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about the future of Protestantism with the defence of parliamentary liberties. In fact, between December 1641 and May 1642, thirty-seven of England’s forty counties petitioned Parliament, along with a number of Welsh counties and boroughs. Some counties petitioned more than once, and Westmorland added its petition to the pile in August. The contents of these petitions suggest that those promoting Pym’s position were more successful at mobilizing provincial opinion than those with alternative visions. Most concentrated on anti-popery, evil counsellors, preaching and scandalous ministers, the decay of trade and the militia. Rather than talk of confrontation they tended to set out terms for an accommodation; but of course to urge accommodation was to urge that someone shift their position, and that often entailed taking a position on the national debate.51 Many of these petitions, of course, were printed, suggesting that these ‘county’ postures were intended as contributions to the wider debate.52

National subscription to the Protestation was not uncontroversial, but it was very successful – so successful in fact that the extant returns are one of the most complete English population listings for the seventeenth century. The Protestation had already become a token of allegiance and now 11,000 copies were printed to be circulated with a letter expressly tying the defence of English Protestantism to the defence of parliamentary liberties. Subscription was required as a sign of ‘good concurrence with the Parliament’ and was more urgent than ever because of the discovery of ‘many dangerous designs plotted against Parliament’. Parliament required the names of refusers as well as of subscribers, and many local returns obliged, with explanations for refusals or absences. Although the clearly partisan nature of this national subscription prompted new debate about the propriety of subscription, and many took the subscription with some mental reservation or explicit limitation, there is ample local evidence of widespread subscription and of the great pains that were taken to achieve that. On the other hand, the evidence of the reservations with which people might subscribe suggests that some could still separate subscription from a partisan parliamentarianism.53

Anti-popery was a powerful means to mobilize opinion in favour of Parliament’s actions, and it was promoted in the press, petitions and the Protestation campaign. It also involved the institutions of local government in partisan politics. Given the wide purchase of the call to defend English Protestantism it is not surprising that proto-royalists did not tackle anti-popery. Instead, they played on fears about religious and political order. For example, those who expressed more restrained views of the Irish rebellion did not distance themselves from anti-popery, but did place greater emphasis on the evils of disorder and rebellion.54 This concern for order resonated more widely. As we have seen, religious debate could now be expressed in terms of a choice between totems: the Protestation and the Prayer Book. The Commons vote of 21 January, which attributed the ills of the kingdom to the want of good reformation in church government and liturgy, had lent official weight to attacks on the Prayer Book, and reinforced attempts to rally to its support.55

Standard metaphors and literary forms were put to service in this mobilization too – God’s judgements were detected in the misfortunes of sectarians as well as popish plotters. One such was Richard Stichberry, churchwarden in Towcester in Northamptonshire, whose punishments were reported in a pamphlet of June 1642. He had broken a stained-glass window, ‘fairly painted’, leaving ‘God’s house so miserable mangled and torn, which ought to be used with an holy respect’. The patron of the church refused to make good the damage, insisting instead that those who had done it make the repair. God could not see such sins unpunished and within two days of the iconoclasm Stichberry’s wife ‘was exceedingly tormented on a sudden in her limbs,