Religious persecution in England in the 1670s and 1680s severely impacted families like the Jeakes. Laws like the Clarendon Code and Conventicle Act prohibited non-conformist worship and activities, forcing the Jeakes to hold secret nighttime services. The fines imposed on the Jeakes and their acquaintances for breaking these laws placed a significant economic burden on the family. Samuel Jeake's diary provides valuable first-hand documentation of the persecution faced by Puritans at this time through events like enforced fines, house searches, and the inability to vote. However, enforcement of anti-non-conformist legislation was sometimes non-existent, depending on local authorities and courts, and persecution began to decrease in

1. What was the effect of religious persecution on families like the Jeake’s between 1670 and 1680’s?
Religious persecution throughout the 1670s and 1680s affected many members of society, from
Catholic to Protestant non-conformists. The period is significant because it represents the
transformation of a monarch whose attitudes toward religious toleration saw him undermine
parliament’s authority, yet who by the latter decade supported an episcopal campaign to discipline
families like the Jeakes.1
To understand the extent to which persecution existed throughout England
in the 1670’s and 1680’s, one need only to turn to the propaganda campaigns against Catholics and
non-conformist Protestants. For example the Whig Exclusion campaign which capitalised on
pamphlets to spread Catholic propaganda has been described as a “crusade” by some historians
because of the hostility and hatred which the pro-Whig documents produced.2
However pamphlets
are not the only way to measure the extent of religious persecution. The use of diaries is extremely
valuable because they detail day to day experiences and tend to be more candid than published or
publicly available documents. As a result, the diary of Samuel Jeake proves particularly important in
understanding the implementation of persecution against Puritans during the period up to the
Glorious Revolution.
Under the Cavalier Parliament, legislation was introduced which directly targeted non-conformists
like the Jeake’s in a number of different ways. Between 1661 and 1665, four laws in particular,
grouped as the Clarendon Code, based on Puritan laws used against the Church of England,
arguably affected the Jeake’s the most.3
The Conventicle Act introduced in 1664 which forbade the
meeting of 5 or more people who were not members of the same household affected the Jeake’s in
16814
. The Act enforced the closure of their place of worship and left them with no option but to
secretly meet at night to hold service5
. Undoubtedly this would have imposed the fear of being
caught on many Puritans across England, and for those not as devout as the Jeake’s, may indeed
have led to the inability to worship altogether. However the value of the diary in providing a rich
documentation of the effect of religious persecution on political and religious rights is realised in this
entry. The enforcement of the Conventicle Act upon Puritans in Rye occurred as a result of a
contested election, which as Jeake’s diary showed, marked the beginning of their night
meetings. This is important because it shows the effective enforcement of the Corporation Act which
prevented freemen like Samuel from having the vote, which was another technique employed at the
beginning of the Cavalier Parliament which persecuted Catholics and non-conformists. With this in
mind, the decentralisation of counties and as a result localised petty sessions meant that
persecution of Puritans was often based on personal inclinations, rather than harsh universal
enforcement of legislation led by the Anglican establishment. In fact, Paul Halliday’s work suggests
that the imposition of the Clarendon Code was at times non-existent even at the highest levels. This
is seen through the events at Rye in 1683: The issue of illegitimate votes having been cast at Rye was
once again taken to the Privy Council, however, on this occasion the court were unwilling to
enforce the Corporation Act.6
This indicated that at times the courts were unwilling to abide by
parliament, essentially ignoring ecclesiastical laws and at the same time setting a precedent which
would allow future sympathy toward non-conformists. Such findings may therefore suggest that
Puritans across Britain were not necessarily treated with uniform hostility at national or local level,
but instead perhaps the victim of an Anglican, and very much gentrified backlash against the
Puritan Revolution.
Another effect of religious persecution on families like the Jeake’s was having one’s house searched
without notice; again this was seemingly in order to enforce the Conventicle Act7
. The effect of being
found in breach of the Act was to face a fine, which grew depending on one’s involvement. As
demonstrated, one found guilty of preaching would face the maximum fine, which appeared to be
no higher than £20, equivalent to around £1700 as of 20058
. Clearly such an amount would have a
significant effect on the ability of an individual to continue their livelihood financially unhampered.
Indeed the economic burden stemming from persecution was to have detrimental affects of
the Jeake family and indeed their Puritan acquaintances. There are in fact many entries which

2. document such burdens, but one particularly revealing is the entry dated 23 November, 1682. Due
to the extreme fine which had been imposed on the family and friends, amounting to “£20
per mensem”, they had to travel to London in order to hire an attorney who could provide legal
assistance. Considering the charge was for 11 months per person, such an amount would have had
seemingly disastrous effects on the Jeake’s and their business. While we can assume that
the Jeake’s were capable of paying occasional fines unhampered, it goes without saying that many
Puritans did not enjoy the level of financial freedom as the Jeake’s. It might be that the entry of
October 4th
which documents Samuel and his wife leaving for London was a typical feature of the life
of a Puritan during these two decades, a reflection of the Puritan diaspora which took place earlier in
the century.
There is no doubt that being a Puritan throughout the 1670’s and 1680’s could have made life
particularly challenging. Subscribers were to become the victim of a harsh set of legislation which, as
the diary of Samuel Jeake has shown, had several detrimental effects. These included the necessity
to relocate from fear of prosecution, to harassment of one’s privacy and, perhaps most importantly
to some Puritans, the inability to worship in freedom. It was not until the end of the 1680’s
that persecution began to decrease in the wake of the Glorious Revolution, and lives for Puritans like
the Jeake’s saw a marked improvement.

3. Bibliography
Clark George, The later Stuarts, 1660-1714, (Oxford, 1956)
Furley.O, ‘The Whig Exclusionists: Pamphlet Literature in the Exclusion Campaign, 1679-81’
Cambridge Historical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1957) pp.19-36
Halliday D. Paul, Dismembering the Body Politic: Partisan Politics in England's Towns, 1650-1730,
(Cambridge, 2003)
Hunter Michael and Gregory Annabel eds., An Astrological Diary of the Seventeenth Century: Samuel
Jeake of Rye, 1652-1699 (Oxford, 1993)
Jones James Rees, Restored Monarchy 1660-1688, (London, 1979)
Miller John, The Restoration and the England of Charles ii (London, 1997)
Wroughton John, The Stuart Age 1603 – 1714, (London, 2005)
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/results.asp#mid; accessed on