This chapter summarises these different interpretations of religious warfare into two distinct archetypes used as exemplary Christian soldiers: a Puritan saint, who actively pursued military victory, and a Royalist martyr, who passively prayed for peace and emphasised suffering and dying for the King’s cause—not the cause itself. Royalist clergymen argued that the only permitted weapons against a tyrant were ‘tears and prayers’, and they did not enforce much stronger response against rebellion either: the martyrs were advised to wait for deliverance instead of working towards it. The saints’ role was more revolutionary one; they were exhorted to make a change by their own actions. This chapter shows that the godly saints and Royalist martyrs—chief among them the King himself—venerated after the war appeared much earlier than the formation of the New Model Army or the Regicide. These ideals were propagated to the soldiers of both sides from the beginning of the first Civil War, crystallising the different approaches to religious war-related instruction.

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Saints and Martyrs

  • Antti Taipale

摘要

This chapter summarises these different interpretations of religious warfare into two distinct archetypes used as exemplary Christian soldiers: a Puritan saint, who actively pursued military victory, and a Royalist martyr, who passively prayed for peace and emphasised suffering and dying for the King’s cause—not the cause itself. Royalist clergymen argued that the only permitted weapons against a tyrant were ‘tears and prayers’, and they did not enforce much stronger response against rebellion either: the martyrs were advised to wait for deliverance instead of working towards it. The saints’ role was more revolutionary one; they were exhorted to make a change by their own actions. This chapter shows that the godly saints and Royalist martyrs—chief among them the King himself—venerated after the war appeared much earlier than the formation of the New Model Army or the Regicide. These ideals were propagated to the soldiers of both sides from the beginning of the first Civil War, crystallising the different approaches to religious war-related instruction.