Green points out, very forcibly and truly, how the claims of despotic authority, of crown and church, jarred with all that was noblest in the temper of the time. “These were everywhere reaching forward to the conception of law. Bacon sought the law in material nature; Hooper asserted the rule of law over the spiritual world. The temper of the Puritan was eminently a temper of law. The diligence with which he searched the Scriptures sprang from his earnestness to discover a Divine Will, which, in all things, great or small, he might implicitly obey. But this implicit obedience was reserved for the Divine Will alone: for human ordinances derived their strength only from their correspondence with the revealed law by God.” Against such a temper, with such a stubborn people, fully persuaded that their eternal welfare depended upon their adherence to their own convictions, Charles and Laud were bound to fail. [Illustration: WILLIAM LAUD (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury.] It must be admitted that the better type of Puritan was apt to degenerate and to give way to a narrower and a stricter school. There appeared the Puritan who pulled down and cut in pieces the Maypoles—those of St. Andrew Undershaft, and of Basing Lane, for example. Also there appeared the Puritan who put down games and sports:— “I’ve heard our fine refined clergy teach, Of the commandments, that it is a breach To play at any game for gain or coin; ’Tis theft, they say—men’s goods you do purloin; For beasts or birds in combat for to fight, Oh, ’tis not lawful, but a cruel sight. One silly beast another to pursue ’Gainst nature is, and fearful to the view; And man with man their activeness to try Forbidden is—much harm doth come thereby; Had we their faith to credit what they say We must believe all sports are ta’en away; Whereby, I see, instead of active things, What harm the same unto our nation brings; The pipe and pot are made the only prize Which all our spriteful youth do exercise.’” There appeared also the Puritan who objected to the study of Latin and Greek as encouraging idolatry and pagan superstition. And the Puritan who would have no Christmas festivities, who put down the custom of plum porridge, and changed the name of Christmas pie to mince-pie, which it is still called. The gloomy face of the Puritan belongs to later developments, as do the texts worn on the sleeve, the lank hair, and the hat without a band.