A Protestant Purgatory: Theological Origins of the Penitentiary Act, 1779

25 years ago, in a provocative reconsideration of English political and social history, English Society 1688–1832, J. C. D. Clark advanced the then contentious claim that until the end of the long 18th century England remained what he styled a ‘confessional state’.(1) Missing from the wave of prior work by social and political historians of 18th-century England, Clark argued, was a close attention to the role of religion and the dominance within the political and intellectual world of conservative, Anglican theology. This was a contentious claim and it sparked robust reaction from scholars who objected to Clark’s conservative point of view, and his dismissal of a generation of scholarship.