Savoy Conference

1661. An official conference of twelve Anglican bishops and twelve Puritan (mostly Presbyterian) divines, with nine coadjutors for each side, called after the Restoration of Charles II* and episcopacy (1660) to settle differences concerning the Book of Common Prayer.* The Puritans were determined to revise the sections which had caused so much agitation in the past-sections calling for the wearing of the surplice, kneeling at Communion, making the sign of the cross at baptism, bowing at the name of Jesus, and so on. The design was, of course, that the Puritans would gain concessions allowing them to serve in good conscience in the established church. Richard Baxter* and Edmund Calamy* led the Puritans, Gilbert Sheldon* and Accepted Frewen the Anglicans. The bishops took a defensive and unyielding position, rejecting Baxter's alternate liturgy. The Royalist sentiment in Parliament supported their hard line. No substantial changes resulted, and the 1662 Act of Uniformity* deprived more than 2,000 Puritans of their livings.