Nonconformists and Dissenters. Protestants who opposed State interference in religious matters and who acordingly objected the strong position of the Anglican church in England. The Restoration (1660) valued episcopacy and limited the rights of the dissenters. The Act of Uniformity (1662) required episcopal ordination for all ministers. In foreign politics dissenters and nonconformists tended to support the alliance with the Reformed Netherlands. The eviction of the Huguenots in 1685 strengthened the spectrum of dissenting groups with the masses of French Refugees arriving from now onwards in England. Wikipedia