Public Duty and Private Conscience in Seventeenth-century England

Download or read book Public Duty and Private Conscience in Seventeenth-century England written by John Stephen Morrill and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tension between public duty and private conscience is a central theme of English history in the seventeenth century, when established authorities were questioned and violently disrupted. It has also been an important theme in the work of one of the foremost historians of the period, G.E. Aylmer. It makes, therefore, an especially appropriate subject for this volume. The contributors are leading historians, whose topics range from contemporary writings on conscience and duty to the particular problems faced by individuals and groups, both Puritan and Royalist, at the center and in the localities. These scholarly and original studies throw new light on the innumberable dilemmas of conscience of seventeenth-century men and women, and together make a distinguished contribution to seventeenth-century history.