This open access book explores the role of religion in England's overseas companies and the
formation of English governmental identity abroad in the seventeenth century. Drawing on
research into the Virginia East India Massachusetts Bay Plymouth New England and Levant
Companies it offers a comparative global assessment of the inextricable links between the
formation of English overseas government and various models of religious governance across
England's emerging colonial empire. While these approaches to governance varied from company to
company each sought to regulate the behaviour of their personnel as well as the numerous
communities and faiths which fell within their jurisdiction. This book provides a crucial
reassessment of the seventeenth-century foundations of British imperial governance.
