Archbishop Herring, Anti-Catholicism, and the Moravian Church

Abstract

Until recently, scholars mainly understood the anti-Moravian campaign that started in 1753 as a reaction to the so-called Sifting Time and as the initiative of the enigmatic figure, Henry Rimius. In his 1998 study of the Moravian Church in England, Podmore drew attention to the role Thomas Herring, archbishop of Canterbury, played as being more than only an accommodating spectator. In this article new evidence from a correspondence between Samuel Richardson and his Dutch translator, Johannes Stinstra, has been used to establish that the archbishop himself, and not Rimius, inspired, designed, initiated, and directed the 1753 anti-Moravian campaign. New manuscript evidence also highlights that Herring's campaign was chiefly political in focus, aimed at repealing the 1749 Act of Parliament, and was never principally interested in theological or social issues.