Cities Divided: Politics and Religion in English Provincial Towns 1660-1722

The religious and political history of late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century England is typically written in terms of conflict and division. This was the period when party conflict - exacerbated by religious enmities - became a normal part of English life. Rather than denying the importance of partisan divisions, this book reveals how civic celebration, designed as an expression of unity and amity, was often used for partisan purposes, reaching a peak in the 1710s. The animosities were most marked in elections, which were often corrupt and drunken, and sometimes very violent. But division and conflict were not universal. Many towns avoided electoral contests, not because they were in the pocket of a great aristocrat, but as a matter of deliberate policy. Despite occasional disorder, urban government rarely broke down, and even violent elections ended with bruises rather than fatalities.