Act of Uniformity (1662)

The law that created England’s Dissenter movement.

The act

The Act of Uniformity required all ministers to use the Book of Common Prayer and be ordained by a bishop of the Church of England. Ministers who refused were ejected from their churches. About 2,000 Puritan clergy left on the deadline — St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1662, known afterward as “Black Bartholomew’s Day.”

Consequences

The ejected ministers and their congregations became Dissenters, or Nonconformists: Puritans, Quakers, Baptists, and others now permanently outside the established church. They faced restrictions on holding public office, attending universities, and worshipping openly. These restrictions would last, in various forms, for over a century.

The act was part of a broader package of legislation (the Clarendon Code) designed to punish those who had supported Parliament and Cromwell during the Civil War.

In the novel

The Act of Uniformity defines the world the Waterhouse family inhabits. Drake Waterhouse is a Dissenter to his core, and Daniel grows up in a household shaped by exclusion from the English establishment.