non-jurors were the high churchmen of the late 17th-cent. Church of England, who refused the oath of allegiance to William and Mary after their accession in 1688. They held to the doctrine of the divine right of kings and believed, therefore, that the Stuarts remained the legitimate monarchs. Eight bishops (including Sancroft of Canterbury), 400 priests, and a few laymen refused the oath. They were dispossessed and tried to keep an alternative church in existence with illegal services in their churches, but were divided among themselves over the correctness of this. Their links with the Stuarts and the fears of restoration made them unpopular in early Hanoverian England. They were linked in belief and religious principles to the Caroline divines of the 17th cent. and the Oxford movement of the 19th cent.

Judith Champ

Nonjurors Clergy in England and Scotland who refused to take the oath of allegiance to William III and Mary II in 1689. Anglo-Catholic in sympathy, they included bishops and about 400 priests in England and most of the Scottish episcopal clergy.

Non-Jurors: see DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS.

Nonjuror a member of the clergy who refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary in 1689.