A catalogue of the several sects and opinions in England (Part 2)

Continuing the pictures from the broadsheet from 1646/7, Here are three more.

 

The Arminian. Arminiansim was founded in the Low Countries and was based on the belief that every man had the free will to achieve his own salvation, and that it wasn’t predestined which way you would go after death as a lot of Independants believed. This chap is clothed in a gown over his clerical cassock (note the waist tie) with a wide brimmed hat and a ruff.

 

 

 

Would any comfortlesse both live and die?
Let him learne free wills great uncertaintie:
Salvation that doth unmov’d remaine,
Arminian Logick would most maintaine,
And faith that’s founded on a firme decree,
Is plac’t by them to cause uncertaintie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Arian. Arianism was an ancient belief that had been recently resurrected and concerned the relationship between God the Father and Jesus. A tricky one to explain, but indicative of the confusion of the times that some people were going back to the early days of Christianity for their beliefs. This chap is wearing a smart, short (or jump) coat over his doublet, a narrow brimmed hat and falling band.

 

What they dare to deny, Christians know,
Christ God and Man, from whom their comforts flow,
‘Tis sad, that Christians dive by speculation,
Whereby they loose more sweeter contemplation:
Where Christian practice acts the life of grace,
There’s sweet content to run in such a race.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Adamite. As the name would suggest, these people wanted to go right back to the Garden of Eden, and professed to have regained the innocence of Adam by taking their clothes off. It was another throwback to the early days of Christianity and predated the 1960s by a considerable margin. Sadly there are no costume details here. This chap is wearing nothing but a smile.

 

Hath Adams sin procur’d his naked shame,
With leaves at first that thought to hide his staine?
Then let not Adamites in secret dare
Aparent sinfull acts to spread; but feare,
Since Adams sin hath so defil’d poore dust,
Cast from this Paradise by wicked lust.

See Heer Malignants Foolerie

retorted on them properly. Satirical pamphlet from 1642 showing Archbishop Laud as a closet catholic. There are three figures shown in the picture increasing in their obvious Catholicism as you look from left to right.  As the title says:

The Sound-Head, Round-Head, Rattle-Head, well plac’d where best is merited

The left hand figure is an independant cleric, dressed in his gown over a doublet with some nice long buttons, a wide brimmed hat and a ruff.

The text underneath reads:

This foolish world is full of foul mistakes

Calls virtue, vice, & Goodnes, Badnes makes

The Orthodox, Sound and Religious Man

Atheists call Round-Head (late) a Puritan

Because Hee (roundly) Rattle-Heads, Truth’s foes

Plainly depaints, As this next figure showes

The next figure in the centre on one side represents Archbishop Laud in his bishop’s rochet (the bishop’s surplice), chimere (the black gown) and square cap, and on the right a catholic priest in cassock and biretta. It’s thought that he is supposed to be Robert Philips who was the Queen’s confessor who had been locked in the Tower for refusing to swear on a “heretical” English bible.

This time the text reads:

See heer, the Rattle-Head’s most Rotten-Heart,

Acting the Atheists or Arminians part;

Under One Cater-cap a Ianus-face,

Rejecting Truth a Crucifixe t’embrace

Thus Linsey-Wolsie, Priestly-Prelates vile,

With Romish-rubbish did men’s Soules beguile

At the bottom, the details of the shoes are nice too. The puritan has the widest side openings though.

Richard Sibbes

The independant cleric engraved posthumously in 1635 for a publication of some of his sermons catchily entitled “Bowels Opened or A  Discovery of the Neere and deere Love, Union and Communion betwixt Christ and the Church, and consequently betwixt Him and every beleeving soule.” His objection to the surplice, signing the cross in baptism and kneeling in church puts him firmly in the puritan category, but he stayed resolutely within the established church, something I suspect might not have proved possible had he lived to see the civil war.

Sibbes is wearing a gown over what is probably a cassock with an elaborate collar ruff and a black day cap edged with lace, perhaps showing his tendencies in his dress, the austere preaching gown for the independents and the lace edging for the established church, though the canons prescribing outdoor wear for clergy specified plain caps only!

Richard Bernard

Engraved by Hollar on the front of his book Thesaurus Biblicus, a concordance of the Bible, published after he had died in 1644. Bernard was a moderate Church of England priest. Although in early life he had rejected the surplice, he returned to the church and wrote many books in support of the establishment. Bernard is wearing a clerical gown over a cassock, a small standing collar and a black day cap. Picture © Trustees of the British Museum

Algernon Sidney

Known chiefly as a political writer Algernon was also Colonel in the Earl of Manchester’s horse and charged at Marston Moor with “much gallantry”, coming away so wounded that he was taken back to London to recover. In this picture he wears a neat falling band and cuffs, although the artist has painted different styles on each arm, and what looks like a cassock or maybe a cloak over a buttoned doublet. It’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins as they appear to be made from the same fabric.