NON-JURORS (non-giurati). — When, after the revolution of 1688, the Prince of Orange, husband of Mary, daughter of James II, sought to be recognized as King of England together with his wife (which Parliament granted him in February of the following year), a loyalty oath to the new sovereign was imposed on all state officials, including Anglican bishops and ministers.
All had already sworn loyalty to James II, to his heir and legitimate successors. The legitimate heir was not the daughter Mary, but James II’s son, who had withdrawn to the continent with his father. Some bishops and ministers did not believe in conscience that they could take the new oath. When the deadline arrived (1 August 1689), seven bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury (Sancroft) and that of Bath and Wells (Thomas Ken), along with about 400 ministers, had not sworn the oath, and thus earned the name of N.-j. or “Non-jurors.” As a result, they were all deposed and deprived of their offices. This schism extended to the Scottish Anglican bishops who were partisans of the Stuarts and lasted throughout the 18th century, since the N.-j., considering themselves the only legitimate bishops, continued to ordain other bishops and ministers until the schism died out at the beginning of the 19th century.
Two important events occurred within the context of the N.-j. schism: the relations initiated with the Eastern dissenters, which failed with the death of the Russian Emperor Peter the Great (1725); and the consecration conferred by the non-juring bishops on Samuel Seabury. After the independence of the American colonies, Seabury had been sent by the American Episcopalians to England to be ordained bishop, but the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to do so for political reasons. The non-juring bishops of Scotland consecrated him in November 1784. Seabury, together with three other bishops who had been ordained without difficulty by the Archbishop of Canterbury a few years later (1787), consecrated in 1792 John Claggett, who inaugurated the episcopate established in the United States.