Laud was fond of prescribing minutely the details of new ceremonies--sometimes borrowed from Rome, sometimes the production of his own imagination, at once ostentatious and austere. On the part of the nonconformists, every innovation, the least derogation from the canons or the liturgy, was punished as a crime; yet Laud innovated without consulting anybody, looking to nothing beyond the king's consent, and sometimes acting entirely upon his own authority. ... And all these changes had, if not the aim, at all events the result, of rendering the Anglican church more and more like that of Rome. ... Books were published to prove that the doctrine of the English bishops might very well adapt itself to that of Rome; and these books, though not regularly licensed, were dedicated to the king or to Laud, and openly tolerated. ... The splendour and exclusive dominion of episcopacy thus established, at least so he flattered himself, Laud proceeded to secure its independence. ... The divine right of bishops became, in a short time, the official doctrine, not only of the upper clergy, but of the king himself. ... By the time things had come to this pass, the people were not alone in their anger. The high nobility, part of them at least, took the alarm. They saw in the progress of the church far more than mere tyranny; it was a regular revolution, which, not satisfied with crushing popular reforms, disfigured and endangered the first reformation; that which kings had made and the aristocracy adopted." _F. P. Guizot, History of the English Revolution of 1640, book 2._ ALSO IN: _D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 2, chapters 4-6._ _G. G. Perry, History of the Church of England, chapters 13-16 (volume l)._ _P. Bayne, The Chief Actors of the Puritan Revolution, chapter 3._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637. Hostile measures against the Massachusetts Colony. See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1634-1637. ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637. Ship-money.