Nonjurors

Clergy of England and Scotland who refused to take the oath of allegiance to William of Orange and his wife, Mary Stuart, when they succeeded to the English throne in 1688. After the abdication of James II, Archbishop Sancroft and five other bishops, along with several hundred clergy, refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new monarchs on the ground that their oath to James was irrevocable. They were joined in this action by the entire bench of Scottish bishops and a few Scottish clergy. The episcopate was imposed on the Scottish church by James I and Charles I, and the bishops were intensely loyal to the Stuart line. They would not acknowledge William and Mary as legitimate rulers of Scotland. The Church of Scotland was re-established in 1690 as Presbyterian. Both the English and Scottish groups who refused to take the oath were called nonjurors.

English nonjurors were deprived of their livings and gradually declined in number and influence. The last nonjuring bishop was Charles Booth, who died in 1805. Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711), one of the original five nonjurors, wrote the famous doxology, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” William Law (1686-1761), a nonjuring priest, wrote the devotional manual, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728).

Samuel Seabury, the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, was consecrated by nonjuring bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland on Nov. 14, 1784, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Seabury had been denied episcopal orders in England because he could not swear allegiance to the crown. The Scottish Episcopal Church is a nonjuring church to this day.