Loyalism and the American Revolution: A Biography

In this penetrating biography of Thomas Bradbury Chandler, The Folly of Revolution takes readers deep into the intellectual world of a leading loyalist who defended monarchy, rejected rebellion and democracy, and opposed the American Revolution.

Talented, hardworking, and erudite, this Anglican minister from New Jersey possessed one of the colonial church’s most outstanding minds. Chandler was an Anglican leader in the 1760s and a key strategist in the effort to strengthen the church in the years preceding the Revolution. He headed the campaign to create an Anglican bishopric in America—a cause that helped inflame tensions with American radicals unhappy with British policies. And, in the 1770s, his writings provided some of the most trenchant criticisms of the American revolutionary movement, raising fundamental questions about obedience, subordination, and rebellion that undercut Whig assertions about republicanism and popular control. Working from Chandler’s library catalog and other primary sources, S. Scott Rohrer digs deeply into Chandler’s political and religious beliefs, exploring the origins of his thought and the events in British history that shaped these beliefs.

A creative and thoughtful reappraisal of a consequential figure in early American history, this biography brings renewed attention to the work of an important loyalist. It will interest students, scholars, and lay readers interested in politics and religion in Revolutionary-era America.

“An intriguing contribution to a thriving literature on religion and the American Revolution as well as on the diversity of political sentiments present in the colonial and Revolutionary eras. The Folly of Revolution reflects a creative reading of the influences on a significant religious figure, Anglican Thomas Bradbury Chandler.”

—Kate Carté, author of Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America 

“Thoroughly researched, The Folly of Revolution makes Thomas Bradbury Chandler and the intellectual world of this prominent loyalist more understandable. Rohrer complicates our understanding of the uses of English history by loyalists, and this study of Chandler is unique in recognizing the significance of nonjuror arguments from the Glorious Revolution as foundational to his thinking about the right to rebellion.” 

—Nancy L. Rhoden, author of Revolutionary Anglicanism: The Colonial Church of England Clergy During the American Revolution