Conference called soon after the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England at the Savoy Palace in London, and attended by Anglican bishops and Puritan ministers (twelve on each side) to resolve their differences, possibly with a revision of the Book of Common Prayer. The two sides could not agree and the conference accomplished nothing.
The English Civil War had ended with the execution of King Charles I, a decade-long republican government under Oliver Chromwell, and a chaotic morass of religious factions. When Charles II was restored to the throne there was felt, therefore, a need to find some kind of civil and religious realignment. This, then, was the general goal of the conference that the specific of the revision of the Book of Common Prayer was meant to express. Led by Gilbert Sheldon, the bishops ignored the Reformed liturgy prepared by Richard Baxter on behalf of the Puritans. They, further, required that the Reformed ministers who had not received orders from a bishop should be reordained. These, of course, proved unacceptable to the Puritans. When the revised Book of Common Prayer was issued the following year, it incorporated only cosmetic nods in the Reformed direction. The passing of the Act of Uniformity requiring all ministers to publicly give their assent to the revised liturgy led to the Great Rejection, when some 2000 ministers lost their parishes.
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