‘Laudianism’ was not simply a different perspective on the Church of England’s identity from that held by other English Protestants, but a systematic attempt to impose a particular reading of the English Church on all parishes, and to privilege and prioritize certain facets and formularies over others. This chapter focuses on how the Laudians chose to situate their reforms vis-à-vis the earlier history and formularies of the Church of England. Like the Protestant Reformation itself, the Laudian Reformation framed itself as the repudiation of an impure present, and as a return to a more pure or ‘primitive church’ that had existed before the current abuses had taken hold. However, the chapter argues that the identity of that ‘primitive church’ was subject to constant change. It demonstrates how different Laudian authors found elements of the Jacobean church and Elizabethan settlement wanting, and instead selectively appropriated and sampled elements from earlier reformations, and from the medieval and patristic churches. For all their often conservative rhetoric, the chapter also explores the Laudian readiness to promote a language of progressive reformation and revelation, and to seek to change existing structures and formularies where possible.

Moving beyond the familiar focus on the radical puritan reaction, Chapter 3 examines the full range of expressed opposition to the Laudian programme, not just from hard-line puritans, but also from conformists including those in the senior ranks of the Church. These arguments consistently adopted a remarkably conservative mode of defending established orthodoxy in doctrine and practice against recent Laudian innovations, with even puritans invoking the Prayer Book and the 1604 Canons. Even radical presses run by sectarians abroad could juggle with more conservative rhetoric. Most of the arguments of the famous anti-Laudian puritans Henry Burton, John Bastwick and William Prynne still followed more conservative lines (despite the violence of their language) although they radicalised after their punishments. The Scottish opposition to the new Prayer Book, it is argued, was mostly directed against pre-Laudian grievances (with the exception of Robert Baillie’s Ladensium Autokatakrisis which was aimed at English MPs in the Short Parliament). The chapter also analyses the Short Parliament and opposition to the etcetera oath, noting that tactical moderation still meant that the pre-eminent (although not the sole) mode of public debate concerning the Church of England was a conservative one that left the door open for moderate reforms.