Enthusiasts, Puritans and Politics: David Hume's History of England
Enthusiasts, Puritans and Politics: David Hume's History of England
This chapter turns away from Dissenting histories to David Hume's History of England (1754–63) and its hostile account of the role of the Puritans in England's seventeenth-century crisis. Histories and memories of the seventeenth century, and in particular of the wickedness of Puritan fanatics, were reproduced by the most powerful cultural institution of Hanoverian England: the Church of England. The chapter goes on to consider ways in which the Church, with the imprimatur of the State, diffused a particular version of the seventeenth century to a wider population. There are convergences between this ‘official’ perspective and that of Hume's History of England. Both contribute to a political narrative of the nation in which the Puritan tradition is dismissed as pathological or anathematised as subversive.
Keywords: David Hume, History of England, Church of England, Puritan fanatics, political narrative
Edinburgh Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
