Nonjurors, the name given to that portion of the clergy in both England and Scotland who, having taken the oath of allegiance to James II., refused at the Revolution to take it to William and Mary. An act of parliament required them all to take this oath by 1st August 1689, six months' grace being allowed before deprivation; but it was refused by Archbishop Sancroft of Canterbury, by Bishops Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Frampton of Gloucester, Lloyd of Norwich, White of Peterborough, Thomas of Worcester, Lake of Chichester, and Cartwright of Chester (the three last died during the year), and by about 400 of the English clergy. In Scotland, where all the bishops refused the oath, Episcopacy was abolished in 1689, and more than 300 clergymen were thrust out; and not till the death of Prince Charles Edward in 1788 did the Protestant bishops in Scotland, 'upon mature deliberation with their clergy, unanimously agree to comply with and submit to the government of King George III.,' nor until four years later did the bill for their relief receive the royal assent. South of the Tweed the schism was perpetuated by the consecration in 1694 of Hickes (q.v.) and Wagstaffe as suffragan bishops of Thetford and Ipswich, in 1713 of Jeremy Collier (q.v.) and two others, as also by the introduction in 1718 of the 'usages' (a new communion office, prayer for the dead, mixed chalice, &c.). Thereby, however, for some thirteen years the Nonjurors themselves were split into two bodies, both ordaining bishops, till the dispute was terminated by the general adoption of the 'usages.' A fresh breach occurred through the consecration in 1733 of Roger Lawrence by a single Scotch bishop; and this branch supplied some adherents to the rebellion of the '45, in which none of the regular body were involved. For, High Churchmen as were all the Nonjurors, and believers in the doctrine of passive obedience, it is a great mistake to imagine that they were all Jacobites, or, at any rate, active Jacobites; while, on the other hand, there were many active Jacobites who were not Nonjurors (for instance, Atterbury). Robert Gordon, the last of the regular Nonjuring bishops, died in 1779; Booth, the last of the irregular Nonjuring bishops, in 1805; and James Yeowell, probably the very last Nonjuror, long the sub-editor of Notes and Queries, in 1875. Nonjurors, not mentioned already, were Thomas Baker, Carte, Hearne, William Law, Charles Leslie, and Robert Nelson (q.v.).
See JACOBITES, and works there cited; Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors (1845); and Abbey and Overton's English Church in the Eighteenth Century (2d ed. 1887).