Linda:  Thanks for the clarification on Blair -- I always assumed his
ecclesiastical authority was most limited by the power exercised at the
local parish level by vestries, but you're saying that the position
itself was more one of reportage to the Bishop of London than his agent
-- do I have that right?
Here's another question, did anyone replace Blair as commissary after
his death?  I know there was an on-going debate about the establishment
of a bishop for British North America in the late colonial period -- an
unpopular sugestion to the vestries which reasonably feared a
diminishment of their autonomy should a bishop be appointed.

David Kiracofe

David Kiracofe
History Department
MAK 1060
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, MI 49401
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The English Act of toleration came in 1689 after the Glorious
Revolution. Virginia's General Assembly cited the English Act of
Toleration in a 1699 statute, by which time burgesses had long since
made concessions to Quakers in Virginia, such as allowing them to affirm
rather than swear oaths in court.

Blair was certainly a force to be reckoned with, but his position as
Commissary of the Bishop of London gave him only limited authority in
church matters. Divinity students from the College of William and Mary
had to go to England for ordination, and Blair did not have the ability
to consecrate churches, confirm the newly catechized, control vestries,
or regulate colonial clergy.

Linda H. Rowe
Historical Research
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
757-220-7443

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