities and publishing houses.

The sixth chapter traces the beginning of the Whig alliance. The Whigs are now prepared to offer constructive help in return for a share of government. This includes furthering the Union with Scotland (the Scots pass the necessary legislation with the Duke of Argyll as commissioner), support in Parliament and the City for the Grand Alliance, the Hanoverian succession, and the war, despite Marlborough’s disappointing campaign in Germany and Flanders. With the Tories now hostile, Godolphin accepts their help, believing he can control them, and Sarah supports him, though the queen and Harley are unconvinced and Marlborough keeps his distance, again spending much of the winter at the German courts. When he brings the Duke of Shrewsbury back with him to help Godolphin, the Whigs will not accept him and Godolphin has to continue the ministry alone.

The final chapter shows how the partnership continues until Godolphin’s death. When Godolphin realizes that Harley (now Earl of Oxford) has begun a secret peace treaty separately from the Allies, he leads the opposition. Marlborough at first hopes that he will be able to remain neutral, but at Godolphin’s persuasion he joins in publicly, is dismissed, vilified in a press campaign led by Swift, and threatened with prosecution and even assassination. When Godolphin dies in 1712 Marlborough goes abroad. His ostensible aim, a coup by the Allies to overturn Oxford’s ministry, forestall the peace of Utrecht, and secure the Hanoverian succession, fails. But the queen becomes disillusioned with Oxford and Bolingbroke, regrets parting with Godolphin, and encourages Marlborough to return, although she dies before he can land in England. Marlborough is reinstated by George I, and Robert Walpole inherits Godolphin’s role, with Marlborough’s great fortune an asset for government borrowing.