Some biographers and critics have found difficulty in reconciling Defoe's life and ideas with his creation of such fictions, particularly his tales of prostitutes and thieves, but more often than not the problem has lain with some preconceived notion of Defoe's character and milieu.
The year of Defoe's birth, 1660, was a memorable one for England and for those Christians who felt that they could not accept the rules for conformity established by the Church of England. When Charles II landed at Dover in May of that year, he was committed to religious tolerance. The Presbyterians had never had the fierce animosity toward Charles I felt by the Independents and by the various sects associated with Oliver Cromwell's army. But efforts at accommodating those ministers who objected to certain rituals of the Church of England quickly disappeared; and after the failure of the Savoy Conference in 1661, all hope of Christian unity ended. Distinguished members of the Church of England such as Richard Baxter and Samuel Annesley, the preacher of Defoe's family, refused to accept the rules laid down by the bishops of the Church and became "Nonconformists" or "Dissenters." This schism in the Church of England meant that Defoe was brought up among a religious group that experienced persecutions of varying severity for twenty-eight years.
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