‘Son of thunder or good shepherd’, contesting the parish pulpit in early seventeenth-century leeds

Abstract

This article revisits a well-known religious conflict in Jacobean Leeds and presents an alternative interpretation of it as arising from differences within mainstream Calvinism, rather than the usual explanation of a clash between reformers and traditionalists. It places John Harrison, the renowned benefactor, centre stage in the opposition to the vicar, Alexander Cooke. They were both Protestants of a reformed stripe and prioritized preaching of the Word over ceremony, but held very different views on what this should mean in practice. Their dispute hardened Harrison’s position on the nature of order and authority, and when he built St John’s Chapel, several years later, he gave material expression to his views. Several long-standing puzzles about the interior fabric of this well-preserved chapel can be understood as his last word on the conflict.