FREE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, a Protestant episcopal church "essentially one with the established church of England, but free to go into any parish, to use a revised edition of the Book of Common Prayer, to associate the laity with the clergy in the government and work of the church, and to hold communion with Christians of other denominations." It was founded in 1844 in opposition to the Tractarian movement, and embodies the distinctively evangelical elements of the Reformation. It preserves and maintains to the letter all that is Protestant and evangelical in the liturgy and services of the Anglican church, while its free constitution and revised formularies meet the needs of members of that communion who resent sacerdotal and ritualistic tendencies. There are two dioceses (northern and southern) each with a bishop, about 30 churches and ministers, and about 1300 members. FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. In one sense the Free Church of Scotland dated its existence from the Disruption of 1843, in another it claimed to be the rightful representative of the National Church of Scotland (see SCOTLAND, CHURCH OF) as it was reformed in 1560.[1] In the ecclesiastical history of Scotland the Free Churchman sees three great reforming periods. In his view these deserve to be called reforming on many accounts, but most especially because in them the independence of the church, her inherent scriptural right to exercise a spiritual jurisdiction in which she is responsible to her Divine Head alone, was both earnestly asserted and practically maintained. The first reformation extended from 1560, when the church freely held her first General Assembly, and of her own authority acted on the First Book of Discipline, to 1592, when her Presbyterian order was finally and fully ratified by the parliament. The second period began in 1638, when, after 20 years of suspended animation, the Assembly once more shook off Episcopacy, and terminated in 1649, when the parliament of Scotland confirmed the church in her liberties in a larger and ampler sense than before. The third period began in 1834, when the Assembly made use of what the church believed to be her rights in passing the Veto and Chapel Acts. It culminated in the Disruption of 1843.