The period that immediately preceded the great and bitter conflict in which many of the dearest interests of England were involved, and much of her best blood shed, was one of great religious activity and excitement. The seeds sown at the Reformation had ripened, and there had been a steady continuity and successive advance towards Calvinism and the rejection of all ceremonial not directly authorised by Scripture. The Church had been purged of the most flagrant of the Romish superstitions, but the Book of Common Prayer retained many things in the ritual it enjoined which, to those who assumed a superior sanctity and claimed to hold the Bible as their only rule, were held to savour of Popery and idolatry. Preferring to do what was right in their own eyes, they rejected the Liturgy and the Episcopal form of government. They disliked the surplice and would not wear it, and they objected to many of the ceremonies the Church prescribed. There were great divergencies of opinion; the public mind was much exercised with the controversies that arose; and the feeling of hostility was increased by the intolerant and persecuting spirit manifested by the authorities of the day. The Puritans, as they were called, had gained considerable ascendancy, and, though they had not withdrawn themselves from the Church, they had become a powerful party within its pale, and asserted their peculiar views with much tenacity. It is difficult to say what a more moderate policy might have produced, but the determination of Laud to reduce them to submission, instead of serving the interests of the Church, only drove them into more open resistance, and converted religious enthusiasts into political agitators.