Acceso usuarios
W. A. Speck
This article reviews the literature on the Sacheverell affair as it stood when it was delivered as a paper to the symposium held in March 2010 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his impeachment. The basic narrative and prevalent interpretation of its significance were established by the late Geoffrey Holmes in his monograph The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell published in 1973. Holmes placed it in the context of a crisis in Church and state brought about by the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath. This led to the formation of the party conflict between high church tories and low church whigs. When the whigs, led by the junto, came to power between 1708 and 1710, their ascendancy provoked a reaction from tories claiming that the established Church was in danger. It was in this context that Sacheverell preached his provocative sermon on 5 November 1709, which brought on his impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanours. Holmes's detailed account of the trial, together with his separate analysis of the �Sacheverell riots�, have been generally accepted as definitive. Consequently, scholarly attention has tended to shift to the cultural aspects of the affair such as poems on affairs of state and political prints. These investigations have led, in turn, to attempts to establish an appropriate methodology for analysing their significance.
