TY - BOOK ID - 86027149 TI - Scandal and religious identity in early Stuart England : a Northamptonshire maid's tragedy AU - Lake, Peter AU - Stephens, Isaac PY - 2015 SN - 1782044973 1783270144 PB - Woodbridge : Boydell Press, DB - UniCat KW - Religion and politics KW - Sexual misconduct by clergy KW - Puritans KW - History KW - Political activity KW - Precisians KW - Church polity KW - Congregationalism KW - Puritan movements KW - Calvinism KW - Clergy KW - Clergy sexual misconduct KW - Political science KW - Politics, Practical KW - Politics and religion KW - Religion KW - Religions KW - Sexual misconduct KW - Sexual behavior KW - Religious aspects KW - Political aspects KW - Church of England KW - England KW - Anglican Church KW - Anglikanskai︠a︡ t︠s︡erkovʹ KW - Ecclesia Anglicana KW - Kirche von England KW - United Church of England and Ireland KW - Anti-Calvinists. KW - Devil. KW - Early modern England. KW - English Civil War. KW - Holy Spirit. KW - Infanticide. KW - Isaac Stephens. KW - John Barker. KW - Manuscript. KW - Northampton. KW - Peter Lake. KW - Private letters. KW - Puritan minister. KW - Puritans. KW - Religious tensions. KW - Religious world. KW - Scribal publications. KW - Stuart period. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:86027149 AB - This book starts with an extraordinary event and document. The event is the trial and execution for infanticide of a puritan minister, John Barker, along with his wife's niece and their maid, in Northampton in 1637; the document, what appears to be a virtual transcript of Barker's last speech on the gallows. His downfall soon became polemical fodder in scribal publications, with Puritans circulating defences of Barker and anti-Calvinists producing a Laudian condemnation of the minister. Scandal and Religious Identity in Early Stuart England uses Barker's crime and fate as a window on the religious world of early modern England. It is based upon an extraordinary deposit of manuscript and printed sources, all produced between 1637 and 1640 by people living in close proximityto one another and all of whom knew one another, either as friends or more often as enemies. Marshalling evidence from public polemical sources and from almost entirely private ones - a diary, private letters and a spiritual autobiography - the book is able to examine the same events and persons, and beliefs and practices, from multiple perspectives: the micro and the macro, the personal and thepolitical, and the affective and the doctrinal. Throughout, we meet a range of very different people putting various bodies of religious theory into practice, connecting the most local and particularof events and rivalries to the great issues of the day and responding, in certain cases, to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the temptations of the devil. This approach enables a whole series of generalisations to be explored: about the relation between politics and religion, devotion and polemic, puritans and their enemies, local and national affairs; between rumour, manuscript and print; and, finally, about gender hierarchy and the social roles of men and women. The result is an extraordinarily detailed and intimate portrait of the religio-political scene in an English county on the eve of civil war. PETER LAKE is Distinguished University Professor of early modern English history at Vanderbilt. He is the author of several studies of English religion, culture and politics in the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods. ISAAC STEPHENS is Assistant Professor of History at Saginaw Valley State University and has published on early modern marriage, religion, and life-writing. ER -