The Boxmaker’s Revenge: “Orthodoxy,‘ "Heterodoxy,’ and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London

By narrating a protracted and frequently bizarre altercation between a London minister and a member of his flock, this book provides a vivid picture of puritanism at the parish level in early Stuart England. On February 11, 1627, Stephen Denison preached a sermon that violently denounced an erstwhile boxmaker, John Etherington, as a heretic, a sect master, and an Anabaptist. The accused stood before Denison and then was returned to prison, where he languished for another three years. Denison published his denunciation later that year under the title The White Wolf. By the 1630s, however, Denison himself was in trouble with the same Court of High Commission that had sentenced Etherington. Denison was deprived of his living after being denounced by parishioners who resented his irascible temper, his harsh pulpit style, and his belittling of their church activities. Then, in 1641, Etherington came back to haunt Denison when, taking advantage of the collapse of censorship, the boxmaker heatedly replied in print to the accusations made against him fourteen years before.