devoted special attention, and all working in correspondence through the medium of an editor or editors, whose business it should be to guard against errors, contradictions, overlapping, and repetition; but, consistency and continuity being so far secured, each writer should have as free a hand as possible. Such is the plan upon which the present history has been projected. It is proposed to carry it on far enough to include at least the Evangelical Movement in the eighteenth century. The whole work will consist of seven1crown octavo books uniform in outward appearance, but necessarily varying somewhat in length and price. Each book can be bought separately, and will have its own index, together with any tables or maps that may be required. I am thankful to have secured as my co-editor a scholar who is eminently qualified by the remarkable extent and accuracy of his knowledge to render me assistance, without which, amidst the pressure of many other duties, I could scarcely have ventured upon a work of this magnitude. THE DEANERY, WINCHESTER, 20th July 1899. W. R. W. STEPHENS. 1 An eighth volume dealing with "The English Church in the Nineteenth Century" has since been added. According to present arrangements the work will be distributed amongst the following writers : I. The English Church from its Foundation to the Norman Ready. III. The English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. by the Rev. W. W. Capes, M.A., late Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. Ready. IV. The English Church in the Sixteenth Century from the Accession of Henry VIII. to the Death of Mary, by James Gairdner, C.B., Hon. LL.D., Edinburgh. Ready. V. The English Church in the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I., by the Rev. W. H. Frere, M.A. In the Press. VI. The English Church from the Accession of Charles I. to the Death of Anne, by the Rev. William Holden Hutton, B.D., Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. Ready. VII. The English Church from the Death of Anne to the Close of the Eighteenth Century, by the Rev. Canon Overton, D.D., and the Rev. Frederic Relton. In preparation. VIII. The English Church in the Nineteeth Century, by F. W. Cornish, M.A., Vice-Provost of Eton College. In preparation. PREFACE THE writer of this book is conscious of the many defects which must needs occur in such an attempt to describe in any detail, and yet in a brief space, so important and critical a period in the history of the English Church; but to avoid misconception he begs that it may be observed that he has studiously restricted his work to the defined limits of the series of which it forms part. He has not written of the history, extremely important though it is during the years here dealt with, of other religious bodies: the history of the historical Church in England, with its continuity of ministry and doctrine, has alone been directly considered. Such a restriction the author believes to have been absolutely necessary in order to present at all truly the history of the English Church as the English Church saw it. And for a similar reason this book has not dealt with Ireland or Scotland, closely though they were connected with England. Nor is it a history of literature, or philosophy, or theology, or music, in relation to the Church. No one can feel more deeply than the author both his indebtedness to the work of the great historian of the early Stewarts who has recently passed away, and the difficulty of presenting at all an original treatment of a period which has in its earlier years been so fully covered by Dr. Gardiner, and in its later has been treated by Dr. Overton, Dr. Stoughton, and others. That he has omitted much that they have told so well, and that he has tried at different points of the history |