James B. Bell is a Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University, UK, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of The Imperial Origins of the King's Church in Early America, 1607-1783 (Palgrave, 2004) and A War of Religion: Dissenters, Anglicans and the American Revolution (Palgrave, 2008). He has taught at Princeton University, Barnard College, the College of Wooster, and the Ohio State University, USA.

Acknowledgements List of tables Some Useful Dates PART I Prologue 1. England's Early Imperial Interests: Ireland and Virginia 2. The Virginia Company of London and America: Virginia, 1607-1624 3. Virginia and Royal Jurisdiction: Laws, Governors, and Church: 1624-1660 PART II 4. Churches and Worship 5. A Social Profile of Virginia's Ministers, 1607-1700 6. Salaries and Discipline of Seventeenth-Century Clergymen 7. Divisions of the English Church in Virginia's Pulpits: Anglicans, Puritans and Nonconformists 8. The Libraries of Two Century Seventeenth-Ministers: Anglican John Goodbourne and Nonconformist Thomas Teackle PART III 9. An Age of New Imperial Policies: Church and State, 1660-1713 10. The Peace Disturbed: Salaries and Controversies, 1696-1777 11. Virginia's Favoured Anglican Church: Faces an Unknown Future: 1776 12. The College of William and Mary: Faces an Unknown Future, 1776 Epilogue: A New Age Breaks with the Past Appendix I - Clergymen who Arrived in Virginia Between 1607 and 1699 Appendix II - Clergymen who Arrived in Virginia by Decades Between 1607 and 1699 Appendix III - Colleges and Universities Attended by Seventeenth-century Virginia Clergymen Appendix IV - Virginia Parishes and their Ministers in the Seventeenth-century Bibliography Index

The book is a new study that examines the contrasting extension of the Anglican Church to England's first two colonies, Ireland and Virginia in the 17th and 18th centuries. It discusses the national origins and educational experience of the ministers, the financial support of the state, and the experience and consequences of the institutions.